The crew on “Morning Joe” once again turned to Jon Meacham on Thursday to provide an historical context for the show’s steady drumbeat of conventional wisdom, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author sounded pretty skeptical of President Obama’s pledge to take more executive actions.
“We make fun of the executive orders and that is in fact something that — you know, you never really heard Lincoln and FDR say, ‘I’m going to rebuild America on an executive order,” Meacham said. “You know, it’s not something that resonates off the tongue.”
Meacham’s take was somewhat baffling. Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued more executive orders than any president —3,522 to be exact and 1,719 more than the next closest president — including several that helped usher in New Deal programs. And Abraham Lincoln, of course, issued a pretty famous executive order known as the Emancipation Proclamation.
Update: In an interview with TPM, Meacham acknowledged that he messed up.
