Obama Invokes FDR During UN Speech

I won't comment at length about President Obama's speech before the UN General Assembly yesterday. Others such as former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton and Nile Gardiner have commented on the substance of Obama's remark (or lack thereof) with their usual eloquence. However, I was struck by his invocation of FDR:

Sixty-five years ago, a weary Franklin Roosevelt spoke to the American people in his fourth and final inaugural address. After years of war, he sought to sum up the lessons that could be drawn from the terrible suffering, the enormous sacrifice that had taken place. "We have learned," he said, "to be citizens of the world, members of the human community."

Ah yes, citizens of the world unite!!!

Yet if one actually reads FDR's final inaugural one will also find this ditty:

In the days and in the years that are to come we shall work for a just and honorable peace, a durable peace, as today we work and fight for total victory in war.

Total victory in war.

Somehow that part of FDR's speech never made it into President Obama's remarks.