on the other hand, if Will had been prez in '33 he would not now be spouting nonsense.

Renewing the Upper Class Jihad against Roosevelt seems like a real vote winner for them. Then again anything to distract from the miserable failures of the current face of conservatism, George W Bush.

Yeah. For one thing, they'd stopped making George's brand of bowtie by 1933.

"I, for one, am glad that he was president in 1933 and not George Will."

Amen, Actually that column ran a couple of days ago and, surprisingly, was largely ignored by the blogosphere, though there were pages of richly deserved attacks in the WAPO comments section. The column must really be read to be believed. Aside from the still fresh anger at FDR that you cite, and the utter nastiness directed at FDR (as per the snippet you quoted), the sheer smugness of this wealthy, underemployed popinjay in attacking the social reforms of the New Deal (which are still pretty small beer compared to all other western industrialized nations) is nauseating.

Oh, that silly FDR. He should've consulted a bunch of witch-doctor economists who would've come up with some utterly bullshit "calculations" that would be substantively indistinguishable from FDR's ballpark guess.

One of FDR's biggest mistakes ever was when he listened to his own Treasury Secretary & cut federal expenditures. So much for the experts.

What makes me spring out of my chair and pace around in abject disbelief is the notion that conservatives still believe the progressive, compassionate and fair government instituted by FDR is an abomination that must be eradicated.

They have learned nothing in the last seven years. Or the last 74 years, for that matter.

Kevin, you definitely shouldn't move to Georgia. Some people here are still upset about Lincoln.

What is needed here is a pundit database. Imagine an internet database listing all predictions, suggestions made by mass media pundits and the actual outcome of the event or a factcheck of the comment. Pundits would be ranked by accuracy using a no-bullshit method operated by a non-partisan organization.

In 2074 my grandchildren will have to hear Returdlicans whine about how Clinton abused the White House X-Mas card list in 1996?

Better GOP spin doctors, please.

I understand the Sunnis and Shia are still pissed over a 1200 year old murder. Some people just can't move on. George Will is one of them.

The entertainment value of Will as president should not be discounted. First throne in the Oval Office, first president to wear ermine-trimmed robes, media admitted to press conferences by competitive examination only . . . the mind just reels.

That George Will is still exercised by FDR's seventy-year-old policies I can dismiss as idiosyncrasy. What bothers me more is his habit of presenting without justification some dubious notion as undisputed fact and then blithely building on it for the rest of the article. Bush's aide might have articulated the non-reality based world view of this administration, but they aren't the only conservatives enamored of it.

Related Topic: David Corn fisks David Brooks and Michael Kinsley regarding Scooter Libby.

At least it's not over three-quarters of a century old.

One should always check the link. I am unfamiliar with Yousefzadeh and assumed he rose in anger (as did I) at the gratuitous meanness of Will stating that FDR made the decision before getting into his wheelchair. But no, he turns out to be a wingnut shivering with rage at that old Bolshevik, Franklin D. Rosenfelt.

This is unsubstantiated trash talk, so I'll pass it on. The dish around DC about 13 or 14 years ago was that old George had an affair--I know the concept of his getting two women to sleep with him beggars belief--and that Mrs. Will was much dismayed about it. As the story goes, she threw all his clothes into the street, richly embarrassing him in front of the neighbors and thus, the whole town. I always wish I could have seen all those smug seersucker suits lying there forlornly as cars with diplomatic plates zoomed over them.

Was that the old Mrs. Will or the new Mrs. Will?

That story was reported in the Washingtonian as directly observed fact at the time, shortstop, and I didn't see Will or Mrs. Will suing them, so I assume it was true.

My favorite part of the column was

Wendell Willkie, who would be Roosevelt's opponent in a 1940 election overshadowed by war, called upon Roosevelt to "give up this vested interest you have in depression"

And we know how well that played to the American public. So Willkie, like Will, would just have had the Depression solved by the Free Marketplace. Which is exactly what got us into the depression in the first place.

Oh, that silly FDR. He should've consulted a bunch of witch-doctor economists who would've come up with some utterly bullshit "calculations" that would be substantively indistinguishable from FDR's ballpark guess.

If Hoover had done the same thing as FDR, but used a graph on a cocktail napkin (drawing the y axis in increments of seven), he'd now be hailed by the right as one of the greatest economists ever.

Once again demonstrating he was born with a silver spoon stuck up his ass, George Will's latest piece of drivel reminds me of the definitive put-down by John Kenneth Galbraith:

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of mankind's oldest exercises in moral philosophy, that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. It is an exercise that involves a certain number of internal contradictions and even a few absurdities. The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character-building value of privation for the poor."

I just shake my head at the Monday Morning Quarterbacking of conservatives today over FDR's handling of the Depression. There's virtually a cottage industry of folks who claim with the certainty of God that FDR really screwed things up with the New Deal. Of course they forget that FDR didn't have the luxury of time, when he took office the country was on the edge of collapse, and there was a great chance of America tipping into some type of authoritarian hell (thank God Cheney wasn't around then). It took time to dig out of the Depression, and perhaps FDR's policies weren't the best way out, but who really knows, and the bottomline is the scoreboard: America survived and became the strongest nation on Earth by a considerable margin. Works for me.

Tomeck refers to a very good point. FDR began enacting his New Deal policies in 1933, and yet was reelected 3 more times. So George Will is saying that the public was duped? Maybe they were about the pricing of gold, but obviously they were pretty satisfied with the job FDR was doing. No wonder conservatards hate populists.

Um, OK. Right after African-Americans "get over" slavery, which ended about twice as far back in history as occurred the New Deal.

tavella, how delightful. Thank you for confirming that for at least a few moments, something really did wipe that self-satisfied smirk off Strawhead's face.

Uh, no, the "Free Marketplace" did not get us into the Depression, unless you consider a Central Bank's restriction on money supply and trade legislation by Congress to be aspects of a "Free Marketplace".

Kevin, dude, are we to take from this post that historical evaluation of, or comment on, FDR's policies is are not to be undertaken (or at least not if it isn't mere haigiography), because, like, it happened many decades ago?
Pejman's post indicates a far exercised writer than anything Will wrote.

In the column to appear next week, George Will comapares and contrasts FDR's absurd and chaotic decision making process with the intellectually superior, measured, and deliberate methodology of the Bush administration that is so apparent in the decisions that GWB made to send our kids to die in Iraq.

Apologies for the typos. Surfer-speak does that to me.

m, OK. Right after African-Americans "get over" slavery, which ended about twice as far back in history as occurred the New Deal.

There's no relationship. Whereas African-Americans are still trying to "get over" the lingering effects of slavery, we seem to have recovered quite nicely from the Depression back in the 40's. And anyway, I don't see African-Americans raging about Will's column anyway, so there isn't even a tenuous connection.

Better arguments please.

Coyote

Slavery ended in 1865. Jim Crow, lynchings, and exclusion from economic and political life continued well into the 1960s. Discrimination continues today, as your comment proves.

And somehow, I have to think that the effects of slavery and segregation were several orders of magnitude tougher on African Americans than the effects of Social Security are on you and George Will.

"I understand the Sunnis and Shia are still pissed over a 1200 year old murder."

So unlike the their Christian brothers who "celibrate" a 2000 year old murder. Of course there are more than a few who use it as a reason to hate Jews.

Didn't St. Ronny Reagan's wife consult the Zodiac before letting him schedule any important meetings or making any substantive decissions? How does G. Will feel about that I wonder?

Ah, Kevin.

The Free Market did not cause the Great Depression, Kevin. It was clumsiness at the Federal Reserve coupled with the Kellogg-Briande Tariff. Also, did you know that the New Deal did nothing to solve the Depression, but merely made it worse? The only thing that pulled us out of the Depression was WWII.

By the way, Kevin, for the record I would be very frightened at the way monetary policy was whimsically determined by FDR, some elitist from NY who could have cared less how his liberal theories impacted the poor.

Actually, an intellectually honest person, would acknowledge how extremely critical Will as been of George W. Bush for many years now, and that Will has, on the whole, been favorably disposed regarding FDR's presidency. FDR was a well-above average President, but Democrats are as pathetically committed to mindless FDR-worship as Republicans are to to mindless Reagan-worship. Makes me wish that Bush II had proposed adding two more seats to the Supreme Court back when the Republicans controlled the Senate, just to see the hoops Democrats would have jumped through.

For all the yelping they do about Bush II's disregard for the law, it is strange that you rarely hear a Democrat, when discussing FDR, talk about FDR's treatment of the Neutrality Act, or quietly telling the Supreme Court that he was going to see a U.S. citizen executed no matter how the Court ruled on the citizen's appeal, so the Court should consider it's future legitimacy when ruling on the appeal.

The U.S. could have done far, far, worse than FDR from 1932 to 1945, but that doesn't obviate the fact that FDR had a substantial thuggish, despotic, aspect to him.

To those conservatives out there who like to claim that it was governnment action that triggered the Great Depression, do you people realize that America was rocked roughly every 20 years by a serious economic downturn from the founding of the Republic until the Great Depression with the Depression merely being the worst of these downturns? While we've certainly experienced downturns since then, none of them have approached the Panics of 1873 or 1893 much less the Great Depression. I don't think it's any accident that New Deal reforms have made downturns far less painful than they used to be.

And critics who point out that the New Deal didn't end the Great Depression are right, World War II did. But, World War II ushered in a federal work program that dwarfed anything FDR contemplated during the 1930's while the massive government programs instituted right after the war also massively helped the recovery.

Of course, the same conservatives who believe that Reagan's speeche and Star Wars program brought down the Soviet menace don't think any of FDR's programs had any positive impact on the Depression or subsequent economic development in this country. Please...

"Well above average?" Actually, an intellectually honest person, Will, would acknowlege that for decades now FDR has been ranked by historians as second only to Lincoln in greatness. You know, stuff like saving American from collapse of the Great Depression, saving the world from the Nazis. Even Reagan loved FDR.

