Look to Lincoln: Not to FDR, when designing legislative agendas

The current debate about the merits of the "Roosevelt" and "Reagan" models of the presidency misses the most problematic feature of the Obama agenda. Obama isn't overreaching by addressing too many issues at once. He's overreaching by addressing those issues in the wrong way. To see why, one must compare FDR's First New Deal not with the Reagan Revolution, but with Abraham Lincoln's other presidency--the one that wasn't spent fighting the Civil War.