Dear President Obama,

Eleanor Roosevelt has helped U.S. presidents before. She can do so again. But beware! She was always an interruptive person in whatever environment she inhabited. Each evening, for instance, in her bedtime prayer she would interrupt God Almighty and plead for divine interruption, fully aware, and even expecting, that the one she addressed as “Our Father” might very well include her personally within God’s Trinitarian work of bringing about “a world made new,” which she pleaded for.

Mr. President, you might suppose that God had finally solidified Eleanor’s interruptive reputation for good when in 1948 she midwifed The Universal Declaration of Human Rights to its completion (http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/).      I say, “for good,” as a double entendre. First, after 1948, no one could ever again deny the for-good dif- ference she had made toward “a world made new.” Her long life lived resiliently against the grain of various dominant cultural, legal, and sociopolitical injustices and oppressions had mattered, and mattered immensely. Second, as you likely know Mr. President, after 1948 people have naturally thought that with the Universal Declaration her contribution to- ward the human rights regime had reached its zenith. That is, that the Universal Declaration had finalized her reputation once and for all—“for good,” in other words.

But, Mr. President, it’s not likely that Eleanor’s for-good difference has run its course. Over the next few weeks I’d like to share with you how her leadership on the the Universal Declaration has pertinence for one of the most vexing issues that you are now facing. Mr. President, Eleanor Roosevelt can help you with ISIS. That’s right, Mr. President, Eleanor can help you with the ISIS crisis. . . .