The Great Debate

I apologize for not weighing in on the top generals debate, it's certainly a worthy endeavour. I've simply been wickedly busy.

However, Jambo text me today to see if I had read Titus' "worst presidents" post. I had. But, as I informed him (in subsequent texts and a phone call), I had a reluctance to enter into this infamous 5 list because within 3 posts I think it will turn into a fight over New Deal, and I have a schedule to keep over the next 2 weeks (ha). My list is as follows: Wilson, Jackson, FDR, Grant and Carter. I could see substituting Nixon for Grant, so I'll allow myself to give Tricky Dick an honorable mention. By the way, as an aside, I'm sure you'll have something to say over my inclusion of Andrew Jackson. I'm ready for it. Subsequent research on the man tells me I've earned that scolding (the guy was really, really bad). I can only review so many "kill orders" before I must concede that argument. Although I did consider listing him amongst the top ten American Generals. At any rate, back to the matter at hand ...

Now let me say first, I completely get Jambo's inability to separate FDR's WWII triumphs with his domestic failures (Jambo is much more likely, at this point, to call New Deal an economic failure). And in that sense, the WWII accomplishments were so great, so vast, that they are enough to not only remove him from the bottom 5, but possibly place him in the top 5. I'm being sincere here when I say I totally understand that sentiment, that reasoning. If THAT line of noodling this out is how you keep FDR off the bottom list, I can sleep at night. I just disagree. Actually, my argument is much the same, only in the other direction. I can't separate out FDR's mammoth domestic failures from his successes as a Commander-in-Chief. I think he was so bad, that he so fundamentally redefined the relationship of the individual with government, that I can not allow the great success of WWII to sway me, especially given (and this is a dangerous "what if" game which has no end) that any VP successor or even Republican isolationist would have responded similarly to Pearl Harbor. I can see giving the following concession in Jambo's case - absolute winner at war, absolute failure at home, lets give him a "C." That's what happens when you combine an A and an F, right?

Now to my point on FDR, Titus, and myself. Here's where I am at. I can pull months, upon years (at this point) of posts in which Titus tears apart President Obama at the seams. Ripping him for failures, misguided ideology, inept policy, and bad legislation. And they have all come from a "conservative/small government" point of attack. Which leads me to this ...

My desire all along, a "victory" for me in the New Deal debate, was to get you (Titus) to concede that "overall" New Deal was a failure, and that top down government initiatives as a response to economic crisis are fundementally doomed to fail. You have refused me that victory. You have (I'm condensing your defense, obviously) continually cited what I have come to call your "up-tick of key indicators" argument. In response, I have noted that those indicators went in a positive direction (which wasn't always the case) despite New Deal, not because of it. And my key argument (also condensed) was the sharp 1938 recession, when congress removed the government tit (as it were) and demanded the budget be balanced, things fell apart - a clear sign (to me) that whatever success was enjoyed, it was a house of cards built on a premise that could not possibly be sustained (continued government spending). Now that I've set the table for our millions and millions of devoted readers (now wouldn't THAT be a just world!), my question is this:

How can you rip Obama's policies and legislative initiatives, yet defend FDR's? I can offer the same positive indicators in unemployment, the stock market, home sales, foreclosures, etc. Does that make Obama a "success?" Let me put it another way. I contend that FDR was much more radical than Obama. Obama has GITMO and scolding the Supreme Court in a SoTU address. FDR had internment camps of thousands of US citizens and a court packing scheme that almost cost him the job (I know that's not economic policy, necessarily, I'm establishing who's the more radical chief executive). Under FDR the overall policy approach to the economic crisis was much more ambitious, much more sweeping, and considerably more fundamental than Obama's. Obama hasn't even come close to articulating a second Bill of Rights. In every measurable way - apart from an open hostility to Christianity - the two men are cut from the same ideological cloth. However, if you compare the two administrations, FDR makes Barry look like a piker in terms of wielding executive authority and acting on his collectivist ideology. FDR socialized retirement planning (in essence). Is that any less essential than health care? My point is this - FDR redefined the role of government in the individual's life. It was he that made possible LBJ's Great Society, and now Obamacare. Obama is the third, watered down, light version of FDR. So if you are such a staunch defender of New Deal (or FDR economic policy in general to the point of rating it a "success"), then shouldn't your beef with Obama be that he hasn't gone far enough? Or (I'll offer another out that allows for consistency), shouldn't you be praising Obama for affecting key indicators in a positive direction without having to go nearly as far as FDR?

Let me conclude with this: I know, I know, they were responding to two different crisis. I get that. But what we're discussing here is whether top down, massive government policy initiatives are a "successful" means of combating a national economic crisis. So, if New Deal was an overall "success" in curbing the Great Depression, shouldn't you be advocating a second New Deal to cure the Great Recession? If it curbed the former then surely it could obliterate the latter. The way I see it, to maintain consistency of thought, you must either conclude that New Deal was an abject failure, or stop describing Obama that way - unless your problem with Obama is that he has not gone far enough (and your posts of the last 3 years will not allow for that).

You can't decry that approach (and the ideology which dictates it) as fundamentally unworkable and barren of positive results ... except for the 1930's. In other words, you simply can't have it both ways.