Franklin Delano Roosevelt

On Sunday's Chris Matthews Show, after panel member Richard Stengel of Time magazine argued that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is an example of a wealthy President who connected with average Americans more effectively than GOP presidential candidate Mitt Rommney does, NBC Andrea Mitchell praised New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for donating $250,000 to Planned Parenthood, arguing that it helped him "connect to people" in his "constituency." After an anecdote from Stengel about Roosevelt, Mitchell injected:

The ridiculous media hypocrisy concerning all the fuss over Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's wealth and income tax rate was perfectly demonstrated on MSNBC's Morning Joe Monday.

After claiming that Romney's "tax issue is not remotely" past him, John Heilemann, the National Affairs editor for New York magazine, admitted that he never reported John Kerry's income tax rate during the 2004 campaign (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Somebody better tell incoming MSNBC host Chris Hayes the network giving him his own show later this month doesn't cotton to commentators disrespecting President Obama.

On Thursday's "The Last Word," Hayes told host Lawrence O'Donnell the current White House resident can't run his reelection campaign like Franklin Delano Roosevelt did in 1936 because FDR actually had a strong economic record to boast about (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chris Matthews on Thursday claimed Franklin Delano Roosevelt saved capitalism in the 1930s.

This deliciously came during a "Hardball" segment wherein he mocked the intelligence of Tea Party members saying they "need to read history, and especially Michele Bachmann" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Despite Obamanomics' failure to stimulate the economy, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman still believes Washington can solve all that ails us if we would just spend more money we don't have.

Toward that end, the avowed liberal in his Monday New York Times column called for a new New Deal-like program to hire unemployed people to - wait for it - repair roads:

The depths the shills on the Left will go to impugn their enemies knows no bounds.

On Sunday, the George Soros-funded organization Think Progress falsely accused Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tx.) of comparing Social Security and Medicare to slavery (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

The unhinged paranoia on the left knows no bounds.

Take for example New York Times columnist Paul Krugman who believes that Governor Scott Walker's grand plan is to lessen democracy in Wisconsin and America eventually replacing government with a third-world-style oligarchy:

At the top of Friday's CBS Early Show, co-host Chris Wragge cheered President Obama's recent Q & A on YouTube: "Obama opens up. The President answers YouTube questions on everything from the war in Afghanistan to the Super Bowl. We'll go live to the White House for the latest on his version of the Fireside Chat."

While Frankin Roosevelt used his famous radio 'Fireside Chats' to keep the American people informed on public policy during the Great Depression, senior White House correspondent Bill Plante touted how with Obama, "the questions were less political and more personal. Like, what's he giving Michelle for Valentine's Day?" Another important topic of discussion: "He was asked his pick to win the Super Bowl. Mr. Obama is running for re-election and he went with the politically safe answer."           

The President that expanded the role, scope, and size of the federal government more than all that came before him or since is unquestionably Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Yet on Tuesday, moments after calling Congresswoman Michele Bachmann a "balloon head," MSNBC's Chris Matthews actually said FDR "bailed out capitalism in the '30s" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

You would think after the last time President Obama incorrectly said Social Security when it was originally created was exclusively for widows and orphans, someone in his administration would have corrected him so he wouldn't do it again.

Yet there he was at Tuesday's press conference making the same completely false assertion on national television (video follows with transcript and commentary):

George Will on Sunday gave Robert Reich a much-needed history lesson about deficit spending and liberal myths concerning Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover.

As the Roundtable segment on ABC's "This Week" moved to the current state of the economy, Reich predictably called for another stimulus package. 

"You can't even talk about stimulus because people say, 'Oh, that would create a deficit and that would generate inflation,'" declared one of the Left's favorite economists.

Fortunately for those actually interested in facts, Will was there to offer viewers the truth (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):  

If you needed to know just how liberal Chris Matthews is, consider that he thinks Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, and Michael Dukakis are on the center-left of the political spectrum.

So said Matthews on this weekend's syndicated talk show bearing his name.

To be sure, the host of "Hardball" has in the past expressed his pride in being a liberal.

But claiming on national television that Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis are all center-left should open a lot of eyes (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

A survey of 238 "presidential scholars" released Thursday ranked Barack Obama as one of the nations's best presidents ever.

According to the Siena College Research Institute, Obama is currently in the fifteenth position an amazing three spots AHEAD of Ronald Reagan. 

Imagine that: a man that has been in the White House for less than eighteen months and hasn't accomplished anything is considered better than the president that reinvigorated America after the dreadful Jimmy Carter years while also ending the Cold War.

Speaking of Carter, these geniuses actually ranked him higher than George W. Bush.

The New York Daily News reported Thursday:

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is admonishing the leaders of other countries attending the G-20 summit in Toronto to keep spending like there's no tomorrow, because if they spend like there's no tomorrow, there will still be a tomorrow. But in the gospel according to Geithner, if they don't spend like there's no tomorrow, there really won't be a tomorrow.

With such blubbery logic, is it any wonder that America's stature with the rest of the world is plummeting?

Earlier this evening, Brent Baker at NewsBusters pointed to an ABC report warning that a second recession might be on the horizon if the G20 nations don't follow the spend-spend-spend recommendations of the Obama administration.

In his attempt to convince the rest of the world of the folly of being fiscally responsible, Geithner has invoked a supposed "lesson" from the 1930s. Back in mid-May, I happened to stumble on the fundamental untruth of his assertion, and will demonstrate it shortly.

