Lessons From Presidents Past

FDR was reluctant to push hard because both [President Herbert] Hoover and the Republican Senate would block anything he sought. And he kept clear of Hoover because Hoover was obviously trying to commit Roosevelt to policies Hoover endorsed but which the American people had rejected (by rejecting Hoover).

Further, Hoover despised Roosevelt, and it showed. Roosevelt wasn't much of a hater, but he wasn't going to do any favors for anyone who treated him with such disrespect (Hoover made Roosevelt stand for half an hour during a reception of governors -- when he knew that Roosevelt couldn't stand at all, except with great effort and mounting discomfort).

Thanks for the kind words, Michael. I don't think Lincoln, for one, was averse to using his influence. Indeed, he stopped the House, the Senate, and the Peace Convention from effecting compromises that would have extended slavery as the price of containing secession.

What Lincoln didn't want to do, which is still a good lesson, is associate himself with desperate lame duck policy initiatives that might have preempted his own efforts to come. It's all a bit more complicated now under the glare of 13-hour news coverage, hence the almost daily Obama news conferences.

But both men shared an antipathy to empowering their predecessors, crises notwithstanding.