George F. Will has repeatedly breached journalistic ethics in ways far more serious than those resulted in termination for anyone else. For example, R. Foster Winans was fired from the Wall Street Journal (and served a year in the slammer) for using his WSJ column “Heard on the Street” to prematurely disclose an investment deal in exchange for some cash. But this breach of ethics is peanuts compared to the theft of our very democracy by George F. Will, who coached Reagan using stolen Carter briefing papers and then used his “journalist” credentials to pontificate about Reagan's “thoroughbred performance” that Will had just assisted in prepping Reagan for.

Possession of stolen property is a criminal offense.

It is amazing that any respectable media outlet publishes the words of this unethical and criminal “journalist.”

Guscat, if you wish to argue that the Fed's monetary policy primarily, with Congress' trade legislation as a contributing factor, were not the the major reasons that the Great Depression was the worst economic dowturn in the nation's history by an extremely wide margin, there's a Nobel in it for you if you can build a convincing case. Have at it.

Yes, you are correct, putting 16 million citizens in the military, out of a total population far smaller than today's, will reduce unemployment just a wee bit.

FDR was a great Commander-in-Chief. He saved the world. For that, we can readily forgive his many domestic failures and even his failure to allow the Army to bomb the rail lines leading to the death camps.

MaxGowan, ranking Presidents with faux-precision like college football teams is a stupid exercise that historians who should know better engage in to entertain the dim-witted among the general public. One can make useful general historical assessments, but the numbering nonsense is strictly for frauds and fools.

I do sometimes shudder at the thought of what may have happened if Washington had shared FDR's thirst for power, however.

gregor: In the column to appear next week, George Will comapares and contrasts FDR's absurd and chaotic decision making process with the intellectually superior, measured, and deliberate methodology of the Bush administration that is so apparent in the decisions that GWB made to send our kids to die in Iraq.

And inserts a few heavyhanded baseball references to boot, the tool.

Will Allen's Theme Song: For all the yelping they do about Bush II's disregard for the law, it is strange that you rarely hear a Democrat, when discussing FDR, talk about FDR's treatment of the Neutrality Act, or quietly telling the Supreme Court that he was going to see a U.S. citizen executed no matter how the Court ruled on the citizen's appeal, so the Court should consider it's future legitimacy when ruling on the appeal.

Why should we need to? Every time your OC disorder flares up, which is about every other week, you haul it out as "evidence" of Democratic "hypocrisy" regarding torture, habeas corpus, foreign policy, milk prices, iPods, ballot formats, RICO, the Hudson River Valley and Waco. When it's pointed out to you that your "reasoning" is more than a bit, well, tortured, you fly into a hysterical rage worthy of a 13-year-old girl who just got grounded and repeat the same post for about 14 hours.

Let's take that as already having happened here, too, shall we? Oh, and we'll also agree that I've been very, very uncivil to you. That should save you about 47 posts.

Will, that line of thinking went out with the end of the 19th Century; your obfuscation of the points made say much about you.

It's astonishing, really, that conservatives are still exercised about FDR and the New Deal 70 years after the fact.

It's hardly astonishing; our own conservative trolls here routinely display their ridiculous obsession with Communism.

'It is better to light one candle, than to curse the darkness.'
--Jesus of Nazareth

MaxGowan, the "point" you made mostly referred to a silly exercise that historians engage in to appear in the popular media. Why is pointing that out an obsfuscation?

Yes, shortstop, you have established many times that your opposition to lawlessnes does not extend to lawlessness in pursuit of goals you favor, as long as it works. Thanks for the reminder.

but Democrats are as pathetically committed to mindless FDR-worship

No, just committed to skewering mindless FDR-bashing from mendacious shitbags like George Will.

Anderson >"...witch-doctor economists..."

That phrasing is soooo redundant and even G.H.W. Bush believed such

Remember the phrase "Voodoo Economics" ?

George Will is a dinosaur as is anyone that pays any serious attention to anything he writes

"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today." - Isaac Asimov

Yeah, Gregory, how ridiculous it is to engage in a historical examination of the murder of well more than 100 million people, and the endless misery that even more people were subjected to, all in service to an ideology that many people in our current political culture minimized, in terms of it's horrors, when they did not lend outright support to. Ridiculous!

... FDR had a substantial thuggish, despotic, aspect to him... Will Allen at 1:18 PM
You have obviously confused FDR and George W. Bush. One, FDR, had a first class temperament; the other, Dubya, is a power mad warmonger with the temperament of an elitist fratboy.

It was you, Will ("You disagree with my opinion, therfore you are wrong") Allen who opened the door with your "FDR was a well above average president"; and of course, no historian could possibly know as much as you.

Enough feeding angry trolls who don't have lives. Move out of your parents' basement!

Yeah, that George Will, who mendaciously has generally been favorably disposed to FDR as a historical figure. Geez, do you really think Will's piece amounts to harsh criticism?

Will

Can you say "Herbert Hoover?"

You take Roosevelt to task about the Depression, yet you don't seem to be able to say anything about the guy who was in charge during it's first 3 or so years. It's the "Central Bank" and congressional trade laws. What, we didn't have a president in 1930?

I don't know how old you are, but I talked to a lot of guys some years ago about how the CCC was one of the best things that ever happened to them. Yes, WWII did a lot to end the depression, but things like minimum wage and social security helped us maintain that prosperity when those 16 million men came back into the workforce.

Uh, Max, I specifically wrote that general historical assessments were useful exercises. This does not contradict the assertion that ranking Presidents with faux-precision like college football teams is silly. Why on earth someone favorably disposed to FDR's record would take exception to the description of him as being well-above average is really quite puzzling.

Yes, shortstop, you have established many times that your opposition to lawlessnes does not extend to lawlessness in pursuit of goals you favor, as long as it works.

Come now, Will. This constant projection is unseemly. It was only a couple of weeks ago that you proved yourself utterly incapable of giving an unqualified condemnation of Bush's torture policies, while I was kind enough to show you the way by unequivocally denouncing the prison rape you preferred as a topic. In fact, your multiple failed attempts in this area provided mucho entertainment for all of us. You simply couldn't do it.

A cursory review of both our comments on this site will find numerous examples of my completely unqualified criticisms of lawless acts and actors ranging from Clinton's perjury and (if proven in a court of law) alleged crimes of William Jefferson to the general MOs of Richard M. Daley and Rod Blagojevich, among other Democratic politicians. Unqualified, Will.

You on the other hand, have not to my knowledge made a single criticism of Republican wrongdoing that was not accompanied by a "but the Dems are worse!" or "but Joe Dem did it too!" statement. Not a one, Will.

You are simply incapable of that kind of accountability. Your wiring is too far off.

tomeck, I made no reference to FDR and the cause of the Depression. I simply stated that it was ridiculous to say the devotion to the free market principles caused the Depression, unless one was maintaining that having a central bank restrict money supply, and Congress inhibit trade via legislation, constituted devotion to free market principles.

If you really believe that minimum wage legislation, and the small percentage of the people receiving S.S, checks in the immediate post-War period, were significant factors in maintaining American prosperity in a world where nearly every other economically significant nation's industrial base had been destroyed, well, I suppose you also think the rooster caused the sun to rise this morning.

the murder of well more than 100 million people, and the endless misery that even more people were subjected to, all in service to an ideology that many people in our current political culture minimized, in terms of it's horrors, when they did not lend outright support to.

Um, let's see, you're talking about Nixon going to China, right? Drinking champagne with Mao? Or was it when he overthrew a democratically elected government in Chile? Or are you thinking of the way GHW Bush smiled and waved to the dying Shiites whom he had just encouraged to rise up against Saddam, knowing they couldn't win on their own and not even offering them a no fly zone.

Irony alert: Will Allen complains about an ideology that many people in our current political culture minimized, in terms of it's horrors, when they did not lend outright support to.

What an ass you are, Will.

FDR was a great Commander-in-Chief. He saved the world. For that, we can readily forgive his many domestic failures and even his failure to allow the Army to bomb the rail lines leading to the death camps.

Posted by: DBL on July 10, 2007 at 1:41 PM | PERMALINK
*************************************************
Or his imprisonment of Japanese American citizens?

Oh, you mean, shortstop, when I failed to write that the Libby commutation was undeniably wrong, and that torture should be prohibited, period? Lying as usual, aren't you? Meanwhile, rather mild and qualified criticism of FDR is made, and Democrats here get hysterical in response.

"The Free Market did not cause the Great Depression, Kevin. It was clumsiness at the Federal Reserve coupled with the Kellogg-Briande [sic] Tariff. Also, did you know that the New Deal did nothing to solve the Depression, but merely made it worse? The only thing that pulled us out of the Depression was WWII."

US GDP shrank by a quarter under Hoover; from 1933 to 1940 [when the war stimulus really began to make itself felt] GDP grew by 7 percent a year [notwithstanding the downturn of 1937-1938]. Unemployment stood at 23 percent of the total civilian work force in 1933, but was down to 9 1/2 percent by 1940 [Stats from Historical Statistics of the United States, Millennium Edition]. Yes, the New Deal "failed to get the US out of the Depression"; it was a big hole to climb out of. Seven percent GDP growth, though, wasn't chicken feed; voters noted it, and rewarded accordingly. It's certainly claptrap to say that the ND "made it worse."

It needs to be noted here that Will didn't come up with this stuff on his own; it's coming from Amity Shlaes's heavily-promoted-by-the-right-wing-publicity-machine book The Forgotten Man.

"Hence Social Security, which had the added purpose of encouraging workers to retire, thereby opening jobs to younger people. Notice the assumptions of permanent scarcity, and that the government has a duty to distribute scarce things, such as work."

Oh the horrors of ensuring a non-miserable retirement!

I made no reference to FDR and the cause of the Depression.

Of course you didn't. What you did is talk about the Central Bank and Congress, avoiding the name of Herbert Hoover. Then you gave a few specifics about the brutal thug FDR.

