Posted on 06/08/2004 6:19:25 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Was Roosevelt a good president?
Posted: June 8, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Condoleeza Rice said in a newspaper interview last week that President Bush will some day rank in leadership history alongside Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.
Which begs the question: Was Roosevelt a good president?
If Roosevelt is George W. Bush's model for leadership, his first term begins to make sense.
Roosevelt led the nation through World War II and certainly contributed to the defeat of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan – for which we should all be thankful.
However, Roosevelt also arguably presided over the creation of more unconstitutional domestic action by the federal government than any of his modern predecessors. As such, he remains the hero of modern-day socialists and an icon for today's Democratic Party extremists.
Is that what Bush wants to be remembered for?
If so, he must give himself extremely high marks. Yes, he has ably led the nation in the war on terrorism. But his administration has also given us unprecedented domestic spending increases.
Perhaps Rice and Bush should also be reminded that while Churchill provided great leadership of the United Kingdom in World War II, he was quickly turned out of office at the war's conclusion.
My guess is Bush will be turned out of office long before American achieves a victory in the war on terrorism. So, perhaps there is some validity to that comparison as well.
Notice that Rice did not compare Bush to a more recent popular Republican, two-term president – Ronald Reagan. Perhaps she understood that such a comparison would be laughable to too many Americans – especially those Bush still hopes to win over before Election Day.
"Statesmanship has to be judged first and foremost by whether you recognize historic opportunities and seize them," Rice said in an interview with Cox Newspapers.
I would agree. But I would not agree that Bush has met the challenge.
He came into office with Republicans controlling the House of Representatives and Senate. He saw that control strengthened in mid-term elections in 2002. Yet he governed like a Democrat – expanding spending for the Department of Education and other agencies the GOP once swore to eliminate.
"When you think of statesmen, you think of people who seized historic opportunities to change the world for the better, people like Roosevelt, people like Churchill, and people like Truman, who understood the challenges of communism. And this president has been an agent of change for the better – historic change for the better," said Rice.
Roosevelt and Truman understood the challenges of communism? Who does she think gave us Alger Hiss? And who does she think sold Chiang Kai-Shek down the Yangtze River?
Until I read this interview, I had an extraordinary amount of respect for Rice's intellectual achievements and her understanding of history. No longer. But it gets worse.
It was Bush, she said, who first recognized "that it was time to stop mumbling about the need for a Palestinian state" and spoke out in favor of a two-state solution to the decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict.
Indeed he did – one of the foreign policy tragedies of his administration. In fact, he has retreated from that position recently, suggesting there was no longer any rush to create a Palestinian state. And why should we want to create a new Middle East state that was founded on terrorism? Why should we support a state whose official policy is "no Jews allowed"? Why should we want to continue to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results?
Does Rice really believe all she said in this interview? Or is she just being a good political soldier? It's hard to know for sure.
But now I know why the Bush administration has achieved so little in four years. Apparently, from the get-go, it never had the right goals.
Worth repeating. Small-government conservatives -- that phrase should be redundant but, these days, I'm not so sure -- need not apply.
In the popular memory (fed by the media, and also, sadly by many who lived through FDR's administration) he is considered a good president. Historical fact speaks a bit differently.
The Great Depression was more than an economic crisis, it was a psychological blow to the US. Although Hoover (a much maligned individual, and wrongly so) had attempted some Keynesian efforts (something many history classes, not mine, though, ignore), what Hoover did was too little, too late. Hoover rightly feared "creeping socialism" and never went full bore as Roosevelt did with the New Deal.
The New Deal was as much about psychology as it was about trying to get people back to work. Programs such as the PWA, the CCC and the WPA had an impact, but other programs such as the NRA (National Recovery Administration) were both worthless and unconstitutional. Roosevelt's court packing scheme (which led to his losing states in the 1940 elections, as well as his unprecedented run for a third term) was indicative of a lust for power which is singularly Democrat.
Now begs the question, "Would Wendell Wilkie have been as good a wartime president as Roosevelt?" Who knows? Roosevelt was at least smart enough to leave the conduct of the War to his generals and admirals (thank God for George Marshall, Hap Arnold, Douglas MacArthur and Curtis LeMay...among others), and not micromanage the War as LBJ so disastrously did 20 years later. Roosevelt's foreign policy was disgustingly pro-Soviet, and grew more so during the war years, primarily at the prodding of his VP, Henry Wallace (who himself ran as a basically Communist candidate in 1948). Roosevelt also made a major blunder in not committing adequate resources to the Pacific Theater during the War as part of the "Hitler First" strategy. The fact that the Japanese were whupped by American forces using inadequate equipment is testament as much to the skill and tenacity of the American fighting man as it is to the incompetance of Japanese military and political leadership.
Basically, was FDR a good president can be answered in this way: Yes and no. Domestically he did some good, but at a terrible cost to our economic and personal liberties. In foreign policy, he made good choices in who commanded the troops in war, but his diplomatic decisions paved the way for nearly fifty years of Cold War against the Soviets.
Ironically, it took a former Roosevelt Democrat to end Roosevelt's Cold War.
Thank you, Ronald Reagan.
FDR made the great depression great. His policies worsened the economic situation and made the depression last much longer than it would have otherwise. If you want to look at who ended the depression, look to Japan and people like Tojo and Yamamoto
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Well if you say Lincoln and FDR are the worst presidents (and you may have a point there considering that one fought secession and the other ushered in the Cold War), you are inadvertently raising the stature of the men they succeeded: the unpopular James Buchanan and the more unpopular Herbert Hoover.
