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Roosevelt did admit to experimenting with the US economy. He and his friends didn't have a clue what they were doing and it was all trial and error, mostly error.

This quote from an Atlantic article is undoubtedly what Obama is referring to in his self comparison to FDR.

But President Roosevelt is the first statesman in a great capitalist society who has sought deliberately and systematically to use the power of the state to subordinate the primary assumptions of that society to certain vital social purposes. He is the first statesman deliberately to experiment on a wholesale scale with the limitation of the profit-making motive. He is the first statesman, again in a wholesale way, to attack not the secondary but the primary manifestations of the doctrine of laissez faire. He is the first statesman who, of his own volition, and without coercion, either direct or indirect, has placed in the hands of organized labor a weapon which, if it be used successfully, is bound to result in a vital readjustment of the relative bargaining power of Capital and Labor. He is also the first statesman who, the taxing power apart, has sought to use the political authority of the state to compel, over the whole area of economic effort, a significant readjustment of the national income.

No unbiased spectator of the adventure involved can withhold his admiration for the courage such an effort has implied. Success or failure, it bears upon its face the hallmarks of great leadership. Improvised in haste, devised under the grim pressure of crisis, imposed, as no doubt it has been imposed, in an atmosphere of panic and bewilderment, it stands out in remarkable, even significant, contrast to the economic policy of any other capitalist government in the world. Compared, for example, with the unimaginative activity of the British Government, -which rode to power on a wave of kindred enthusiasm,—it is an exhilarating spectacle.

Holy crap, Obama just admited to experimenting with America. Then said like Roosevelt.

He did!

I heard it and got a chill.

So did I.

Mags & AG, Did you catch this?

Exact quote:

"And the truth is it will take more than a few years to solve challenges that have built up over decades. It will require common effort and shared responsibility, and the kind of bold, persistent experimentation that Franklin Roosevelt pursued during the only crisis worse than this one."

Otherwise, this is a grandiose stump speech--- a platform he has no intentions of fulfilling. Just a flood of words.