The Associated Press's Jeannine Aversa let Geithner's contention pass without challenge in her Saturday report on the summit. Here are the three relevant paragraphs from her report:

On Wednesday's Countdown show on MSNBC, shortly before the beginning of the State of the Union address, as Keith Olbermann discussed the speech with Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow, after Olbermann brought up the possibility that President Obama would give a divisive FDR-style speech, Matthews seemed to lament that such a speech would "spook" the middle class, and, as he credited the Democratic party with actually "creating" the middle class, he argued that Democrats are a victim of their own success.  After claiming that it would have been "unpatriotic" not to increase government spending in time of recession, he went on to describe President Obama's economic policies as "conservative": "Everybody who studies economics knows if you have no business spending, no consumer spending, the government has to spend. That is reasonable and I would argue conservative economics."

At about 8:57 p.m., after contending that President Herbert Hoover "proved to every single American that the Great Depression was Republican doing," Matthews made his extraordinary claim about Democrats "creating" the middle class:

On CBS’s Sunday Morning, correspondent Chip Reid compared Obama’s economic plan to that of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal: "During the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt started the Works Progress Administration, the WPA. It would put 8.5 million to work...Now a new American president-elect is vowing to put the country back to work. This Sunday Morning, we'll take a look back at the WPA. And the lessons it may hold for him and for the nation." Reid later played a clip of Obama addressing the economic crisis and then observed: "In 1933, another new president faced a collapsing economy and rallied the nation with similar words...75 years ago, Franklin Delano Roosevelt began the New Deal."

In a segment that was a glowing tribute to FDR and the New Deal, Reid described Obama’s economic plan as a triumphant return of big government: "And now, President- elect Obama is talking about his own jobs program, that could cost half a trillion dollars. Economic analyst Jeff Madrick believes Mr. Obama is also sending a very clear message." Madrick observed: "Well, I think the government is back and we're all the better for it. In fact, the government's been away at least since Ronald Reagan." Reid touted Madrick’s latest book: "Madrick recently published 'The Case for Big Government.' He says today, as in the Depression, only government action can stop an economic dive to an unknown bottom." Reid did wonder: "So who's going to pay for big government?" Madrick replied: "I think down the road higher taxes, even on the middle class -- and I know this is anathema right now -- will be necessary to pay for the social programs we need."

Barack Obama as FDR. Cover of Time, November 14, 2008.

Remember back during the campaign, when the Obama folks and their MSM cohorts adamantly denied that their man was a liberal?  That National Journal study that ranked him the most liberal senator?  Nonsense! Very misleading.  After all, this is the man who doesn't believe in a red America and a blue America, but in the United States of America. Someone with a history of reaching across partisan lines [even if no good examples were handy at the moment].

So . . . remember all that? Well, forget it.  Now that Obama is safely
ensconced in his Office of the President-Elect, the MSM can let the
[ill-concealed to many of us] cat out of the bag: yes, he's a liberal. Big time!  In fact, Obama is nothing less than the second coming of the biggest American liberal icon of all time: FDR!  Rick Stengel announced the news on today's Morning Joe.

If the Republicans had a few more spokesmen like Haley Barbour, the political landscape might look a lot different.  The Mississippi governor's down-home good humor and razor-sharp wit are a formidable combination. Barbour's killer combo of skills was on display on this evening's Hardball.  When Chris Matthews challenged his criticism of Obama's tax credit plan, Barbour good-naturedly backed him down with an impressive disquisition on New Deal history.  When he was through, Matthews had to admit that Haley was right.

I'd encourage people to view the video, not only for the entertainment value, but as a case study of how to defeat a member of the liberal media.

On Saturday’s Good Morning America, ABC ran an unusual report that placed some of the blame for the Great Depression’s length on government intervention by Franklin Delano Roosevelt as well as Herbert Hoover, and concluded by questioning whether the current plans could do harm. After an unidentified economist contended that "the government from Hoover to Roosevelt made it worse by intervening too much and too arbitrarily," correspondent Bill Blakemore concluded: "And now, is the Bush government intervening too much arbitrarily with its $700 billion bailout? That’s a million dollar question, so to speak, for those trying to guess when this crisis will end."

Blakemore’s attention to this often ignored take on government intervention came at the end of a report that looked back at the Great Depression. After giving Roosevelt credit for injecting America with a "can do" spirit, Blakemore noted that the Great Depression ended its 10-year run as a result of World War II. He then asked the question of why the Stock Market Crash of 1929 resulted in the Great Depression:

BLAKEMORE: So what made the crash of ‘29 lengthen into a depression?

WOMAN: Because the government from Hoover to Roosevelt made it worse by intervening too much and too arbitrarily.

On a day when markets are in turmoil, you might think that the role of an American president, current or aspiring, would be to assure his fellow citizens—and the world—that our economy is fundamentally strong. 

That's what John McCain did.  In contrast, Barack Obama suggested that the American economy is fundamentally weak.  WaPo's Jonathan Capehart has declared Obama the winner of the exchange, for doing a better job in channeling the country's anxiety.

Click on image for video of McCain and Obama addressing the state of the economy on the stump today, and Capehart's commentary.

The lefties won’t be pleased. The October 15 CBS “Evening News” and ABC “World News Tonight with Charles Gibson” had a different take on Social Security contrary to liberal Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton’s position.

On October 11, Clinton told CNBC’s John Harwood she wasn’t going to jump the gun and scare people by addressing their Social Security concerns. “I think what I owe the American people is to tell them I will not spook them and sound the alarm over Social Security because that’s not merited,” Clinton said. “We have time to deal with this problem. I will deal with it in a responsible fashion.”

But, ABC correspondent David Wright reported data that would make you think otherwise.