CAREFUL WHAT YOU HOPE FOR:

Disappointed Obama isn't FDR? Let's remember the real deal about the New Deal.: High on hope, supporters heralded Obama as the new FDR. Two years later, many feel disillusioned. But FDR's actual record puts today's gripes about Obama into perspective. (Charles Dorn, October 15, 2010, CS Monitor)

In 1941, even after the Works Progress Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the Lend-Lease Act put Americans back to work, unemployment stood at 9.9 percent – higher than it is now. FDR's New Deal didn't restore the economy; World War II did.

Take the second claim, that FDR vanquished the fascists – the geopolitical Enemy No. 1 of their time. Well, yes, he did. However, he only succeeded in doing this by striking a deal with Joseph Stalin – a murderous dictator in his own right – and allowing the Soviet Union to absorb atrocious losses on the eastern front. By the war’s end, the United States had suffered approximately 600,000 casualties, overwhelmingly military. The Soviet Union? Over 25 million, more than half of them civilian.

And your grandmother wasn't "unemployed".

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 19, 2010 6:01 AM