We launched the Big Project Monday and amazingly little happened; it just kinda worked. Amazing and nice when that happens!! So while I’ve been sitting at my desk as a part of the Tiger Team, and doing nothing, I’ve been catching up on my blog reading.
And I notice a nice thread that I want to use to tie back to a point I made earlier about what Bush hasn’t done well.
The basic thread was “Why was FDR considered such a great President?” Over at Volokh, David Bernstein opens:
Something I’ve always wondered about, too. Why is Hoover infamous for presiding over four years of Depression, not terribly uncommon in American history, while Roosevelt is much-beloved for presiding over an unprecedented two more presidential terms of Depression, while much of the rest of the world economy was recovering [edit: at a faster pace]?
When David put it that way, I got pretty interested in the question, too. After all, everyone knows Roosevelt was popular, and that his popularity has been lasting. He even managed to show up on the conservative list of Greatest Figures of the Twentieth Century (though he made the list of the worst as well). So, shall we inquire?
The short answer, as it turns out, is that Bernstein has his history wrong. Take a glance over at the chart below, if you will. Turns out that while the economy didn’t re-obtain its pre-Hoover size until the war was under way, economic growth resumed almost immediately after FDR took office, and continued apace (at least looking at the annual figures, quarterlies may have more hiccups) pretty consistently throughout his time in office.
David replies with references to other economists who challenge the causes of economic growth during FDR’s presidency, and who suggest that a number of his fiscal and monetary policies actively contributed to the Depression.
I’ll suggest two things to these guys:
First, you’re overlooking one of the core reasons why FDR is so beloved – because he won the freaking war. FDR was not only a Depression president, he was also the WWII president.
Second, and strongest of all, you’re overlooking FDR’s great ability to sell the public on his strategy and policies. Great leaders create faith and hope. In truth, those are probably more important than the exact policies they establish (although those obviously have significant impacts) because faith and hope are what drive people to make positive, future-oriented decisions, and to stick it out through the tough times.
From what I’ve read (and obviously it’s not everything, nor is it as good as having actually been there) FDR managed to do a hella good job of selling both his policies and the war.
People were left feeling like there was a corner that we might turn, and that it was worth it to keep going to get there.
So now we move to another issue: Did he always tell the truth??
Pretty obviously not. He ‘sold’ his policies, as most leaders do, with some measure of misdirection and puffery.
You can see where I’m going with this.
Wunderkinder Scott has an instructive response to an argument I made here regarding Bush’s deceptive rhetoric in the build-up to war:
Politicians strive to “ensure that the public is well-informed”? Please! I’m not going to argue that I was shocked when President Clinton challenged the definition of “is”. I mean, that’s “pushing the limits” of honesty about as far as possible. It’s also politics. When you’re making a case, you use all the relevant facts at your disposal, and you paint them in the best way to the public. This goes whether you’re excerpting economic studies for a tax plan, or making the case for war.
…
The case of Bush and the war, however, is quite different. For one thing, unlike the Paula Jones trial it concerned a public policy debate. For another thing, unlike a debate about economic policy it concerned information to which the president had special access. When we debate tax policy we expect our politicians to be nothing more than sources of argument concerning which policy to adopt. When we debate going to war, however, we rely on the President of the United States to accurately portray the intelligence he has received, for the White House is our only source for this information. The public simply cannot deliberate on how to respond to American intelligence if we are being deliberately misled about the contents of that intelligence.
I’m certainly prepared to cut Bush more slack than he is on this; where he sees misrepresentation, I see puffery and misdirection. I think Matthew is acting naive – and I know he actually isn’t – in suggesting somehow that the American history of debates about war (any war) is an unbroken record of contemplative public debates based on pure fact. Or that any other debate about war in any other nation is handled that way.
But I do think, as I’ve said over and over and over again that Bush is vulnerable (which in turn makes the war effort vulnerable) because he’s done a bad job of selling his policies and overall strategy to the public.
Is this in part because of a ‘disloyal media’, and does Bush thereby get a pass?? Yglesias has the best reply of all (in a post about Joe Conason’s new book):
I worry that folks on the left are growing far too concerned with “the right-wing propaganda machine” as a source of our woes. Certainly, sans propaganda machine the GOP wouldn’t be doing nearly as well as it does, but at the end of the day complaining that your political opponents have a propaganda machine is like complaining that the jockey you’re riding against has a horse … that’s just the way the game is played. Moreover, it’s a poor craftsman that blames his tools and I’d much rather see liberals working on perfecting our own strokes than on worrying about what the other guy’s doing.
