Barack Hoover Obama: The best and the brightest blow it again

[MannyGoldstein]

A prescient article from last July's Harper's Magazine - didn't get much notice then, but I think it's interesting in light of recent events:

"Obama’s failure would be unthinkable. And yet the best indications now are that he will fail, because he will be unable—indeed he will refuse—to seize the radical moment at hand.

Every instinct the president has honed, every voice he hears in Washington, every inclination of our political culture urges incrementalism, urges deliberation, if any significant change is to be brought about. The trouble is that we are at one of those rare moments in history when the radical becomes pragmatic, when deliberation and compromise foster disaster. The question is not what can be done but what must be done.

We have confronted such emergencies only a few times before in the history of the Republic: during the secession crisis of 1860–61, at the start of World War II, at the outset of the Cold War and the nuclear age. Probably the moment most comparable to the present was the start of the Great Depression, and for the scope and the quantity of the problems he is facing, Obama has frequently been compared with Franklin Roosevelt. So far, though, he most resembles the other president who had to confront that crisis, Herbert Hoover.

The comparison is not meant to be flippant. It has nothing to do with the received image of Hoover, the dour, round-collared, gerbil-cheeked technocrat who looked on with indifference while the country went to pieces. To understand how dire our situation is now it is necessary to remember that when he was elected president in 1928, Herbert Hoover was widely considered the most capable public figure in the country. Hoover—like Obama—was almost certainly someone gifted with more intelligence, a better education, and a greater range of life experience than FDR. And Hoover, through the first three years of the Depression, was also the man who comprehended better than anyone else what was happening and what needed to be done. And yet he failed".

more at http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/07/0082562?redirect=1982284879">Barack Hoover Obama: The best and the brightest blow it again

[tblue]

1. Hard to believe, isn't it?

Driving me nuts.

[pocoloco]

2. In over his head....

really sad.

[emilyg]

3. Thanks.

[DonCoquixote]

16. Just remember

Most of what is wrong with Obama is because he is unwilling to do what we elected him to do: divorce himself from the Republican-Light policies espoused by both the Clintons.

If Ms. Clinton won, the health mandates would have been the starting point of the Healthcare debate, since it was in 1994, and considering Rahm, Geitner and many others are DLC shills, we would have gotten the same cabinet.

[donheld]

17. +1

[lib2DaBone]

4. A very informative look back.. contrast and comparison of Hoover vs Obama..

and the sad part is for the Americans who are going to suffer. Obama is walking in Hoover's shoes down the same path.

[grytpype]

5. It's disgusting how the screaming, crying libs have turned on Obama.

It just makes me sick.

[MannyGoldstein]

6. You Think That's The Problem?

Obama says he never ran on the public option for health insurance. Do you believe that, despite tons of footage promising just that?

[TankLV]

7. another great analysis...

B.H.O.

blaming bush* won't work anymore - he OWNS it now...and the sad thing is, on the IMPORTANT THINGS - he's CONTINUED AND EXPANDED bush* CRIMES!!!

very sad indeed...

but he has cute children and a kute kennedy doggie!!!

[carla]

12. With all due respect,

Barack Hussein Obama was mostly interested in getting elected. He is the FIRST African-American president. That was his goal. Nothing more it seems.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[RainDog]

8. I think the parallels are interesting - the refusal of the big money to accept reality

was a large part of Hoover's problem enacting the foundations of the new deal - just the foundations.

FDR was excoriated by the big capitalists that would have had that generation starving...still.

FDR was part of the ruling class and seemed he could, more easily than Hoover, who had worked his way out of poverty, tell the gilded age capitalists to go fuck themselves when they opposed jobs programs, soc. sec., regulation...

There is no doubt, looking back at history, that Obama cannot expect the new gilded age capitalists to ever reach that point when they will put survival of the people of this nation over their own profits.

sad but true.

I hope Obama rises to meet this crisis. It's so hard, with the republicans doing nothing except trying to discredit dems, who discredit themselves among democrats when they pander to repugs.

Everyone is not going to be happy. But some people's happiness is more easily dealt with by the major assets they already possess. kids starting out who need jobs are worth more than the 5% who have been screwing up the U.S. economy with their disaster capitalism here.

[abq e streeter]

9. Thanks for posting this..I read it when it came out, and it's certainly as, or more, relevant today

I remember some people (predictably) reacted very angrily to comparing Obama to Hoover without , quite apparently, actually bothering to read the article. The seeming inability or unwillingness to confront and/or even comprehend the magnitude of the multi-faceted crisis we're in, by this administration, leaves me frightened ( an understatement) for our future. I think this may have been the last real chance to stop this train wreck from becoming a full blown calamity, and instead, it appears they're ,as you say, blowing it...Again...I hope to god that I , and the author, are wrong.

[Vidar]

10. K&R.

[yurbud]

11. probably one of the more prescient pieces along with ''Rahm wants Democrats to Lose''

[RainDog]

13. did you read the article?

because the headline sounds like one thing but the article looks at the problems Obama is facing - because of the same forces now that obstruct any solutions to the current economic problems.

I didn't know if you were being sarcastic or not. If you were, I assume you didn't read the article.

[yurbud]

15. I did read the article when it first came out. Did you?

[RainDog]

14. Krugman makes some of the same points

It’s bad economics, depressing demand when the economy is still suffering from mass unemployment. Jonathan Zasloff writes that Obama seems to have decided to fire Tim Geithner and replace him with “the rotting corpse of Andrew Mellon” (Mellon was Herbert Hoover’s Treasury Secretary, who according to Hoover told him to “liquidate the workers, liquidate the farmers, purge the rottenness”.)

It’s bad long-run fiscal policy, shifting attention away from the essential need to reform health care and focusing on small change instead.

more:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/obama-liqui...

...cross-posted from another thread.

[Hawkowl]

18. A tragedy repeated

Hoover was NOT a bad guy. By all accounts brilliant and very capable. He just couldn't think outside the box and go against tradition and the establishment.

[rhett o rick]

19. Well written. nt

[ncteechur]

21. No it is not well written. It is horse shit.

[rhett o rick]

22. Do you care to elaborate or is this a drive by fruiting? nt