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Unpopular yes, but did they do as much deep harm to the rule of Constitutional law in America? FDR's "temporary" socialist programs are still a drain on our vitality, and lincoln's "Henry Clay" federalism set the stage.
I don't think that there is enough evidence to suggest that Roosevelt "engineered" or "had advance knowledge of" the attack on Pearl Harbor. Everybody expected the attack to hit the Philippines. Japanese war planning initially focused on taking the Philippines & Guam and then setting a naval ambush for the US Battlefleet. The US War Plan Orange (Japan) focused on 'relieving' Filipino forces by naval resupply. Adm. Yamamoto turned the Japanese strategy on its head by attacking Pearl Harbor first, and in great secrecy.
And don't tell me that we were reading Japanese naval codes, because we weren't at this point. We had broken the Japanese diplomatic key, which is entirely different.
If I'm not mistaken, Roosevelt was Secretary of the Navy during WW1 and helped engineer the successful German attack on the Lusitania, with the connivance of Churchill, in order to accomplish the same thing he did at Pearl Harbor in WW2.
Where'd you get this? The U-boat that sank the Lusitania was by itself and had 1 torpedo left. She was getting ready to leave the patrol area to head home and, by chance, caught a glimpse of the Lusitania emerging from a fog bank. The German skipper later said that he didn't think that a single torpedo was enough to sink such a large ship.
The point here is that, while FDR may have allowed munitions to be shipped on the Lusitania, he couldn't have passed the ships position onto the German Navy. If he had, the Germans would have had more than a single U-Boat on station that was down to its last shot.
Now, if you want to say that FDR 'provoked' the Japanese by embargoing Steel, Rubber & Texas Crude, I might go along with that.
Hmmm, pining for the presidency of James Buchanan are you?
ARF! I'd be hard pressed to leave this country even if it was being run by a horned devil. Better to stay and die trying to save it!
NO
Neither one.
I was reading "My American Life" by President Reagan and he indicated in talks with FDR's son that FDR had intended the programs to be temporary. My take on what President Reagan wrote is that he believed that as well.
Puddleglum, this mantra has already been used UNSUCCESSFULLY. Some supporters of GHWB used the slogan "Annoy the Media: Reelect Bush" in 1992. The result: the popular "Bill" Clinton.
Shoot, you're right! Back to brainstorming...
"Either he was too friendly with Stalin or he didn't correctly percieve how evil he was. This mistake is a large black mark against him and pulls him down off the "greatest list.""
You are onto something here; but I would go farther.
FDR was pink through and through, and had a dozen or more Communist sympathizers as advisers. He admired and supported Stalin, and instituted aid to the USSR (equipment, advisors) before we were at war, and in variance with the desires of the American people (and his promises to them, to keep the USA out of the war) and against America's neutrality law/position.
His choice for VP in his final Presidential run was a Communist sympathizer by the name of Harry Wallace (I am struggling to remember the name, something like that?). The Democratic Senators balked at that, and went to FDR and basically said "No Way" -- that is how Truman got on the ticket; and Thank God for that!
His call for the Unconditional Surrender of Germany is inexplicable, leading to millions of more deaths, and the handing over of Eastern Europe to Stalin. Eisenhower and Dulles advised FDR to accept Rommel's behind the scenes negotiations to surrender the entire Western front! FDR refused. His plan for Germany was the Morgenthau plan, under which Germany would be turned into a pastoral country with no industry, much less arms. THE MORGENTHAU PLAN IS ONE REASON THE GERMAN PEOPLE AND ORDINARY FORCES FOUGHT AS LONG AS THEY DID. And FDR left them NO out except unconditonal surrender and hence, acceptance of the Morgenthau plan.
He refused to work with the brave German resistance, which, according to Wm. Casey's book (recall, Casey was Reagan's CIA director) could have ended the war BEFORE the bloody Normandy invasion.
Frankly I am SICK of conservatives calling FDR a great president! Hannity, Rush, too. Read some history, guys! Don't swallow the conventional liberal propaganda about FDR! Enough time has passed for a critical historical assessment- and there are books out there which do. Geesh! Should I go on? ;)
That's true. Sorry.
LBJ was a blight as well but Carter truly tried to undermine everything that made America great. I wrote this a minute ago.
Ping yall.
My Life in Tens
I was born in fifty-four,
Dwight D was the man.
I turned ten as LBJ,
Showed he had no plan.
Twenty came as Nixon sat,
There in the oval room.
Thirty was a shining time,
As Reagan cleared the gloom.
Forty was a scary time,
Bill and Hill did rein.
Fifty came with hope renewed,
Bush Forty Three is sane.
I have seen the ups and downs,
My faith was never lost.
Yes the bad comes with the good,
It’s figured in the cost.
Conspiracy Guy 6/8/2004
bravo!
If F.D.R. being good was giving handouts to people experiencing borderline starvation, then he was just barely O.K.. F.D.R. had a lot of baggage (including his own personal disability) and his kids. His kids were like Billie Carter without the Billie Beer.
The best thing about F.D.R. was his wife, who put up with his philandering and still stood out as an honorable person.
That's opposed to Hillary Clinton who put up with the same philandering by her husband and is viewed by most as a disgusting person.
Wow. That's pretty much what I would have written. He patched the boat when we didn't have the ability to fix it more permenently, then the Democommies said: "Hey, we like this patching business, the sheeple will follow us anywhere this way..."
Patches to the National boat won't hold, unless you keep patching. I really don't think FDR meant things to turn out the way they have.
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