(emphasis added)
(fixed embarassingly omitted links)
FDR was a much better liar than Hoover. FDR was arguably the most duplicitous President in American history. And it worked – he was IMO our most successful, though not the greatest, President. FDR was not good, but he was certainly great.
A.L., the problem is that you describe FDR the Myth, not the real FDR. FDR did not “sell” the war, he con’ed America into it. Especially leading up to the November ’40 election, FDR not only did not “sell” the war to America, he explicitly denied he would lead the US into it and explicitly denied what he was doing behind the scenes.
About FDR’s Popularity:
#1: It’s a lot of hooey. FDR was hated by parts of the Nation; The Publisher of the Chicago Tribune ( McCormac?)hated FDR with a purple passion. The people who were harmed by FDR’s semi-socialist policies ( many farmers, small businessmen, Bankers, etc ) never had a good word about FDR, or Washington.
#2: Much of the US was Rural, where the Depression made life a _bit_ harder, but not much, The Great Drought that created the Okie Migration wasn’t FDR’s fault, so he couldn’t be blaimed for that, Several other natural disasters ended after his election, which made life better, he got the credit.
#3: FDR _did_ someting about the Great Depression, he Made Things Happen! Without going into any detail on why the Great Depression started ( and that’s a major controversy in itself ), FDR started money moving – first with the bank holiday ( Take money away, cause demand ) and then by opening floodgates of Dollars with the Federal works projects.
#4: FDR Talked to the people. What he said was not always right, but he did put a voice, and a face on what the Government was doing. he sounded like he knew what was happening, and that the recovery was happening according to a grand plan.
#5: He ended Prohibition! People who had no reason to like him gave him credit for this, so that even the most feverent FDR-Hater had to give him credit for ONE positive act ( unless they were Prohibitionists, but after the years of Dry, they had lost all political and social credibility).
#6: He was President during Pearl Harbor, His speaches immediatly after said what needed to be said, and then led the Nation to war with a clear concience. He made WW2 moral for the Nation, which had been evenly split between pro- and anti- European War factions.
FDR’s popularity wasn’t a simple thing, and had Pearl Harbor not been attacked, he probably wouldn’t have been reelected. After Pearl, he was in for as long as he wanted.
The best thing to happen to FDR was Adolph Hitler. Had FDR not been able to run for a third term he wouold be remembered as the president who failed to stop the depression (there was a second one from 37 to 39) and tried to pack the supreme court. Not good, not great. One good reason to live 125 more years would be to see how he is treated by history when all around him are dead and long gone.
During the 1930s, many people believed that the future would inevitibly be totalitarian. Some preferred the communist variant, others the fascist. But there was a fairly common belief that democracy had failed, and its time was over.
The U.S. was able to avoid a totalitarian fate, and some of the credit must go to FDR.
As for popularity, FDR was certainly reelected with decreasing margins each election.
I don’t know David, to my reading of history, FDR was a bit more fond of the Italian fascist economics than I care for.
Actually the credit should go to the Supreme Court. FDR had some pretty wacko advisors and would have let them have plenty of leash NRA, AAA, etc. But the court stopped it. This is the kind of thing that will be substaantially re-evaluated in the coming century.
Tom, I’m a bit puzzled by your comment; he was both ‘successful’ and ‘duplicitious’; OK I get that – does it mean he was a good President or not? Were we better off with him than the alternatives?
Robin, I’m equally puzzled. Would there have been no U.S. involvement in WW II had FDR not ‘conned’ us into the war? Would we and the world be better off??
A.L.
A.L., why are you puzzled? FDR did conn the US into World War II. FDR was among our more dishonest presidents ( Tom’s “duplicitious” is a good word ).
You and I both believe that the US should have gotten into WWII. As I understand your opinion, we also both believe that the US should have invaded Iraq.
I think you are trying to compare FDR to Bush to FDR’s credit. But FDR simply did not lead the US into the war. And the reality of FDR was far more dishonest about how the US got into it than the worse of the allegations against President Bush and the Iraq war.