That's what you wingnuts always do. Bad things that happen on your guy's watch is the fault of Congress or the Fed or liberals. Things that happen during a Democratic administration are the fault of brutal thugs in the White House.

Yes, Gregory, I'm an ass for pointing out that you think it is ridiculous to have a historical examination of the minimization, and sometimes outright support of, by people still part of our political culture, an ideology which resulted in well more than 100 million murders. Right.

In 1919, Herbert Hoover proposed abolishing the Patent Office, since all of the great inventions already had been made. This may be on par with Bill Gates believing early on that 486K is all we'd need. Still, it shows a habit of mind that would not have the flexibility to deal with the Great Depression.

...and anyway, how the hell would you know what "an intellectually honest person would do, Will?

Oh, you mean, shortstop, when I failed to write that the Libby commutation was undeniably wrong, and that torture should be prohibited, period?

Where was that, Will? I missed the former (traveling last week) and I quite clearly recall that you were patently unable to complete the second statement without adding a "but...but...the Dems!" remark. We all remember, Will. It's all here.

I'll stop short of accusing you of outright lying, because I really do suspect that your missing accountability gene/ethical wiring gone terribly wrong help you to believe that what you just said is true.

Amity Shlaes' cherry-picking of statistics to back up her claims has been well documented, both here and in the American Prospect. So can we stop pretending that the book is anything but the usual vanity-press right-wing smear job that David Brock used to write before he became disgusted with himself and came clean (and out)?

Leon Wieseltier once commented about his refusal to debate a Holocaust denier by saying, "This isn't a debate between two 'points of view', this would be a debate between fact and mental illness."

No, Will, you're an ass for characterizing the wingnuts' ridiculous obsession with Communism as "a historical examination."

And for constantly declaring, dishonestly, what other posters "think" and "believe" while constantly whining when your own statements are criticized for their unmistakable implications (for example, your constant -- not to mention hysterical -- changing of the subject to Democrats whenever Republicans are criticized).

And, well, for being the pompous ass that your every post proves you are.

It's astonishing, really, that conservatives are still exercised about FDR and the New Deal 70 years after the fact.

Every now and then they get bored of blaming everything on Clinton.

The economist blogs had a lot on this issue about six months ago. Seems George Will failed to follow any of it. But we put up a few notes and a reminder (with a link) over at Angrybear.

No, tomeck, I was more thinking of the 1972 Democratic Presidential Candidate saying, in 1975, that the Khmer Rouge was a positive force for Cambodian society, and then voting in a manner which removed any obstacle to the Khmer Rouge instituting it's policies. I was also thinking of those who referred to Mao as a mere "agrarian reformer" while he was murdering tens of millions. At least Nixon waited until most of the corpses were cold before kissing Mao's ass. I was mostly thinking of the dolts who, to this day, continue to speak highly of Fidel Castro. Since he's gone to his grave, I won't say much about the NYT reporter who won a Pulitizer for covering up Stalin's murder of meillions upon millions

Regarding Hoover, to the degree he supported the Fed policy, and there is no doubt he did, he contributed to the Depression. You
seem to have problem with the idea that a thread in this forum can simulteaneously address different topics, such as the cause of the Great Depression, and FDR's Presidency. Try to keep up.

Uh, david, if you really want the most widely recognized work regarding the cause of the Great Depression, that would be Friedman and Schwarz' "A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960" which ya' know, is hailed by such right wing nuts as Democratic icon Paul Krugman. I ahve no opinion of Shlae's book.

Who cares what Will Allen says? Why so much attention to him?

If we can thank any Americans for the "success" of the Khmer Rouge, we can thank Nixon and Kissinger. Thanks to their secret bombing campaign in 1969 (Remember the Fourth Article of Impeachment?), and the overthrow of Sihanouk and the installation of Lon Nol, the Khmer Rouge went from a rag-tag group to the full-blown malignancy that came to power. That's blood on our hands. Incidentally, as long as we are citing war crimes, that secret bombing in '69 (where we dropped more bombs on Cambodia than were dropped in all of WWII) murdered an estimated three-quarters of a million Cambodian civilians. Then you can add the 1.7 million murdered by our creation, Pol Pot.

Yes, gregory, to you a historical examination of a phenomena which resulted in a murder of more than a 100 million people constitutes an obsession.

Shortstop, the fact that I refused to copy your paragraph is not proof of that I have not written in this forum previously that torture should be prohibited, period. Now, if you'll make a $50 dollar donation to Ron Paul's campaign, I will find the relevant previous posts from me. In the meantime stop writing things which are not true.

Look, you are with the people here who constantly proclaim not just your greater insight as to the better political policies, but also your moral superiority to those in the major political party you oppose. Nearly every thread in this forum is filled with proclamations regarding how morally awful Republicans are. Thus, the hysteria when it is pointed out that the politicians you support or speak highly of engage in the very same wrongful acts which you find so indicative of moral failings of Republicans, given the politicians they support.

Will Allen complaining about others writing things that are untrue. Hello?

MaxGown, yep, Kissinger and Nixon engaged in a terrible, terrible act regarding the Cambodian people. Too bad their they were helped out by the 1972 Democratic Presidential Candidate's full throated support of Pol Pot.

The Kellogg-Briand pact was an international treaty outlawing war. It was signed before Roosevelt took office.

It would be interesting to have Will Allen say who he thinks the best US president was.

Southerners still feel that way about the War Between the States/Civil War and considering they run the GOP I guess it doesn't surprise me that they hold on to FDR.

Neither the New Deal, nor the war, ended The Great Depression. The New Deal, and the actions of Hoover before it, deepened and extended the misery in a way not seen in any other earlier economic downturn in the United States before the 1930s. The war only put people to work by essential nationalization of the economy to war production, and such an economy was not only completely unsustainable, but was mostly producing goods and services that are only useful for war, nothing else. The depression ended after the war ended, along with almost all of the worst aspects of governmental regulations of prices and investments (however, one major interference remains-see below) erected before and during WWII. To believe that the war ended The Great Depression, one would have believe that the path to economic growth is to build 20 aircraft carriers a year.

Panics before 1913 quickly passed because no one was standing in the way of price adjustments and capital reallocation/liquidation that is always required in the cresting and collapse of a boom. However, as the federal government grew in power in the early 20th century (the federal reserve act, the income tax, etc.), it's power to interfere in these economic adjustments also grew, along with politicians' willingness to use them, both to foment booms, and to attempt to ameliorate the subsequent recessions. Have recessions become less severe? I doubt it. The recession of 1981-82 was bad by any historic account, but one could argue that we are simply in one large economic boom facilitated by better management of the Federal Reserve since the 1940s, but all booms end, and the subsequent retrenchments are usually proportional in severity and length to the booms that proceeded them. Looking at the structure of our debts and debt-backed currencies, I, for one, am just a bit nervous, though I feel the current economic upswing will likely outlive me.

Will, McGovern never supported Pol Pot, you liar.

What I can't understand is what conservatives are so upset about. Hasn't America done pretty well the last 70 years? Aren't we fabulously wealthy and powerful? These are the same people who argue that under Bush, unemployment is virtually nonexistent and the economy is strong. What do they think the USA would be like if it weren't for FDR? How much more prosperous can we be? Especially considering none of that prosperity would be shared among the less fortunate, presumably about the same percentage of those who need help in the post-FDR America.

Too bad their they were helped out by the 1972 Democratic Presidential Candidate's full throated support of Pol Pot.

Yeah, Nixon never made a move on anything until he had McGovern's support.

By the way, I haven't heard anybody speak highly of Castro for years. What kind of people do you hang around with, anyway?

MaxGowan, when you say that the Khmer Rouge is likely to be a positive force for Cambodian society, and Pol Pot is the unquestioned leader of the Khmer Rouge, you are then giving full throated support to Pol Pot. McGovern did. Stop denying the historical record.

I also think it's terrible that the liberal MSM completely suppressed the fact that McGovern OKed the Watergate Operation, not to mention the hush money for the burglars. Only, unlike Nixon, McGovern didn't say "... but it would be wrong."

I saved you the trouble, Will.

Will, since when is the wingnuts' ridiculous obsession with Communism a "historical examination"? Your repeated assertion of this point, as ever, doesn't make it true.

You also err in attributing the "phenomena which resulted in a murder of more than a 100 million people" to Communism as opposed to plain and simple authoritarianism.

And there we come full circle, Will, because as shortstop pointed out, your proclivity to change the subject from the authoritarian Republicans to the Democrats, if we were to apply your own dishonest standards, would certainly equate to your own support of an authoritarian ideology that has resulted in untold death and mistery. Your moral fig leaf is quite tattered, Will ,and it's most unbecoming.

But I found this truly insightful: Nearly every thread in this forum is filled with proclamations regarding how morally awful Republicans are.

That's what really gets your goat, isn't it, Will? You can't stand it when they party you align with is criticized on moral grounds, which is why you make such an ass of yourself. Sad, really. We wouldn't be a bit defensive about the moral worth of the party you seem to prefer -- at least on grounds on relative lack of criticism -- to the Democrats, would we, Will my boy?

(Of course, your assertion that there's "hysteria" from anyone else in this thread but you is just laughable. Projecting much, Will?)

Did somebody suggest making a $50 donation to Dr. Paul's campaign? Hear, hear! Glad to have you as a fellow traveler, Brother Allen!

In Will's world, "likely to be a positive force" is equivalent to "full throated support"? I always knew your grasp of rehtoric was, ah, unique, Will, but that one's a humdinger.

But hold on: Accepting your assertions is, of course, a mug's game. I'm sure you wouldn't dream of taking McGovern out of context, of course, but if you're going to cite the historical record, let's cite the historical record. Full quote and link, if you please.

meanwhile....

the national savings rate in 2005 and 2006 was negative...

that hasn't been done since the depression...

