Right-Washing the New Deal

[Karl Frisch]

It’s probably a good thing that cable news generally doesn’t draw much of an audience from the 18- to 24-year-old demographic. Otherwise, history professors across the nation could very well be witnessing the undoing of their work to educate students about the dire economic climate the United States faced for much of the 1930s.

Those who have been watching cable news lately have undoubtedly noticed the litany of conservative media figures attempting to rewrite history by denigrating the tremendous successes of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal policies in what amounts to an orchestrated effort to derail the economic recovery plans of President Obama.

Fox News Washington managing editor http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/tags/brit_hume">Brit Hume recently called Roosevelt's policies "a jihad against private enterprise," just after claiming that "everybody agrees, I think, on both sides of the spectrum now, that the New Deal failed." That may be accurate if by "both sides of the spectrum" Hume is referring to the right and far-right over at Fox News.

Hume's own jihad against the facts, however, represents only a small portion of the historical misrepresentations passed off as reasoned debate about the New Deal.

Witness the day-break machinations of the crew over at MSNBC's Morning Joe. During a recent broadcast, Joe Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski kicked off a string of attacks against the president's recovery plan, using the New Deal as their dubious weapon du jour. Mika said of Obama's plan, "I think we're going to have the same unemployment in three or four years, just like the New Deal." That just isn't true -- unemployment fell every year from 1933 through 1937.

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Karl Frisch is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog, research, and information center based in Washington, DC. Frisch also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the web as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign-up to receive his columns by email.

[Deep13]

1. Yeah, I've heard that.

One of my friends thinks that FDR worstened the depression. That's not what the numbers say, but who cares when ideology is at stake?

[AndyA]

2. Morning Joe: It's the show you watch when you don't really care about facts.

When you want right wing fluff, Joe's your man.

When you want to see a female cower to a male, Mika's your lady.

When you want lies, twisted truths, half truths, and out and out lies to be served up, Morning Joe is your show!

Personally, I'd rather have a root canal. At least they numb you for that. :puke:

[zbdent]

3. Maybe the 18-24 year olds SHOULD watch cable media ...

and thus, they would go to their professors with the erroneous information, and the professors would smack them down with the facts, and thus the 18-24 year olds would LEARN something ...

however, those who are likely to follow Faux probably aren't in the running to go to higher learning anyway ...

[izquierdista]

4. Three strikes and you're OUT!

FDR had to clean up the economy after the do-nothing Hoover.
Clinton had to clean up the economy (it's the economy, stupid) after Reagan and Bush.
Now Obama has to clean up the economy after Dimbulb.

The Republicans should be reminded of one of their favorite laws, the "3 strikes and you're out" law, and tell them they are disqualified from running for office. They have done far worse to American society than most of the offenders that are now serving life for their crimes.

[Captain Hilts]

5. Russian officials I've interviewed always make the New Deal comparisons. Sad that they 'get' it...

and so many of our folks do not. Or chose not to.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

6. I keep having to hear this shit from one of my RW co-workers

He's INSISTENT that FDR made the Depression worse and that Bush staved off the "depression started by Clinton" for nearly 8 years with his tax cuts.

His idiot logic just makes me want to bang my head against a wall.

[fencesitter]

8. did he get a tax cut?

I don't think I did.

[fencesitter]

7. Money for nothing...

It's the common theme to perpetuate the myth. We're working hard here paying our taxes and all these poor (lazy) people are going to get all our hard earned money given to them by the government for free and they don't have to work cause they get free health care and free food and stuff.

Works every time. Play to the ignorance of people that somewhere, someone is getting something for free, getting over on the "system".

[Captain Hilts]

11. Folks don't realize that most New Deal relief you had to work for. nt

[RedEarth]

9. Thanks for posting this here.... BTW, Meida Matters is a terrific site

[Captain Hilts]

10. They were indispensible the past few years. Still are. nt