Say Anything Blog

Neither comparison is warranted.

During live coverage of Barack Obama’s inauguration at 9:30AM on Tuesday, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric spoke to historian Douglas Brinkley, who observed: “And it reminds me of Franklin Roosevelt in March of 1933 in this regard, I mean the economy was in tatters, Herbert Hoover was an unpopular president, President Bush is not very popular, and he was able to galvanize people with his speech, FDR, move the nation, you know to have nothing—you know, to fight for all of the civil rights and to start pushing forward the hundred days of the New Deal. And so you see the echoes of that.” On the January 11 Sunday Morning program, Brinkley declared Bush in the “...the very bottom-rung of American Presidents.”

Brinkley’s comment was prompted by Couric remarking: “...a confluence of events that will make him perhaps one of the most powerful presidents in history. It’s hard to predict an administration and how successful it will be, but he really is starting off things in an enviable position, isn’t he?” Later, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer shared his thoughts on that point: “But the interesting thing, Katie, is when we stop and think about it, our greatest presidents have always come to us during the worst of times. If history’s any guide, the pieces are in place here for the making of a great president.” On Monday’s Early Show, Schieffer compared Obama to Abraham Lincoln.

First of all, we are not on the verge of another Great Depression.  So trying to cast Bush in the role of an economically inept Hoover, and Obama in the role as the nation’s tax-and-spend savior, is just absurd.

Second, while FDR’s economic policies were misguided and ultimately prolonged the depression the country was going through during his administration, on foreign policy at least the man had the cojones to use America’s power to fight evil in the world.

Something Obama is lacking.  Obama may want to play the role of FDR, going about the country and throwing our tax dollars about on things like government make-work programs to employ the unemployed, but he isn’t fit to carry FDR’s shoes.  At least on foreign policy.

But he’s going to take a stab at re-creating FDR’s economic policies.  And that’s something this country can’t afford right now.