Tomeck, I haven't see it yet, but I heard that Michael Moore portrays life under Castro in a very positive manner. Jimmy Carter has made positive comments regarding Castro.

Tom S., yes, whomever identified Kellogg as a trade law was wrong; it was Smoot-Hawley. Regarding other Presidents, like I said, I am loathe to rank them precisely. As to generalizations, and regarding those that we have had, in my view, the 100 years needed to really see them more clearly, I'd rank Washington and Lincoln as the most clearly outstanding, more than a couple as the worst; and, to me, the most interesting category, the most underrated, I'd award to Grant. If Grant's reconstruction policies had been continued, I think much of the racial strife which persists even today could have receded far earlier.

Regarding roughly the past 100 years, and the more recent the Presidency the more tentative the judgement, I'd rank the two Roosevelts and perhaps Reagan quite well, along with probably Eisenhower and Truman. Nixon and LBJ were horrible, albeit for different reasons. Wilson was pretty bad, as was Hoover. The current Bush will look awful, depending on what the political situation in the Persian Gulf is like in 10-20 years. I'd be hesitant to call Carter underrated, because he really wasn't very good, but I think his bad luck exceeded his bad performance by some margin. Coolidge might be underrated, although I can't remember what his stance was on monetary policy in 1929, or if he ever expressed an opinion on the topic, and anybody who, in 1929, was in support of a tight monetary policy (which, to be fair, included narly everyone of note) was making a monumental and tragic error.

.... the 1972 Democratic Presidential Candidate's full throated support of Pol Pot. Will Allen at 3:24 PM
RepubliConTarians remain bound to McCarthyism and flat out smear&lie. What garbage. Nixon created Pol Pot. McGovern calls for overthrow of Khmer Rouge
1978

22 Apr (NYT) President Jimmy Carter calls Cambodia "world's worst
violator of human rights."

22 Aug (NYT) Senator George McGovern calls for international force
to overthrow Khmer Rouge government.

87 COMMENTS?!!? Apparently it's not just right-wingers who get ramped up when FDR's the topic.

I just think it's funny that a strong proponent of W's "war planning" would object so strongly to the idea that a president would make it up on the fly when it comes to a policy decision.

Never mind that FDR's decision in this case was pretty damn marginal in its importance, and that the modeling & analytical tools didn't exist in that era to inform an economic decision so miniscule as a one-day change in the price of gold. In contrast, the big decisions W has decided based on his gut have determined the lives & deaths of thousands; and a great deal has been knowable, or at least available to modeling & analysis, about those problems.

Will Allen - Psychic Movie Critic.

Just one question Will, did Moore vote for Castro and thus confirm his disregard for Castro?

(For those needing context, Will has famously claimed that he has no regard for Bush, in spite of voting twice for the man. Some might think that stepping twice into a voting booth with the express intent of voting for a candidate was a greater expression of regard than saying someone might have been mostly honest in a reveiw of a film. But those people wouldn't have Will Allen's ability to discern malign motives in anyone not kowtowing to Will's brilliance.)

This is what George McGovern said, as the Senate debated whether to cut off all aid to the Lon Nol government, and the only other political entitity poised to rule Cambodia was the Khmer Rouge....

"The growing hysteria of the administration's posture on Cambodia,'' declared Senator George McGovern, ``seems to me to reflect a determined refusal to consider what the fall of the existing government in Phnom Penh would actually mean. . . . We should be able to see that the kind of government which would succeed Lon Nol's forces would most likely be a government . . . run by some of the best-educated, most able intellectuals in Cambodia."

Those "able intllectuals" then proceeded to stack the corpses to the horizon. In the context of a civil war, saying that one side consists of "the best-educated, most able, intellectuals" can be reasonably be construed as full-throated support for that side's leader. Before you complain about the ellipsis, Gregory, I'm sorry that I can't make the Congressional record prior to 1994 available on-line, because I believe the remarks were made from the well of the Senate.

No, I don't care if Republicans are criticized on moral grounds. I simply find it notable when it is done by people who support the same behavior, or at least fail to condemn it nearly as strongly, when engaged in by members of the party they support. I challenge you to reprint one post from me where I've stated that Republicans are morally superior to Democrats.

In the context of a civil war, saying that one side consists of "the best-educated, most able, intellectuals" can be reasonably be construed as full-throated support for that side's leader.

No, Will, it can't. Thanks for proving that you misrepresented McGover's statements, though.

Mike,

McGovern supported for the cut off of aid to the government of Lon Nol in Cambodia during Ford's administration. It was not known for a certainty at the time, that the Khmer Rouge would be so murderous, but there was a lot of evidence of what would happen if they came to power, so it can't be claimed that there was no way of knowing what could happen. All you have shown is that McGovern was smart enough to realize that the Khmer Rouge were worse than the previous government, a point of which I know, for a fact, that Will Allen understands.

Mike, it apprently escpapes your penetrating intellect that McGovern could have supported the Khmer Rouge coming to power, and then, well into the genocide, realized the error of his ways, and thus supported the military intervention that he once voted against, a vote which allowed Pol Pot to gain power. If you think that mitigates McGovern's behavior substantially, that says something about you which is not positive.

I'll give McGovern this much; he was better than people like Noam Chomsky or Anthony Lewis of the NYT, but talk about damning with faint praise!

Fine, Will.

When the German General Staff takes responsibility for Communist Russia (which they supported the creation of to a much greater degree than simply making a speech in the Senate) then we can get around to blaming McGovern for Pol Pot. Who, by the way, was aided in his cause by the American intervention in Cambodia led by Nixon and Kissinger far more than by anything McGovern said in the Senate.

I don't care if Republicans are criticized on moral grounds.

No, of course not, Will. Obviously. [/sarcasm]

I challenge you to reprint one post from me where I've stated that Republicans are morally superior to Democrats.

Pay attention, Will. As shortstop and I point out -- and as you tacitly conced as valid with your own reference to "at least fail to condemn it nearly as strongly," -- you simply and contantly attempt to change the subject from criticism of the Republicans to your preferred criticism, tendentious as it may be, of those nasty, nasty Democrats.

Simply put, Will, you lavish more of your hypocritical moral outrage on Democrats by far. You seek to portray Democrats as morally inferior, so the Republicans must be, in your view, superior. QED.

But you know what your biggest sin -- on top of your pomposity, your intellectual dishonesty and your vastly overinflated opinion of your own intellectual capabilities -- is, Will? You're boring. Witness your own return, without a shred of irony, to your tired, unconvincing and thoroughly old hat "I simply find it notable when it is done by people who support the same behavior, or at least fail to condemn it nearly as strongly, when engaged in by members of the party they support" false equivalence.

It won't do, Will.

Amity Shlaes was interviewed by KLo over at the Corner (NRO). Her references do not include ANY of the great work from various economists that have written on the Great Depression. Seems her main source was FDR's Folly by James Powell. That says it all about her new book. Wingnuts will love it. The rest of us should save our time and money.

Oh no, gregory, saying that one side in a civil war is composed of the best educated most able intellectuals does not constitute full throated support for that side achieving victory. Not at all. Really. One normally describes the side one opposes, or is neutral about, as "most able". Really, really, really. Happens all the time.

Well, the Khmer Rouge was certainly the "most able" caving people's skulls in, that's for sure.

McGovern supported for the cut off of aid to the government of Lon Nol in Cambodia during Ford's administration... Yancey Ward at 4:34 PM

...Still, although My War is very obviously a book with an agenda, there are times when Sihanouk's comments seem precisely on-target, as when he discusses Richard Nixon's comments on the invasion of Cambodia:

"President Nixon has explained that the 341 million dollars spent annually in the officially-approved slaughter of Cambodians is 'the best investment in foreign assistance that the United States has made in my political life'. Because of the 'success' of the Cambodian operation, 'US casualties have been cut by two thirds, a hundred thousand Americans have come home and more are doing so'. In other words, Lon Nol and Sirik Matak, by allowing Nixon to export the fighting from South Vietnam to Cambodia - to substitute Cambodian for American and South Vietnamese corpses - have rendered a valuable service, for which 341 million dollars is a reasonable annual reimbursement!"

Neither the New Deal, nor the war, ended The Great Depression. The New Deal, and the actions of Hoover before it, deepened and extended the misery.... Yancey Ward at 3:36 PM

The only thing keeping this pathetic Bush economy going are the huge deficits that Bush is passing off to future Americans, deficits in excess of 500 billion per year.

Will, your lame attempt at sarcasm can't conceal your dishonest representation of McGovern's remarks -- a point I noticed escaped our ruggedly individualitic friend Yancey -- nor can it support your rather strained use of the term "full throated."

It's always interesting to see your pathological inability to ever admit you're wrong lead you to cling ever tighter to your dishonesty, though. It's a reminder that you don't need my help to diminish your credibility -- you save me the trouble.

Gosh, gregory, I'm so boring that you respond to my posts on a nearly unfailing basis. I must inquire once again; are you mentally ill? Do you normally repond with great frequency to that which bores you? If so, you should seek medical advice.

It may have escaped your powers of observation, but criticism of Republicans is not in short supply in this forum. What possible reason would there be to add to that volume here? I thought you disliked excessive repetition, yet you seem to be saying that is what my posts should consist of. Again, your mental processes are quite bizarre.

Yes, Tomeck, the Germans did have quite a bit to do with the rise of Stalinism, and they should be held responsible for conspiring with Stalin to divide up Poland. You find this notable somehow?

It's also worth mentioning that Will Allen fails to note that the Khmer Rouge "side" in the Cambodian Civil War was also that of deposed Prince Sihanouk, the legitimate head of state deposed by Lon Nol, who allied with the Khmer Rouge and other factions. Nor does Will Allen acknowledge the role of the US bombing of Cambodia -- undertaken by the party he favors over the Democrats -- in increasing the people's support for the khmer rough. I don't know whether it's ignorance or dishonesty, Will, but your misrepresentations do you no credit. Shame on you.

