Of all the way to address Salahi-gate, Henry Morgenthau III’s reminiscence in today’s New York Times has to be the classiest. The son of FDR’s Treasury secretary tells the story of a young couple who talked their way into a brief meeting with the president on New Year’s Eve, 1938. Enjoy its quaint quotes; the best among them are excerpts from Eleanor Roosevelt’s newspaper column where she tut-tuts the intruders’ paucity of “thought and consideration for others.”
As Morgenthau notes, that sentiment is not at all quaint.
Clint Hendler is the managing editor of Mother Jones, and a former deputy editor of CJR.