[applause] good evening. Well as you can guess im not an impartial observer when it comes to Andrew Burstein. Were both early american historians as mentioned we have coauthored madison and jefferson published by random house. We also write regular pieces for salon. Com, and we are real historians. We are professors at lsu. We have doctorates. We know things. And andy also is on the Advisory Board of the papers of Thomas Jefferson in princeton. Andy has written numerous books on early american political culture, but his new book is different. This book is about the many ways in our contemporary society although he is going to start with fdr but its about the curious, humorous and at types pathetic ways that modern politicians and public figures adopt and manipulate Thomas Jefferson. And they can claim him as you see, for whatever ideological position they want to embrace. Thus we have the subtitle of the book how Thomas Jefferson became an fdr liberal reagan republican and a tea party
Well im not giving anything away by saying that the left is a known jefferson and in the right doesnt own jefferson. The past owns jefferson. Every nation needs ennobling National Creation story. Thomas jefferson is indispensable to ours. I think it is not a scientific measure of anything, but you can learn something by taking note of the cabinet room in the white house where the president meets with his cabinet. And i thought that over the years to look at early photographs and read stories in the new york times, every four years when a new president comes into office, the cabinet room is redecorated and portraits are hung on its wall. So harry truman placed on the wall of the cabinet room for portraits of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and woodrow wilson. After his retirement from the presidency in 1953 truman remarked to a reporter, Thomas Jefferson is my favorite character in history. When eisenhower became president , he put up William Howard taft and George Washington replacing