Will Allen: I challenge you to reprint one post from me where I've stated that Republicans are morally superior to Democrats.

First donate fitty dolla to your boyfriend Klingon's man Ron's campaign--sorry, but the thought of you making a campaign donation to anyone cracks me up.

Will, don't be dumber than you absolutely have to be. Your thing isn't a candid and frank defense of your boys the Repubs. Your schtick, which you think creates an impenetrable enigma around your politics but is really just a worn-out and unsubtle trick, is pretending to be an insouciant old cynic. There's nothing in this world to feel passionate about. Morality is for simps and the mere act of seeking a moral path or making value judgments is self-righteous. All parties are equally self-serving, all politicians equally corrupt, all true believers equally naive and distastefully zealous.

And yet somehow, just somehow, with all that parity of heinousness, you still manage to come down on the side of Republican policies every damn time. Danged if we can figure out how that happens.

Irony alert: Will Allen asks I must inquire once again; are you mentally ill?

criticism of Republicans is not in short supply in this forum.

Ford knows they give us enough reason.

What possible reason would there be to add to that volume here?

To demonstrate a little intellectual honesty? Oh, wait...

I must inquire once again; are you mentally ill?

Projection again? Why so predictable, Will?

Something tells me a comparison of Will's and Gregory's charts would be highly edifying, and not the least bit to Will's advantage.

Your thing isn't a candid and frank defense of your boys the Repubs. Your schtick, which you think creates an impenetrable enigma around your politics but is really just a worn-out and unsubtle trick, is pretending to be an insouciant old cynic.

Beautifully done, shortstop.

Careful there, Gregory. You're assigning a higher value to my thoughts than to Will's. That makes you a hypocrite, not to mention smugly self-congratulatory. Remember, all people and philosophies and actions are equally bad, so you might as well be a Republican (TM Disputo).

It's also worth mentioning that Will Allen fails to note that the Khmer Rouge "side" in the Cambodian Civil War was also that of deposed Prince Sihanouk

Looking back, I realize that I was too generous to Will. This is what he wrote (emphasis mine):

This is what George McGovern said, as the Senate debated whether to cut off all aid to the Lon Nol government, and the only other political entitity poised to rule Cambodia was the Khmer Rouge

In fact, the "only other political entitity poised to rule Cambodia" was Sihanouk, who would later be deposed (again!) by the Khmer Rouge, which represented a powerful, if not the most powerful, faction in his government.

So no, McGovern's alleged "full throated support" of the Pol Pot's thugs is nothing of the kind, and Will is either demonstrating amazing ignorance or scurrilous dishonesty.

Either way, shame on you, Will.

A lot of conservative flatulence on the thread.
Funny to see Mr Allen use Krugman to praise Friedman. Krugman does praise Friedman the academic economist, but Friedman the conservative thinker he basically calls out for the crime of 'truthyness'.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19857

The late Friedman suffers from the same problem as the late Hayek; they became seduced by the larger political conservative movement into saying things that were not true for the cause of political victory.

Holy f@#K!!!! I'm hopping mad. We had a flaming liberal cripple President who held economic sausage fests on his bed? No wonder the Japs attacked us.

Wow I just read what all that Pol Pot nonsense was about with Mr Allen. That is very dishonest. Especially since in hindsight we now know that the Cambodians are a fervrently monarchical people and it was the American insistance on deposing prince Sihanouk that paved the way for Pol Pot. In short America legitimized Pol Pot as a valid political choice among the Cambodian population by removing the legitimate choice of the king from the political stage.

You know it is not unlike what happened in Iran, except with different players. The CIA removed the socialist prime minister from office and installed the reactionary Shah who liquidated the Iranian left. This cleared the terrain for the ayatollas as an acceptable political choice for Iranians.

Conservatives don't know how to interact with the world without making it worse for everyone. Well, except defense contractors. Voter beware.

.... but I heard that Michael Moore portrays life under Castro in a very positive manner. Jimmy Carter has made positive comments regarding Castro. ....Will Allen at 4:04 PM

It is interesting how the worst of the bad American president are overwhelmingly Republican: Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Nixon, Reagan, Bush. It is clear that their ranking is based on their contempt for the rule of law and their devotion to the wealthiest.
Here a comment that Carter calls for the end of sanctions if Castro improved civil liberties. Not high praise, not praise at all, but the smear&lie are temptations too strong to deny for you.

...it apprently escpapes your penetrating intellect that McGovern could have supported the Khmer Rouge coming to power....Will Allen at 4:37 PM

Mike,

I don't doubt for a second that some of the work programs of Roosevelt helped some people, however, as a whole, The New Deal did not end the Depression. Why is that? What was different in 1929-1949 that was not true before? What was different was that government took an active role in trying to end the economic downturn, and failed.

Yes, the war put millions to work, but it did so in an economically unsustainable way-people don't work to consume bullets, they don't save to produce tanks and other weapons-, so it also cannot be claimed to end the depression. As I wrote, if you really believe the war ended the Depression, then you believe that economic growth can be attained sustainably by building aircraft carrier, or fighter aircraft, or tanks, or paying people to dig holes and then fill them up, etc. Such a belief is nonsense.

As for the Khmer Rouge, it is a matter of record that McGovern supported the discontinuation of support for the Cambodian government and that this, at the very least, hastened the fall of that government and the ascent of the Khmer Rouge to power. It is also a matter of record that McGovern did not see the Khmer Rouge for what they were to become. Was McGovern responsible for the Khmer Rouge? Of course not, but then that is not the claim that Will Allen was making, now was it?

Oh, yes Gregory, McGovern wasn't referring to the people who actually had, ya' know, the power to rule, as being "most able". He referring to a
political leader who was nearly devoid of power. Really. McGovern's comments weren't made in reference to the Khmer Rouge at all. Or maybe what he really meant by "most able" was "most
able to starve the population." Nope, McGovern wasn't voicing support for the Khmer Rouge coming to power. Not at all.

Shortstop, you are lying again. I've never once supported any domestic policy of this Administration. Not one. Stop lying, please. I also never said that seeking a moral path is self-righteous. I said it is when people like you do so, because you lack any ability whatsoever to honestly engage in an examination of the party you support. You really, truly,
are convinced of the moral superiority of your faction, despite reams of evidence as to the contrary. What you want most is power,just like those who associate with Republicans, and you really think the acquisition of power is proof of your moral superiority.

the sheer smugness of this wealthy, underemployed popinjay in attacking the social reforms of the New Deal (which are still pretty small beer compared to all other western industrialized nations) is nauseating.

George Will is nauseating, period.

For God's sake, Will Allen, quit while you're behind.
You're like a race car driver who keeps on getting lapped and then wondering why the other cars are so far behind.

For God's sake, Will Allen, quit while you're behind.
You're like a race car driver who keeps on getting lapped and then wondering why the other cars are so far behind.

Gregory, you shameless liar, saying that anyone actually had power to rule Cambodia, which means first of all monopolozing violence, other than the Lon Nol government with continued U.S. aid, or the Khmer Rouge, is such a grotesquely dishonest assertion that renders you even more contemptible, which is hardly possible. Go ahead, lie upon the graves of millions. You really are one step removed from being a Holocaust denier. Congratulations.

Mike, describing the Khmer Rouge in the manner McGovern did constitutes support for the Khmer Rouge,and all your rationalizations changes nothing.

Northern Observer, you imbecile, Friedman and Schwarz' "Monetary History of the U.S....." IS Friedman's seminal academic work, in which he outlines restrictive monetary policy as being the primary cause of the Depression.

What your comments regarding Cambodia have to do with McGovern's statement in support of the Khmer Rouge is unclear.

I, for one, am glad that he was president in 1933 and not George Will.

So am I. Will probably would have boycotted the World Series that fall (the last one the Senators appeared in) out of loyalty to his minor-league Baltimore Orioles (that's not a perjorative; that year, the Orioles actually were a member of the International League).

Moreover, could you imagine Ralph Bellamy portraying George Will? He played FDR so brilliantly in both "Sunrise At Campobello" and "War & Remembrance." (Then again, Bellamy often played the sap in films, and if that term doesn't define George Will, I don't know what does.)

Gregory, you shameless liar, saying that anyone actually had power to rule Cambodia, which means first of all monopolozing violence,

Monopolizing violence is not what ruling means "first of all", it is a never-attained ideal toward which ruling strives. No substantial real government actually monopolizes violence, as none are completely free of violence that is not sponsored by the state, and indeed most real states, including, inter alia, the United States, have substantial ongoing problem with violence that is formally prohibited by, not merely independent of, the state. (The usual formulation to seek to avoid this problem, that to rule one must monopolize only "legitimate" violence, has its own problems, in that, depending on the definition of "legitimate" chosen, it either fails to eliminate the original proble, is completely meaningless, or is simply circular and eliminates nothing from its definition.)

If ruling meant monopolizing violence "first of all", no power would have the ability to rule any state.

Ever the pedant, cmdicely fauis to address the point, which is that without the ability to greatly dominate the use of violence, a political entity cannot rule. Sihanouk having no ability in this regard, was not a viable ruling alternative.

Golly gee, by cmdicely's titanic feat of logic, a good many antitrust findings will need to be reversesd, given some of those found to be monopolies were not, in fact, completely devoid of having other entities which provide the same goods and services. Thanks for another wonderfully insightful contribution, cmdicely.

Before you respond, however, cmdicely, perhaps you can tell me first what denotative meanings of words you choose to ignore, in favor of something which you create purely out of thin air, and refer to as an inference.

Slick Willy, two time Bush voter mocking someone for their lack of insight and for torturing the meanings of words? Wow, irony really is dead. Two words for you Will - "Full Throated."

Will imagines that it was McGovern who was responsible for the rise of the Khmer Rouge and has remarkably little to say about the role played by Nixon in destabilizing Cambodia - something that is the only reason there was a civil war in the first place. Rather like Will specious attacks on Democrats over Iraq. A place that is a disaster of Republican making but Will still manages to parrot RNC talking points that shift the blame to the Democrats.

