Now it's happening again with the idea that we need another Franklin D. Roosevelt - and his disastrous policies that prolonged the depression. Yesterday's front-page lead story was how 'many' are saying we need another of FDR's new deals, including a new 'bill of rights.' FDR, according to all the liberals, saved us from ourselves.
As Warner Todd Huston writes:
More and more, though, modern economists and historians are realizing that the acclamations that are so often bestowed upon Saint FDR are little else but hero worship, Democrat spin and lies. Jim Powell, author of FDR’s Follies, does a fantastic job demolishing the FDR myth and quotes Pulitzer Prize winning author David M. Kennedy as saying: “Whatever it was, the New Deal was not a recovery program, or at any rate not an effective one.”
As columnist Mark Steyn recently joked, it was FDR that put the “Great” in The Great Depression because for the rest of the world it was just a depression.
But let's not allow facts to get in the way, The Blade has spoken and the politicians are falling in line.
Sen. Barack Obama is in Toledo - technically, Oregon, Ohio - preparing for his debate this week. Last night, he held a fundraiser where just about every Democrat politician took up the cry of The Blade.
Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland praised Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama last night and compared the senator's vision for America to that of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt by likening the difficulties faced by the nation in the 1930s to those of today.
...
"FDR told the truth but also gave people hope, and FDR provided the leadership as I believe Barack Obama will provide leadership to get us out of the condition we are in and to move us forward," Mr. Strickland said.
The governor proclaimed: "Those are the words of FDR in 1933. They ought to be the words of our national leaders today in 2008. We must put our people to work, we must consider what is right for the common good of all of us, and I am convinced Barack Obama is the man to do that."
...
After his remarks, Governor Strickland said he agreed with President Roosevelt's Jan. 11, 1944, State of the Union message, in which he spoke of the need for a second Bill of Rights under which everyone has the right to a "useful and remunerative job."
And that was just the governor.
Oregon Mayor Marge Brown, Lucas County Democratic Party Chairman Ron Rothenbuhler, U.S. Representative Marcy Kaptur and State Treasurer/Attorney General candidate Richard Cordray all parroted similar sentiments.
And just to make sure you get their message, their headline makes the emphasis: Ohio governor heralds Obama as return of FDR-inspired change. All praise, the savior has arrived.
Even Obama seems to think this is a good idea. During a neighborhood stop upon his arrival, he (typically) didn't give a yes or no answer to the question of a person's right to have a job, but agreed in principle: 'I agree that everyone who is willing and able to work should be able to find a job that pays a living wage,' he said.
Of course I don't believe that the Obama campaign is taking marching orders from our local newspaper. But I do believe that our state and local politicians make a point of agreeing with our publisher whenever they can, while being either silent or highly cautious in the few instances when they disagree. Elected officials and candidates are routinely told by their colleagues and parties just how detrimental disagreement on John Robinson Block's 'pet issues' can be. And he doesn't even live in Ohio.
In this instance, agreeing with Block is very dangerous. The depression was prolonged by FDR's anti-capitalist, anti-American New Deal policies, not ended by them.
They also set us on our current path toward socialism - away from liberty and prosperity, as our founders intended. And that should make all of us afraid.
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