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[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Joe

It's important to note when evaluating the Roosevelt Presidency and drawing loose comparisons, that in the end, the Great Depression came to a close, and WWII was won.

Of course, comparisons are always flawed. Every instance is unique. A bit of strategy may be learned from a previous similarity, but insistence that exactly the same remedies for what is not exactly the same reality will lead to imperfect solutions that will be resolved by seeing what is new, what is different. I was, mostly, being tongue in cheek with my "comparison" of Obama's tactics to Roosevelt's--especially the part about letting loose the hounds. I certainly hope that Obama isn't EXACTLY following FDR's solution as some are suggesting. The similarities are, though, a little scary.

Rather than the New Deal, getting into the war and winning it was, perhaps, Roosevelt's best accomplishment. His withdrawal from the aftermath, the willingness to let Stalin have Eastern Europe, was, probably his worst.

The scope of those challenges was unfathomable. Interesting that people are still arguing the merits of FDR. There was no free-market solution to the Great Depression.

If the scope was unfathomable, then no strategy could be rational. Any plan to solve the unknown is merely throwing wet noodles on a wall and seeing which will stick. Hope that is not happening now. Hindsight may allow us to theorize what went wrong and what went right. The hindsight of many economists, certainly free-market economists, Austrian school economists, believe that allowing "the market" to correct itself would have been a quicker fix (perhaps more painful in the short run) than government intervention that tried to soften the blow.

Arguing merits does become a domain of historians. Analyzing a situation in its midst is fraught with the immediate, emotional and political arguments seeking to gain the turf. The calmer reflection of disinterested analysts is more useful. An example would be how Reagan was, during his presidency, viewed as a disaster, but now, historians place him somewhere in the the top ten.