What marks Will as a true independent? Voting for Bush twice and parroting RNC talking points.

Then again, Will imagines that the final word on FDR comes from the hack that gave us the Chilean "miracle" where their Social Security has been handed over to the wealthy and is doing so splendidly. Here's a clue Slick Willy, the book isn't closed and the consensus isn't with you.

Hey Slick Willy, ever figure out how voting for a candidate shows your lack of consideration for him?

Irony alert: Will Allen accuses someone else of being a "pedant."

describing the Khmer Rouge in the manner McGovern did constitutes support for the Khmer Rouge

But you haven't established -- merely asserted, as usual -- that McGovern was describing the Khmer Rouge, as opposed to Sihanouk's coalition. In fact, the quote you provide doesn't mention the Khmer Rouge at all.

This is embarrassing, even for you, Will, and all your blather about Holocaust denial doesn't change that fact.

What it does change is any doubt that you were operating out of ignorance as opposed to dishonesty. You've now proven yourself to be deliberately misrepresenting McGovern's remarks.

Of course, Wll, we're all familiar with your deranged notion that you're the only one who's allowed to draw inferences about what someone "claims," "thinks" or "believes." When in fact, it's merely dishonest when you do it.

A truly classic performance of the Will Allen Show. Shame on you.

Gregory, you realize that given Slick Willy's description of what constitutes "Full Throated" support, he is a "Full Throated" supporter of George W. Bush. Sure, now that everything has gone sour he explains why Bush will not be ranked in the pantheon of the greatest Presidents, but ask him if he regrets voting for Bush twice and he will be certain to tell you how the other candidates were worse. Obviously a "Full Throated" defense of Bush if our Slick Willy is to be the judge.

Note also that Will casually agrees in passing that "the war ended the Depression" -- apparently without realizing the tiny fact that (as most economists now agree) this means that the only thing seriously wrong with the New Deal is that there wasn't nearly enough of it.

Pay attention to me! To me! I'll spend all of my time baiting you - so you pay attention to ME!

Who cares what Will Allen says? Why so much attention to him?

It's fun. He's like one of those punching bag clowns -- no matter how hard or how many times you hit him, he keeps popping back up to take another punch.

Slightly off-topic: it is absolutely amazing to me how quickly so many Republicans are rushing to the exits and disavowing ever having supported the party of GWB. After Ross Perot ran for President, pollsters were unable to find the people who voted for him -- his supporters were simply too embarrassed to admit it. I expect that if a poll was done now of the 2004 electorate, they would find that only 40% of voters cast a ballot for GWB.

Nixon created Pol Pot

And W. Bush created AQI. GHW Bush created Pineapple Face.

Ever the pedant, cmdicely fauis to address the point

Its hardly my fault that you obscure any legitimate point you might have by inventing and waving around inaccurate and nonsensical definitions and asserting that they are the standard against which others claims must be measured.

which is that without the ability to greatly dominate the use of violence, a political entity cannot rule.

I'm not sure that there is a substantial point there to address. Clearly, if an entity is not able to get people to do what it wants, whether the subject matter of the desire is the use of violence or anything else for that matter, it obviously cannot rule: ruling is, after all, simply getting other people to do what you want.

So, certainly, that ability is one expression of the ability to rule, but no more or less than, say, ability to dominate any other area of life.

OTOH, since the ability to do so is not the same as, say, the capacity to commit violence (plenty of factions have successfully ruled without being the faction with the greatest capacity to commit violence directly, by applying soft power to form constrain or redirect the factions with greater hard power capacity.)

As relevant to your claims about Cambodia, it is not unreasonable to argue that, from the perspective of a US policy-maker before the Khmer Rouge split with Sihanouk, that Sihanouk and his loyalists could constrain the Khmer Rouge and that Sihanouk and his loyalists, more than the Khmer Rouge, would be the effective rulers of Cambodia.

Further, its not clear that, even with US aid, the Lon Nol government in 1973 could continue to effectively rule Cambodia, or even that it was effectively ruling Cambodia by the yardstick of greatly predominating the use of violence.

So, no, your suggestion that, from the perspective of US policy makers in 1973, it was clear that the Lon Nol regime was the only faction other the Khmer Rouge capable of ruling Cambodia—and that therefore opposition to continued funding of the Lon Nol regime can only be explained by hope for the dominion of the Khmer Rouge—or even that the Lon Nol regime remained at that time a faction capable of ruling Cambodia, is not, I would say, justified.

Golly gee, by cmdicely's titanic feat of logic, a good many antitrust findings will need to be reversesd, given some of those found to be monopolies were not, in fact, completely devoid of having other entities which provide the same goods and services.

The definition of "monopolize" in anti-trust law is, like many definitions in specific areas of law, a rather special and particular one codified in the law, and not relevant to the discussion here, which is not one of legality or matters related to business competition such that using the specific definition in anti-trust law outside of a legal setting would be, if not necessarily proper, at least remotely defensible.

Before you respond, however, cmdicely, perhaps you can tell me first what denotative meanings of words you choose to ignore, in favor of something which you create purely out of thin air, and refer to as an inference.

Will, why don't you stick with your new dishonest, inaccurate, and indefensible claims, rather than continuing to trot out old ones that are irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

noel, once again, will you at least pretend to read the thread? Where did I ever say that McGovern was responsible for the rise of the Khmer Rouge? In fact, I said precisely the opposite, by noting that when McGovern uttered his words, the Khmer Rouge was one of only two viable ruling entities, since only two could control enough violence to rule. They had risen already. Why on earth do you stupidly pretend that people have written precisley the opposite of what they did? Are you truly so dumb?

I see the stupidity has now infected cmdicely as well, in that he posits a situation in which Sihanouk constrains the Khmer Rouge. Who knows? Maybe cmdicely is dumb enough to have served on McGovern's staff. But who knows what cmdicely really thinks, since one cannot ever be sure which denotative meanings of words he has chosen to ignore, in favor of creating an "inference" out of thin air.

Gregory, if you are positing that McGovern was dumb enough to think that Sihanouk would control the Khmer Rouge, instead of the other way around, well, you aren't defending the 1972 Democratic Presidential Candidate in any way, shape, or form, for you are now arguing that McGovern was not too stupid to grasp what the nature of the Khmer Rouge was, and thus supported them, which is my assertion, but, rather, he was so titanically dumb that he understood what the nature of Khmer Rouge was, yet believed that the Sihanouk faction would prevail. Hell, you've just condemned McGovern more harshly than I ever dreamed of!

Mr. Moomaw, you apparently have confused the premise of what ended the Depression with whether or not what ended it was a sustainable phenomena. Reflect on this and get back to me.

Gregory, if you are positing...

What I'm positing, jackass, is that you misrepresented McGovern's words, and as is increasingly clear, you did it deliberately.

I think we're done, Will. You've discredited yourself more harshly than I ever dreamed of.

Yes, Gregory, I've misrepresented McGovern's words, if he is as truly, staggeringly, incomprehensibly, stupid as you assert he is. Do you really contend he is so dumb? Why have you chosen to be so unfairly critical of Senator McGovern?

I think we're done, Will. You've discredited yourself more harshly than I ever dreamed of.

The game is rigged. While we all have fun competing with each other as to who can rub Will's nose more deeply into his own shit, in the end Will always shows us all up by devouring it willingly.

Basically Will's message repeated ad nauseam is are 'blessed are the meek'. Will likes the guy who works at a minimum wage job who eats macaroni and cheese for dinner without complaining and has no health insurance. Of course, Will is totally against being that guy but will extends his great sympathy to that guy.

Russell, would you mind giving some indication what the hell you just wrote has to do with this thread? Is the peyote in season where you live?

In fact, I said precisely the opposite, by noting that when McGovern uttered his words, the Khmer Rouge was one of only two viable ruling entities, since only two could control enough violence to rule.

The key problem with this is that you fail to provide any reason to believe that at the time McGovern made this statement there was any reason to believe that the Lon Nol regime, which despite massive US aid and direct intervention by the US military was clearly not able to contain the growing power of the opposition, could, even with continued US support, "control enough violence"—or anything else for that matter—"to rule".

Gregory, if you are positing that McGovern was dumb enough to think that Sihanouk would control the Khmer Rouge, instead of the other way around, well, you aren't defending the 1972 Democratic Presidential Candidate in any way, shape, or form, for you are now arguing that McGovern was not too stupid to grasp what the nature of the Khmer Rouge was, and thus supported them, which is my assertion, but, rather, he was so titanically dumb that he understood what the nature of Khmer Rouge was, yet believed that the Sihanouk faction would prevail.

A belief that while clearly inaccurate in hindsight, seems to have been shared by many much closer to the situation and with much more at stake at the time, including numerous high officials of the Lon Nol regime that, with the opportunity to flee, chose not to since they weren't on the "death lists" being published and believed that the Sihanouk would moderate and constrain the Khmer Rouge.

Given how important Sihanouk's support seemed initially for the Khmer Rouge to spread its support among the populace, it doesn't seem to have been an unreasonable conclusion to have come to at the time; the mistake, I would suggest, was most likely in underestimating the degree to which the population was radicalized by the horrendous consequences of the US intervention, which made both the fall of the Lon Nol regime and its horrendous aftermath inevitable events that could not be constrained by any elites, and could only be delayed, and probably not for long, by further US support for the regime.

Irony alert.

Will wrote: would you mind giving some indication what the hell you just wrote has to do with this thread?

(Apologies to Gregory)

Yes, cmdicely, there may have been people in the Lon Nol regime as stupid as McGovern, if we are to believe your estimation of McGovern's utter idiocy. Meanwhile, anyone who paid the least bit of attention to the history of the previous few decades, and had a room temperature i.q., knew that Sihanouk's chances of constraining the people who controlled the guns approximated zero.

