I was listening earlier today to several radio news reports from sixty-five years ago on Roosevelt's death and Truman's swearing in. Libertarians and conservatives often complain about the media's failure to hold Obama to account. This is not exceptional, however. The media in World War II (with notable exceptions such as the Chicago Tribune) was even more eager to be spoonfed by the president.

One of the news reports ironically concluded that the country was in safe hands because Harry S. Truman was the"second best informed" person about the war. Of course, later historians, and Truman himself, have noted that a dying Roosevelt kept his veep almost completely in the dark about the progress of the war.