34 Comments

1. Simon Hawkin:

What Obama can learn from FDR is that what is important for him is not what he is doing but what he is reported doing. And he knows that already.

Jul 2, 2009 - 7:12 am 2. Henry Bowman:

Not only did FDR not get us out of the Great Depression, but the conventional wisdom that WWII jerked the country of the the Depression is also incorrect, as Robert Higgs has nicely demonstrated. The U.S. did not shake its economic malaise until 1946.

Jul 2, 2009 - 7:24 am 3. RKV:

Obama learned from FDR that a President can, with the help of the state run media, cynically run the economy into the ground for purposes of political power. It keeps those who have jobs afraid, and makes the beggars dependent on the gummint. Punish your enemies and reward your campaign contributors, and call it economic recovery (aka TARP). We’re getting fascism folks, which is a variant of socialism. There will still be (nominal) capitalism, but the government will get to make all the important decisions, based on political considerations.

Jul 2, 2009 - 7:47 am 4. Jeff Mitchell:

He’d be much better off to learn from Reagan, but I’m not holding my breath…

Jul 2, 2009 - 7:47 am 5. Rhod:

Roger, dying nation? A reference to the coda of “Hair”? It didn’t make sense in 1968, but it does now.

Jul 2, 2009 - 7:49 am 6. Lightnin' Hopkins:

“Now what?”

Further dismantling of America’s institutions and economy, “higher than expected” unemployment (thanks AP! love, Barry), more and more taxation, higher energy costs, inflation, continued strangling of business and private sector innovation, potential food shortages (if any version of cap and trade becomes law, thus demonizing fertilizers), and so on.

We suck. We’re wrong. We’re greedy. “I” will change all of this with my magical powers; Behold!

Jul 2, 2009 - 7:52 am 7. Jimmitude:

Time mag hasn’t been relevant since Iran had a Shah. The MJ focus is about what I’d expect, since there’s, you know, not much of anything else going on in the world (Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, NK, Honduras notwithstanding.) Plus, MJ is big news, just watch CNN and you’ll see!

As for the July 6 story, I’d love to see a rundown of what Barack could learn from FDR, but I expect the story will actually note how similar Barack’s approach is to FDRs, showing he has learned nothing (except for Mr. Hawkin’s (1) excellent observation.)

Jul 2, 2009 - 7:55 am 8. MarkJ:

I think Messrs. Rado and Ragni must have looked into their crystal orbs beforing writing this tune in 1967:

We starve-look
At one another
Short of breath
Walking proudly in our winter coats
Wearing smells from laboratories
Facing a dying nation
Of moving paper fantasy
Listening for the new told lies
With supreme visions of lonely tunes

Somewhere
Inside something there is a rush of
Greatness
Who knows what stands in front of
Our lives
I fashion my future on films in space
Silence
Tells me secretly
Everything
Everything

Manchester England England
Manchester England England
(Eyes look your last)
Across the Atlantic Sea
(Arms take your last
embrace)
And I’m a genius genius
(And lips oh you the
doors of breath)
I believe in God
(Seal with a righteous kiss)
And I believe that God believes in Claude
(Seal with a righteous kiss)
That’s me, that’s me, that’s me
(The rest is silence,
The rest is silence,
The rest is silence)

Singing our space songs on a spider web sitar
Life is around you and in you
Answer for Timothy Leary, dearie

Let the sunshine
Let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine
Let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine
Let the sunshine in
The sun shine in…

Jul 2, 2009 - 7:56 am 9. Blind Willie Johnson:

Don’t go encouraging BHO to delve into FDR’s methods or we’ll end up with fifteen Supreme Court Justices.

Jul 2, 2009 - 7:59 am 10. Gerald P. Hanner:

FDR did not improve things for the future. He installed a form of socialism, i.e., the Social Security System, that is running out of other people’s money. Who is going to take the fall when that, the greatest Ponzi scheme goes down? It ain’t gonna be politicians. No jail time there for anyone. Nosiree.

Jul 2, 2009 - 8:15 am 11. Richard Nieporent:

What Barack Obama Can Learn from FDR.

Obviously to be President for Life. Of course he can also learn that from his new friend, Hugo Chavez.

Jul 2, 2009 - 9:05 am 12. peterike:

Obama knows exactly what FDR knew. If you buy off enough constituencies, you win. You can buy them with cash, you can buy them with promises, you can buy them with cool, and you can buy them with feel-good propaganda and PC moral superiority (hip urban dwellers). Nothing got better in America, yet FDR continued to get re-elected.

And, of course, you can load up on fake votes (ACORN) and, as we’ll see soon, you can legalize 20 or 30 million new Obama voters with the stroke of a pen. That’s next.