Oh, no, there was nothing the U.S. could do by 1975 to prevent the Cambodian genocide. Keep telling yourself that comforting lie.

Sadly, someone has already corrected Slick Willy's misrepresentation of his own assertions about McGovern. All that's left for me is to remind him that McGovern's comments about Cambodia's politics mirror Slick Willy's comments about the opposition to the candidate he has voted for at every opportunity. "The opposition wasn't capable of ruling" is Slick Willy's excuse for voting for the guy who started a war with no valid national security rationale. In other words, Slick Willy is McGovern to George Bush's Pol Pot. And the results are pretty similar to Willy's re-writing of history. A killing field.

Just a reminder, Willy, the topic is the inability of conservatives to get over battles they lost long ago. Nixon's bombing of Cambodia is the one factor without which none of this would be an issue.

Arguing about support for one side or another in the civil war is beside the point and basically unanswerable - there is no way to provide evidence that the other side would not have been worse (it may be unlikely, but you can't provide facts). What is answerable is what the root cause was for all of the violence. That answer is Nixon and his bombs. That’s a battle you lost long ago.

The truth is, no party has more to answer for in Cambodia than the warmonger party you continually vote into office.

I've misrepresented McGovern's words, if he is as truly, staggeringly, incomprehensibly, stupid as you assert he is. Do you really contend he is so dumb? Why have you chosen to be so unfairly critical of Senator McGovern?

No, jackass, you've misrepresented McGovern's words, period, full stop. There's no "full throated support" of the Khmer Rouge, as you claimed. You're simply lying, which is no more than we expect, and now doing a lot of sneering handwaving in a futile attempt to weasel out of the fact that you've been caught dead to rights, which again is familiar behavior. It's pathetic, Will, and you're fooling no one.

I've proved you wrong -- better yet, Will, you proved yourself wrong. That's gotta smart.

No, discussing the fact that a major political party's 1972 Presidential candidate stated, in 1975, that the side in a Cambodian civil war which had the vast majority of it's power derived from the Khmer Rouge had also the "most able" elements with which to run a government, is not beside the point. Now, it is true that I did not consider that McGovern was so astoundingly dumb as to think that Sihanouk would constrain the Khmer Rouge, but as I said above, that is a much more harsh assessment than I've ever made of McGovern.

I have to give to the participants in this forum; only they would mount a defense of one of their faction's Presdential nominees which amounted to saying, "Really, our guy was far, far, more stupid than you give him credit for. He was so dumb that it can barely be described!"

Will, we've already shown that your earlier claim that McGovern gave "full throated support" to the Khmer Rouge was bullshit; why do you imagine that your now claiming he was=s dumb carries any weight at all?

It's remarkably low of you that you mount such a dishonest attack in response to your having been proved a liar yet again. And you act all self-righteous -- feh!

"Irony alert: Will Allen asks I must inquire once again; are you mentally ill?"

LOL... It's his stock response when he's getting his butt handed to him. Personally, I loved his blatantly dishonest misrepresentation of McGovern's position, particularly in light of McGovern's actual comments.

Yes, Gregory, there is no full throated support for the Khmer Rouge, if I accept your characterization of McGovern as being the dumbest man to ever receive a major party Presidential nomination in American history; so dumb he makes the current occupant of the White House look like Lincoln. Now, I dodn't think a lot of McGovern, but he is a patriot, and I fail to understand why you judge him so harshly.

PaulB, what would you say about the mental stability of a person who professes to be utterly bored by another person, yet who voluntarily responds to that person on a nearly unceasing basis, as opposed to simply not looking at what the supposedly boring person has written? You folks are flat-out nutters!

Yes, Gregory, there is no full throated support for the Khmer Rouge, if I accept your characterization of McGovern ...

No, Will, there's no full throated support for the Khmer Rouge, period, full stop. No one needs to accept any characterizations for the fact that you lied to be obvious; particularly not those as dishonest as yours. You simply lied about McGovern's position and, as usual, you're smarting at having been caught.

McGovern never mentioned the Khmer Rouge in the speech you quoted (which itself, as I pointed out, was in itself far from the "full throated" support you claimed).

McGovern was, clearly, referring not to the Khmer Rouge but to the coalition led by the deposed Prince Shianouk.

And, of course, in your pathetic need to castigate Democrats in order to justify your support of Republicans, you've persistently and dishonestly refused to acknowledge the role the Nixon Administration and its illegal bombing campaign played in Cambodia's history, including the rise of the Khmer Rouge itself, choosing instead to paint McGovern's words as "full throated support" when they're plainly nothing of the kind.

One need not accept any of your qualifiers, excuses or characterizations to recognize that you're a liar, and a particularly dishonorable one at that. Shame on you.

McGovern never mentioned the Khmer Rouge in the speech you quoted (which itself, as I pointed out, was in itself far from the "full throated" support you claimed).

To be clear, that's the portion of the speech Will quoted here.

Yes, Gregory, and George McGovern was the most stupid man to ever receive a major party Presidential nomination, if he really thought that Sihanouk could constrain the Khmer Rouge. Why do you slander McGovern so? Furthermore what evidence do you have to support your slander?

I'll also simply note that you are lying once again, in that I clearly stated above that Nixon and Kissinger perpetrated tremendous harm upon the Cambodian people. Why do you lie so stupidly?

The American war criminals with respect to Cambodia in 1969, and the consequences from those actions, are Nixon and Kissinger, not George McGovern, and no amount of verbal back flips can or will ever change this most basic truth. None.

You would think that Slick Willy would know dumb and dishonest. But you would be wrong. That would require some introspection. The ability to think about what he posted is obviously far beyond his capabilities.

Willy, McGovern's contributions to the killing fields are dwarfed by Nixon's. Without Nixon there is no killing field. Talking about McGovern in this context only shows that you have an obsession with being wrong. It's as if you were pointing to a man pissing in the river and going - there's the source of the pollution - while ignoring the tons of effluent coming out of the sewer pipe. Stop lying.

Hey, Noel, you were the one who lied above by stating that I had claimed that McGovern's actions had led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge, when I actually stated just the opposite.

Max, apparently you are also too stupid to note that I clearly mentioned the great harm caused by Nixon and Kissinger. What is wrong with your cognitive processes that you cannot grasp the plain meaning of a few simple sentences?

"Tremendous Harm?" No you apologist for genocide. Nixon's bombing of Cambodia is the signature event. Nixon made the dough, Nixon cooked the soup, Nixon paved the road, Nixon created the map, Nixon bears not just the lion's share, but pretty much the full weight of American blame for Pol Pot.

This is just like those who try to redirect the conversation about Bush's unconscionable pardon of one of his aides by talking about other pardons whose only similarity is that they were granted by presidents.

The truth is, Cambodia revealed just how morally bankrupt the Republican Party was. The war on the Vietnamese should have been sufficient proof to anyone looking that the Republicans and those Democratic enablers like "Scoop" Jackson weren't interested in national security. No rational person (which, I guess explains Slick Willy here) could look at the incompetent execution of foreign policy by Republicans over the last four decades and see them as anything but failures.

Will. You're a sick man. Go lie down for a while. I hope you get better someday.

Yup, Will, I'm just a moron, alright. And now, I'm just too stupid, after having had time with some of my buds, a nice swim, some beers, looking at killer concert dvd's, and now having come home and done the last of the chores in order to get the kids off tomorrow morning and put in a full day's work in advance of our mini-vacation to the ocean, to now crawl into bed with my beautiful naked (alas, asleep) wife. Really, some people need to get lives.

Uh, Noel, in what form of English is saying that someone has done tremendous harm to a people a form of apology? Are you psychotic? Also, in case you missed it, 30,000 plus Americans had died in Indochina before the Republicans had any influence regarding policy in the region. You are an extremely strange person.

And, by the way, Slick Willy, we've already established that you did blame McGovern for the rise of the Khmer Rouge. I'm now bored of refuting your idiocy. Have a good night and put in the last word you dishonest shill for RNC talking points.

Hey, Max if you have a beautiful naked wife in bed, and you are posting to me, along with being unable to comprehend a few short sentences, you really are twisted.

Sorry, one last thing.

Just as talking about Clinton is an attempt to distract from Bush's failures, talking about McGovern is a way to distract from the Republican responsibility for Pol Pot.

As for Democrats who were responsible for slaughtering Vietnamese people? Where did you get the idea I said anything else? You've already expanded the discussion from your loony revisionism about FDR into McGovern, a guy who wasn't President. Now you want to get into why the Warmonger Party (never seen a war they didn't like) that you support (that's right, Slick Willy will vote for anyone who will kill non-Americans) at every turn? Piss off you thin skinned, thick witted old man.

Uh, no, noel. You are lying again. I clearly stated that by the time McGovern uttered his words, the Khmer Rouge had already risen to become one of the most powerful entities, if not the most powerful entity, in Cambodian society. Stop lying.

Gee I dunno, you moron, noel, when somebody writes something like this.....

"The war on the Vietnamese should have been sufficient proof to anyone looking that the Republicans and those Democratic enablers like "Scoop" Jackson weren't interested in national security"

....others might get the impression that the writer was not aware that it was the Democrats who were the primary architects, not the "enablers", who constructed the policy which resulted in the war in Vietnam. Sheesh, somebody could have their i.q. shrink by 20% merely by conversing with you.

Who cares what FDR did? That's beating a dead horse. Under our current President, Bush & Co. have created the largest government we've ever had, including Homeland Security, a mammoth bureaucracy, and incurred the largest federal deficit ever. So who is the person responsible for the greatest growth of government? George W. Bush, that's who.

Will Allen and noel, I lost my father in the Vietnam War. It ended in 1975. Today, we enjoy a thriving and mutually beneficial relationship with that country. Go to bed.

Max, apparently you are also too stupid to note that I clearly mentioned the great harm caused by Nixon and Kissinger.

