You’ve seen Jonathan Alter on television news talk shows. He is a senior editor at Newsweek, a contributing correspondent (whatever that means) for NBC, and knows everyone on the political scene. His most recent book is “The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope.”

In this book Alter covers the beginnings of Roosevelt’s first term in the White House in 1933. Those “one hundred days” have long been chronicled and analyzed as a turn-around for our nation stuck in the depths of the Great Depression.

The reason I call attention to the book here — other than the fact that as a history student I find it fascinating reading and as an American citizen, I’m aware of the parallels between FDR’s situation and Barack Obama’s as he takes the leadership next week — is that Alter is a great story-teller and loves those little tidbits from history which make great reading and terrific gossip. They also work well in lessons you teach and sermons you preach when you’re searching for a fresh illustration.

Here are a few stories and quotes and insights from Alter’s book. (Incidentally, run down to Border’s or Barnes & Noble and you can buy it on the “bargain table” for 5 bucks instead of the $16 printed on the cover.)

–You know how during the Iraqi War people in this country hollered to high heaven about the Patriot Act which gave the government extraordinary powers to pursue terrorists. Well, here’s what Alfred E. Smith, the Democrats’ candidate for president in 1928, said about this same issue when this country was fighting Germany in the First World War: “During the World War we wrapped the Constitution in a piece of paper, put it on the shelf and left it there until the war was over.” (p.5) Lincoln did much the same thing during the Civil War and FDR ditto in the 1940s.

— Warren Delano, maternal grandfather of FDR, “was an autocrat and what later came to be known as a rock-ribbed Republican. He liked to say that while not all Democrats are horse thieves, it was his experience that all horse thieves were Democrats.” (p. 14)

–Much has been written about the way Sara Roosevelt doted on her son Franklin; historians admit he was raised as a “mama’s boy.” In a footnote on the role of mothers with their children, Alter writes: “In her studies on war and children, Anna Freud examined the London Blitz during World War II and found no difference in the trauma experienced by the children who dodged bombs in London versus that of children removed to the safety of the countryside. The only variable was the mood of the mothers. ‘A child will shake and tremble with the anxiety of his mother,’ but if the mother was calm, the child stayed calm.” (p. 18)

–Alter uses the advantage of history to look back at possible sources of the traits in FDR which made him so effective as our wartime president. Referring to his sheltered upbringing, he quotes John Gunther: “He lived in an atmosphere almost totally devoid of conflict. Perhaps that gave him his confidence in later life, and perhaps, too, it might have contributed to his touchiness and sensitivity to criticism.” (p. 31)

–Alter points out that FDR was no intellectual and no exponent of any particular philosophy of governing. “Had he been an intellectual or ideologue, he would have lacked the flexibility and spirit of experimentation the times required. Instead, he had a short attention span, an eye for the spotlight, and a fierce ambition — traits that sound unworthy but would prove surprisingly well suited to confronting the Great Depression.” (p. 32) (Hmmm. Short attention span, loved the spotlight, ambitious…why didn’t I become president!)

–Louis Howe was the friend who devoted himself to making FDR president and gave decades of his life toward that end. In 1912 when Roosevelt was running for re-election to the New York state senate and was sidelined by a bout with typhoid fever, Howe campaigned in his place. He pulled what he later called his “great farmer’s stunt.” In a form letter to farmers designed to look like a personal note from FDR, Howe promised that if Roosevelt was re-elected, he would introduce legislation to standardize apple barrels at 16-and-one-half inches instead of 17-and-one-eighth, “which would save farmers money by allowing them to include fewer apples per barrel.” Alter writes, “This was the key to reelection in 1912. Louis Howe saved Franklin Roosevelt’s political career by less than an inch.” (p. 38) Upon such tiny details does history turn.

–Anyone who remembers Al Gore’s claiming to have played a pivotal role in the formation of the internet will appreciate a similar gaffe from FDR in 1920 when he was the candidate for vice-president. At a farmers’ picnic near Butte, Montana, Roosevelt said, “You know, I had something to do with running a couple of little republics. The facts are that I wrote Haiti’s constitution myself, and if I do say so, I think it’s a pretty good constitution.” Alter says, “This was Roosevelt at his most cocky and least attractive.” (p. 46) Later, FDR denied having made such a remark, but Alter says 31 citizens affirmed that the reporter who told the story heard it right. (For the record, he did not write that constitution for Haiti or any other country.)

–Polio became the worst thing to ever happen to FDR and the best thing. It changed him immensely, as every historian acknowledges. Here are comments from Alter on the transformation in FDR….

1) “After polio, Roosevelt developed an almost professional acting ability. Sensing his audience’s discomfort (about the handicap), he perfected a casual verve and ingratiating laugh that left him at once accessible and out of reach. His way around intimacy (and other matters he chose not to confront) was to joke and reminisce, so that friends were amused and distracted from the invalid they were seeing.” (p. 53)

2) Stephen Early, FDR’s longtime press secretary, said that prior to the polio, Roosevelt was a playboy who cared little for serious work but more for having fun. “Then suddenly he was flat on his back with nothing to do but think. He began to read, he talked, gathered people around him — his thoughts expanded, his horizons expanded. He began to see the other fellow’s point of view. He thought of others who were ill and afflicted or in want. He dwelt on many things which had not bothered him much before. Lying there, he grew bigger by the day.” (p. 64) (I read that and thought of Psalm 119:71, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn your statutes.”

And finally, one more just for the benefit of the preachers reading this. I ran across a term I’d never heard before but one every minister is acquainted with.

“FDR (developed) the trait which (polio victims) call ‘walking on your tongue.’ One doctor recalled that ‘he had to be reminded not to hog all of the conversation.’ This loquaciousness, which would characterize FDR for the rest of his life (as it does many politicians), was also a function of his condition: Because disabled people sometimes assume that others are only staying (with them) out of kindness, they often compensate by trying to entertain them. If you need someone to push you in your wheelchair around a room, it’s easier and less uncomfortable if it’s all part of a running act.” (p. 54)

Walking on your tongue.

I have never had polio but I’ve been there, done that.