So debunking the myth of FDR means I’m confronting your argument that President Bush is a poor leader compared to FDR – it doesn’t mean I’m returning to the Isolationist debate of 1940. And I think that your “puzzlement” is avoiding the reality of what FDR was.
FDR is as Tom says an example of a “successful” job but not an honest one.
So the bottom line is that I’m happier with President Bush’s “bad” but more honest job of selling this war than FDR’s dishonest job of selling WWII.
A.L.,
FDR was certainly a great President, thouhg IMO Lincoln was greater. But FDR most definitely was not a “good” President. FDR’s secret conspiracy with a foreign government (His Majesty’s) to commit criminal acts for domestic political advantage negates any claim he has to being “good”. Those were impeachable offenses by any definition.
See _Desperate Deception_ at this URL:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1574882236/104-0795785-2178356
BTW, FDR’s criminal conspiracies and constant duplicity were done in the national interest and saved scores of thousands of American lives. He was IMO our most successful President precisely because he did all those awful things, and set precedents which later Presidents followed with awful consequences, which shows how complicated real life is.
Tom, Robin:
I certainly agree with both of you on all counts; I think that FDR did ‘con’ the U.S. into preparing for WW II faster that we would have without his efforts, and he do take steps to bring the war here sooner than it would have been otherwise….which was all to the good, because had he not done so, England might have fallen.
But you guys misinterpret me; I’ve never criticized Bush for being duplicitious – I’m criticising him for either doing a bad job of being duplicitious – the ‘Grand Strategy’ he’s offering isn’t coherent or compelling. I think there is one that the U.S. could accept, but, as FDR led us to accept WW II, Bush needs to lead us to accept his strategy.
Now doing this while maintaining his credibility domestically and abroad is nontrivial; but it’s doable, and he needs to get to it.
A.L.
A.L.,
IMO Bush is not being duplicitous. You mistake prevarication, indecision and visible evidence of on-going disputes within his Administration for duplicity. As a former Democrat, I am suprised to see you violate the fundamental rule of:
“Don’t attribute to conspiracy that which can be explained by stupidity”,
especially as this concerns a _Republican_ administration. For _shame_.
And that’s where we disagree, I do not want another president as dishonest as FDR.
But I’ll give you something to chew on, instead. Maybe the problem isn’t the difference between FDR and GWB but the difference between the American people of 1940 and 2003.
Tom –
Sorry, the damn web-comments window doesn’t lead to good proofreading. I left off the other clause after ‘I’m criticising him for either…’, which was that he was operating in a largely ad-hoc fashion – which I tend to think is what you are suggesting.
Robin –
Why wouldn’t you? That’s a serious question I’d love to you expound on at length…
A.L.
A.L.,
IMO Bush has valid grand strategy (broad goals and means – the what), and is improvising on the details (the how), which is normal. Your definitions seem too narrow.
I’d add to Tom’s comments that I think Bush’s grand strategy has been successfully sold to the American people. Yes, the details (which would be tactics, not strategy) are messy, and worked out on an ad-hoc basis (and properly so, I would argue), but the overall thrust is consistent and spelled out quite clearly in his public statements.
Some of the information Bush finds most compelling in his decisionmaking may be from sources which simply cannot, under any circumstances, be disclosed. The most persuasive information may be signals intelligence decrypts, which are the most sensitive intelligence there is. Other information may be from agents. And these data may be from other countries rather than our own, and those countries (eg Britain) will insist on secrecy. If Bush cannot make such stuff public he will be less persuasive than if he made it public. People unaware of such information may then interpret his statements as duplicity.
Bush is also saddled with a State Dept. that is sometimes openly hostile to the administration. Unfortunately most lifetime bureaucrats tend to be Democrats. And labor laws prevent Bush from replacing some of these people. Conservatives rarely make government a career, but liberals believing that government is the answer to all things crave government jobs. That’s why under 50 years of democratic congresses the US government became a bloated jobs program. And FDR began this expansion making damn sure that Democrats had a ready made constituency and that bureaucracy would remain in the hands of liberals. Colin Powell doesn’t have either the will or the ability to replace these people. Or he agrees with them. Rumsfeld on the other hand having a freer hand in military matters has begun to purge the DoD of a great deal of immovable bureaucratic dead weight. When Congress changes the laws governing bureaucrats thing will change.