Mr. Allen, you are a traitor and a fool. Stop pretending to be a Republican, sir, when you are clearly an escaped mental patient with a penchant for projection and for encouraging men to ignore their wives for the sake of posting on a silly blog thread.

Were there any justice at all in this country, America would tear down the FDR monument and smash it to bits. FDR brought this country perilously close to Communism, and it has taken decades to bring us back from the brink of his disasterous form of socialism.

Normie, I've never claimed to be a Republican, you dimwit. They are a tribe comprised every type of liar, fool, criminal, and charlatan, just like the tribe they oppose. Anyone who would feel a bond with such a group is barely fit for civil society.

Donald, I'm sorry you lost your father so early. Now stop being so pretentious as to tell other people what historical events they should discuss.

OC, because you can't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been.

Will, that's the joy of being married and not having to sleep with your head stuck up your ass; she's there last night, the night before, tonight, the night after. It works like that.

Yancey Ward wrote:

"The New Deal did not end the Depression."

Err, no.

"Why is that?"

Because you don't know the GDP statistics (or, more charitably, have been only looking at the nominal figures, which are misleading because of the wrenching deflation during Hoover). GDP growth averaged 8%/yr. from 1934-1940. Even St. Ronnie couldn't manage that in any single one of his years in office.

Real GDP grew to over pre-crash levels by 1936. There was a reason most US citizens loved FDR.

Egbert
"Also, did you know that the New Deal did nothing to solve the Depression, but merely made it worse? The only thing that pulled us out of the Depression was WWII."

Real GDP (in 1929 dollars) was:

1933: $68 billion
1940: $112 billion

So, a ~60% increase in GDP wasn't a recovery, but was "making it worse", eh egbert?

Yes, cmdicely, there may have been people in the Lon Nol regime as stupid as McGovern, if we are to believe your estimation of McGovern's utter idiocy.

Aside with whether or not it is "utter idiocy", there were clearly numerous of the highest ranking officials in his regime that thought as described.

If it was utter idiocy, as you claim, it is yet another piece of evidence against your claim that, even with US support, the Lon Nol regime had the capacity to rule Cambodia (on top of their progressively increasing failure to do so.)

It it was not utter idiocy but instead a reasonable belief, it weighs against your claim that that McGovern would have been unjustified believing it.

Seems to me it is lose-lose for your argument.

No, discussing the fact that a major political party's 1972 Presidential candidate stated, in 1975, that the side in a Cambodian civil war which had the vast majority of it's power derived from the Khmer Rouge had also the "most able" elements with which to run a government, is not beside the point.

By your definition of capacity to predominate in the application of violence as the sine qua non of ability to run a government, that, of the Cambodian factions, the Khmer Rouge itself had the greatest capacity there was a rational conclusion in 1972 and eminently clear in 1975, both as a present fact and a fact that had been true, in hindsight, in 1972.

So what's your beef?

Gee, I dunno, cmdicely, maybe because using the capacity to deliver violence to kill a third of the population is not, ya' know, actually the "most able" use of that capacity? Lemme know if you have any other questions.

Yeah, the Lon Nol government, with U.S. aid, may not have been able to resist the Khmer Rouge anyways. However, given that the only even minimally credible alternative to the Khmer Rouge gaining power was the Lon Nol government maintaining control via U.S. aid, assuming one wasn't so monumentally stupid as to think that Sihanouk, without any real military capability at all, could constrain the Khmer Rouge, it was would have been, well, gee, kinda' nice if a 1972 major party candidate hadn't said in the well of the Senate in 1975 that what was likely to succeed the Lon Nol government would be the "most able" elements of Cambodian society. Assuming, of course, ol' George was not referring to being most able to carry out a titanic mass murder.

Happy to help you out with this.

As someone who does not like FDR's socialist domestic policies, I'm glad he was president in 1933 too. That's mostly because he was also President in 1941. With the exception of his Stalin-coddling, he was (without doubt) the man for the job during WW2.

Brian, please provide truthful examples of "Stalin coddling." Try to remember that at the height of the Allied war in North Africa, U.S. and British forces were engaged in all of six German divisions, while over yonder in the East, the Soviets were engaged in 180 German divisions. Oh and Yalta, that favorite right-wing cannard: None of the three major demands the Soviets made were accepted; the one thing we wanted we got; the Soviets always regarded the treaties as defeats. You should see the letters FRD wrote in April '45, including his last day alive.

Well, as I said, I think FDR was a well above- average President, but that isn't enough for the hagiographers. Even the smallest critique is met with religous fury (I diasgree with Stalin-coddling rhetoric, btw), usually reserved for insults to deities.

Will, if you had your iq shrunk by 20% it would be freezing on a Celsius scale. The Democratic Party picked McGovern in order to end the war on Vietnam. The Democratic Party made it clear that they didn't support Johnson and he stepped aside in 1968. It was the dirty fucking hippies that made up the Democratic Party that were chanting "Hey, Hey, LBJ, How many kids did you kill today?"

If your i.q. could melt a block of ice you would know that. The Republicans wanted Vietnam enough to vote in the guy who made Pol Pot possible. You are still defending Nixon by your constant talk about people whose effects were raindrops in the ocean of damage done by Richard Nixon.

You really need to be seen by a mental health professional. Perhaps it will finally allow you to come to your senses about your continual support for brutal thugs who murder people in your name.

FDR had deep flaws, chief among them his pettiness. Ask the heirs to Henry (reported last words, "It's time, life.") Luce, whom FDR revoked his passport over some minor thing. Dresden, not graping the Holocaust, internment of the Japanese Americans . . .

Well, Republicans, are well on their way to forming the same sort of cult of personality in regards to Reagan. It is an unfortunately common attribute of the tribally inclined.

"Uh, no, the "Free Marketplace" did not get us into the Depression,"

Guess who's never heard of Say's Law.

"unless you consider a Central Bank's restriction on money supply"

Will, even Friedman did not blame the Fed for getting us into the Depression. He argued that the Fed did not do enough to ameliorate the Depression, but not that the Fed *caused* the Depression. (Some economists have argued the change in the velocity of money was so acute that the Fed couldn't have reflated the economy sufficiently.)

Recent work by Eichengreen has suggested that the Gold Standard widened the effects of the Stock market crash across borders. In that way, FDR's random walk with the Gold Standard was a Good Thing, 'cos the Barbarous Relic was a Cross of Gold on our backs.

"and trade legislation by Congress to be aspects of a "Free Marketplace"."

Will, in what parallel universe do you not have a Central Bank restr of money supply? Even pegging the value of money to a commodity or another currency is a restriction of money supply.

"Even the smallest critique [of FDR] is met with religous fury"

You're a fearless slayer of straw men, Will.

The reason some of us get peeved with criticism of FDR is because it is often a heroic exercise in cherrypicking. Jim Powell of Cato wrote a book book-length history criticizing FDR's economic policy without mentioning the real GDP growth numbers under FDR once. Go ahead, get Powell's book out of the library and try to find a table of GDP numbers, or find GDP in the index.

It's a pretty amazing effort to write an economic history of a decade without umm, discussing the single most significant metric of the economy.

Sock Puppet, I made no representation regarding the correct way to manage money supply. Will you at least argue with what I actually wrote? I merely said that there was nothing about "The Free Marketplace" that caused the Great Depression. What does the gold standard have to do with "The Free Marketplace"?

If you want to delineate between "caused" and "failed to ameliorate", well, go right ahead.

As to alleged strawmen, look above in this thread regarding how I was denounced for merely describing FDR as "well above average". Sheesh, you woulda' thought I had taken a bulldozer to the FDR memorial.

Why, Slick Willy, do you demand that others respond only to what you write? It isn't as if that were a courtesy you extend to anyone else.

Hey, Noel, perhaps you just repeat your lie again regarding what I wrote about the Khmer Rouge's rise, and McGovern's actions? Why state a lie only twice, when you can do it a third time?

Pay attention to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Back to FDR, the greatest president of the Twentieth Century (a fact generally acknowledged by maybe most Republicans), may I recommend, if you can find a copy, The Solder of Freedom (1970), by James McGregor Burns. His earlier iteration, The Lion and the Fox (1956, I think) is also excellent and in print last I saw. For my money, it is certainly one of the best reads, and really puts into context what was going on with Churchill, Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, etc. Among many FDR buffs, it's a fave.

Slick Willy, why are you talking about McGovern?

"Sock Puppet, I made no representation regarding the correct way to manage money supply. Will you at least argue with what I actually wrote? I merely said that there was nothing about "The Free Marketplace" that caused the Great Depression.

Because, Will, you're making a stronger claim than Friedman or Schwartz made in 1963 (Friedman's later statements): they argued the Fed potentiated the decline, not caused. Later economists, like Eichengreen, have argued that deflation was inevitable. Plus, as industrial production slumped by 15% *before* the decline in monetary supply, it's hard to blame the Fed alone for the decline.

The post and comments do not address the point of Will's column. It is that a certain political class wants to grow the federal government for its own sake and has often used scare tactics or demagoguery to create government programs that never, EVER complete their mission. Remember all the media hand-wringing when Reagan eliminated the Civil Aeronautics Board? You would have thought he was closing Congress.

The other relevant point is that Roosevelt used a compliant Supreme Court to expand the Constitution's commerce clause so perversely as to now make every single political issue a federal concern. The founders never intended it this way, but now no court will effectively challenge this because it is "precedent".

You can (like me) believe that FDR did his best under a national emergency in the interest of helping hurting people. But you can also appreciate, with the benefit of hindsight, that many of these programs did not work and in fact fostered the federal behemoth we have today.

If you look at some histories of the early 1930s you will find it amazing how many people were literally "waving the bloody shirt" over the possibility of FDR's election. The Civil War then was nearly as far in their past as the New Deal is in ours.

And TMC ran a cute little short recently about how wonderful inflation was, from back in the early 1930s. It was sold as part of the recovery program.