Jul 2, 2009 - 9:11 am 13. NahnCee:

I have decided that the media — TV news, newspapers, news magazines, the usual suspects — have been focusing on the Michael Jackson story because at their intellectual and educational level, that’s all that they feel they can understand. That they’re comfortable talking about death and plastic surgery and drugs because that’s what they personally know about.

Our media do not, any more, know about Islam, nor war strategy, nor the Constitution, nor any of the multi-cultures they want to cram down the throats of the rest of us. When they do attempt to report on any of those larger issues, they make embarrassing mistakes which it’s really hard to thereafter ignore and might make an impact on their year-end salary raises.

Have the media always been this stupid or is this a recent development? Edward R. Murrow seemed to have a pretty good handle on things, but now I’m questioning whether Uncle Walter Cronkite knew what the hell he was talking about when he assured us that Vietnam was a lost cause.

So let the media have their day chattering about the “unprecedented” helicopter ride that transported Michael’s body from the hospital to the morgue, or how poetic that was since he had always wanted to be Peter Pan and to be able to fly, or how delightful it will be to tie up some of LA’s major freeways for his funeral cortege.

The rest of us now know that the really smart people who know what they’re talking about are on the internet and we can read their blogs. We can turn off the sound of the MSM blather when we want to see pictures of an event, because that’s really all those “professional journalists” are good for any more, any way.

Jul 2, 2009 - 9:14 am 14. susan:

see it as a psychological cause-effect stuff.

a lot of people are deeply embarassed by the amateur black guy in the white house, so when the talented (in his field) black guy dies they overreach.

Plus, Michael Jackson is a real american (a product of america greatness) and there is no doubt that he is born in Gary, Indiana. Cannot say the same about the other one.

Jul 2, 2009 - 9:31 am 15. Peg C.:

NahnCee, you are so right on it hurts.

Jul 2, 2009 - 9:33 am 16. Rawsnacks:

9. Blind Willie Johnson:
Don’t go encouraging BHO to delve into FDR’s methods or we’ll end up with fifteen Supreme Court Justices.

I’ll go you one better: the new Justices will be foreign jurists…

Jul 2, 2009 - 9:44 am 17. susan:

I think you are all being unfair.

You are all blaming people for caring for celebrities and not cap and trade. HALLOOOOO! This is the same american people that never bothered to pay attention since last november when they went to vote such a joke.

There are people who care but it’s the minority that voted for Mccain Palin. Remember? the rest is kool aid drinkers in awe at the celebrity couple plaguing the white house.

I ask, WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?

You well know that the majority of retarded who voted for obarfy won’t be touched by taxes because they are freeloaders anyway. So why care?

Jul 2, 2009 - 10:11 am 18. ZZMike:

Time is always good for a laugh at the newsstands or the grocery store checkout line.

The really unbelievable thing is that Jackson left a will, not a trust. By the time the judges, lawyers, conservators, and the Melvin Dummars get through, there won’t be a nickel left to give anyone else.

Jul 2, 2009 - 10:13 am 19. David:

My New York Grandma’s conventional wisdom:

1. The War ended the Depression

New thought:

2. The Depression actually contributed to the instability of US and Europe, which allowed Hitler’s germany to conquer many countries, eventually necessitating our entry into the war. In short:

The Depression “caused” the War.

Jul 2, 2009 - 10:18 am 20. Maxwell Jum:

FDR, hell! More like Tovarisch Stalin or Dedushka Lenin.

Jul 2, 2009 - 10:22 am 21. NC Mountain Girl:

A dying nation or the fin de siècle?

The political issue of our age is the bankruptcy of leadership. Corruption has become a burning issue in places as diverse as the United Kingdom and Iran even as the Obama administration brings two generations of Daleys’ Chicago way of business to the White House.

Roger has often written about how reactionary the so called progressives in the worlds of media, entertainment and academia have become over the last four decades. Some of them haven’t changed anything other than their underwear -and their plastic surgeons -since 1968. That so many of them are still considered credible on policy matters is astounding.

I see glimmers of hope. For much of the 20th century, the free world saw mass demonstrations by people who wanted more government in their lives. At the beginning of the 21st we see mass demonstrations by those who want government to butt out

Jul 2, 2009 - 10:27 am 22. David Thomson:

Michael Jackson’s death was the best thing to happen to Barack Obama. A goofy conspiracy theorist might even think the president had the pop star murdered. Nancy Pelosi apparently was able to really hammer the wavering legislators because of the American public’s indifference. Jackson pushed everything off the front page. Even Fox News went crazy.

