Which past leader does Barack Obama most closely resemble? His admirers, not all of them liberals, used to compare him with Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.
Well, Obama announced his candidacy in Lincoln's hometown two days before Abe's birthday, and he did expand the size and scope of government. But no one seriously compares him with Lincoln or FDR any more.
Perhaps we should. The comparison to Lincoln was never there. Lincoln was not wedded to a TelePrompter. Lincoln was successful in preserving the Union – albeit at the cost of a horribly destructive civil war. Obama is presiding over an ever more splintered country; but civil war is not on the horizon.
But what is FDR remembered for?
Our memories regarding our longest sitting president are seen through a lens covered with gauze, the kind designed to make aging actors and actresses look good. That's why comparisons to FDR are considered compliments.
FDR presided over the “Great Depression.” It’s called the Great Depression for a reason, it lasted a decade, during which millions of people were unemployed, businesses failed, banks failed, people lost their jobs, their savings and their families. It left in it’s wake a population so traumatized that only death removed their fears of financial and family destruction.
During this period, FDR heaped blame on his predecessor and created program after program, project after project to get the economy moving; none were successful. Roosevelt even admitted that he did not know if any of the programs he enacted would work, he was experimenting and floundering. He was not successful in creating a robust, growing economy. Politically, FDR was much more successful. He forged a coalition whose defining characteristic was dependence on the government and its programs. This allowed him to retain office despite his failure to bring the nation out of the depression.
The “government program” that brought America out of the Depression was World War 2. A failure on the economic front, he was a big success on the war front. Winning wars does that for leaders. Death ended FDR’s hold on the presidency.
While I have taken the lipstick off the pig that was the FDR administration, my description is a fair summary of his term in office when viewed from 30,000 feet.
So is it possible that BHO could be the second coming of FDR? Like FDR, BHO never stopped blaming his predecessor. Like FDR, he's a big fan of unions. Like FDR, he believes the Constitution is seriously flawed. Like FDR he's a class warrior who pretends he's above the fray. Like FDR he believes he's the smartest guy in the room. So far the creation of program after program to jump start the economy sounds like the sort of things that FDR would do: cash for clunkers, mortgage programs for homeowners in default, tax credits to buy homes, Stimulus 1, QE2, Green Jobs, shovel-read jobs, 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, weatherizing homes, Wall Street “reform,” small business tax credits, etc. I’m surprised he’s not planning to program to build pyramids – by hand; think about the number of people that took in Egypt. Whatever the plan, you can bet there will be more as BHO works to create the coalition to get him his second term.
The only thing missing from the FDR comparison is another world war; one that will allow the government to pull out all the spending stops and get all of the unemployed into uniform. Then the comparison would be uncanny.
Keep a sharp eye on world trouble spots in the Middle East and Asia.
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