Jul 2, 2009 - 10:32 am 23. ronnor:

“Time” is a has been, its now an Obama propaganda outlet, who reads this trash anymore, does it have a following other than Obamatrons? We’ve been fast forwarded into Orwell’s 1984, with the “New Speak Dictionary” being written by Saul Alinsky acolytes, watch your mind and memories folks its being worked on by those who will show no mercy. History will be wiped as well as those who oppose the revision.

“Time” used the death of Michael Jackson to take your mind off of the disastrous “Cap and Trade” bill which encumbered the taxpayer with monumental taxes using CO2 subterfuge; the suppression of the EPA papers should insure the defeat of everyone who signed onto this bill; this was a Trillion Dollar rip off of your future.

Jul 2, 2009 - 10:41 am 24. Webutante:

And as if things couldn’t get any worse with the economy….just read that Moneyball has been canned a week before filming was to begin. Does that put Brad Pitt on the unemployment rolls?

Jul 2, 2009 - 11:07 am 25. Paul:

“Even Fox News went crazy.”

Fox News is only marginally better than CNN. I don’t want to watch news with equal time for lefties and people talking over each other. I would watch a news channel that was straight up pro American-conservative-libertarian with no Alan Colmes and no Juan Williams and all the other neo-Marxists (because that’s what they are dammit!)that Fox thinks they need to be fair and balanced. I know I’m not the only one that switches the channel as soon as one of those lying quislings comes on. Really, we KNOW what their positions and arguments are as they’ve been force fed to us by the MSM for decades. We don’t need to hear that crap. A real right leaning network would crush Fox News.

Jul 2, 2009 - 11:11 am 26. blah:

President Obama’s learned plenty from FDR. Like never stand for anything.

Jul 2, 2009 - 12:36 pm 27. John the Baptist:

18.ZZMike: Melvin Dummar!! What a great reach that was!!

Jul 2, 2009 - 5:30 pm 28. mark:

Like Elvis, “What Happened America?”. Are we now hopelessly soft? I have lived as an ex-pat for five years and it pains me to see what is happening. The excessive criticism of America is laughable when compared what other countries in An impossible standard has been set for us . Guantanamo is comparable to Stalin’s gulags. A police chase is genocide.When the real events happen we won’t recongnize them.

Jul 2, 2009 - 5:57 pm 29. misanthropicus:

RE #22/David Thomson: [...] Michael Jackson’s death was the best thing to happen to Barack Obama. A goofy conspiracy theorist might even think the president had the pop star murdered.[...]

And right you are, lucky bastard is this dude, Hussein – the economic crisis propelled him in the office, and since then, events which coincidence with authentic crises are magnified by media as to cover Soetoro’s lack of appetite for tackling hard decisions.
Poor Iranians! Turns out that it’s not Ahmadinejad’s Talibans that sent then to oblivion, but it’s the American idiots sleeping overnight in bags by the walls of your Wherehouse.
“We want to change the world!” – “I’m still not reconciled with the notion of Iranian atomic weapons.”
What a sad buffoonery.

Jul 2, 2009 - 8:28 pm 30. M. Report:

Pick your favorite theme song from Cabaret;
The 30s crowd also thought the world was
wearing out; Not true then or now.
Tony Blair got it right: the great weakness
of a Democracy is that its people will not
act until catastrophe is staring them in the
face. But they will act, and can do so more
quickly and effectively than those under any
other form of government.
It will be a rough ride, but we will stay
shiny side up.
Despair is a sin.

Jul 2, 2009 - 10:11 pm 31. Steve:

“This coming July 4th may prove to be a watershed….”

Are your referring to the tea parties?

Jul 3, 2009 - 6:00 am 32. Jshub:

Rather than learning from Franklin Roosevelt, it would be nicer if Mr. Obama would learn from Margaret Thatcher. However I am far from holding my breath.

Jul 3, 2009 - 5:57 pm 33. Anne Lieberman:

Speaking of MJ, Al-Arabiya (the media outlet that scored Obama’s first interview as president) is reporting that Jackson’s funeral “will be according to shari’a, because Jackson died a Muslim.”

MEMRI blog http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/17865.htm

Bet you won’t see that in TIME or Newsweek.

Jul 4, 2009 - 2:08 am 34. john m e:

from the great state of utah comes this senator, not to be distracted by obama’s minions assault on capitalism and the constitution,who calls for a justice dept. investigation of the BCS. To play off or not…that is the question..sen. hatch you make us proud.BHO agrees
fdr……..hst ……ron reagan….hell no we need howard cosell…

Jul 7, 2009 - 8:29 pm

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