Comments on: Barack Hoover Obama or Barack Delano Roosevelt?

By: Barack Hoover Obama, I presume : Historiann : History and sexual politics, 1492 to the present

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:07:34 +0000

[...] Kevin Baker called his shot about Obama more than two years ago: Hoover’s every decision in fighting the Great Depression mirrored the sentiments of 1920s [...]

By: Assemble your own Frankenstein President! : Historiann : History and sexual politics, 1492 to the present

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:59:47 +0000

[...] a Democratic value, of course, at least since the days of Thomas Jefferson and Andy Jackson!) I wrote last summer about Kevin Baker’s comparison of Obama to Herbert Hoover, and recently, it’s become fashionable to proclaim that Obama is George W. Bush’s [...]

By: Jack Freedman

Jack Freedman — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:46:01 +0000

I especially liked John Morris comment and would appreciate it if he could contact me via the website I listed.

I drew some similar conclusions and would like to start a dialogue on these and other matters. Morris nailed a lot of stuff and did a first rate analysis.

By: GayProf

GayProf — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:03:17 +0000

It seems to me that Obama has surrounded himself with some pretty sorry excuses for advisers. While clearly a bright guy himself, if he gets mediocre advice, it will be a mediocre presidency.

And I am more than a little annoyed (but, sadly, not surprised) that he has shown his willingness to toss the gay folk under the bus.

By: John Morris

John Morris — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:13:42 +0000

A couple of things. If you read John Maynard Keynes’s “The Economic Consequences of the Peace” you will come away thinking of Hoover as a giant, a hero of his time. He was clearly one of the most dedicated and intelligent men of the first half of the 20th Century and is credited with saving millions from starvation after World War one. The article’s thesis is that Hoover spent the three years of his unfortunate presidency shoring up banks and loaning money to major industry while taking no interest in what was happening to ordinary people. In the 1930′s this attitude was labeled, by professor Keynes, as the “Treasury view”. These days it has a couple of other names; monetarism, market economics and my favorite “Rubinomics”. Obama appears to be an adherent, his principle advisers Geithner and Summers certainly are. There is less than a hairline difference in their views or their activities with Hoover’s. The difference that FDR made was, confused by the rolling bank runs, he closed the banks and gave the Fed a short time to recommend both a regulatory regime and a reorganization scheme for them. He asked congress to investigate the crisis and the Peccora committee gave him an outline for a legislative agenda to prevent it the next time. which it did for 50 years. And accurately seeing that the real problem was unemployment, he not only established unemployment insurance, he hired people, including artists to paint murals in post offices, writers to invent a folklore (Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyon, Joe Magarac) and cooks to document our regional diet. My dad, at the age of 16, went out to Wyoming to build Yellowstone National Park as part of the Civilian Conservation Corps. FDR stopped foreclosures by creating the Home Owners Loan Corporation which got around the lender’s resistance to cramdown by giving them a choice between bankruptcy and a discounted sale of the loan and then negotiating a new mortgage based on the homeowner’s ability to make the payment on his income. My great Uncle Robert Coghenour finally paid his house off in 1960 and called my mom the day before I went off to Navy Boot Camp to brag about it. So far, Obama has paid no attention to the important stuff and spent a great deal of money on saving the criminal class and their advantage. He’s got time to get it right but so did Hoover. First, he has to get his head right. I love him, and I love Michelle and I want them to win and I’ll do what I can to help but so far, its not looking good.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:55:02 +0000

Wow–you all are pretty cynical!

I remain hopeful, but not optimistic. I don’t see what he or we are getting out of accommodating center-right Republicans and Blue Dog Dems. Maybe there will be a magical big political payoff down the road–but so far it just looks like Hansel is dropping bread crumbs of compromise along the path only to feed the birds. They won’t help him get home again.

But, another way in which Obama may resemble Clinton is that his political enemies are so unpalatable and odious that I don’t think they’ll be the direct beneficiaries of Obama’s failures–but we’ll see in 2010 and 2012. One year can be a political lifetime, and 3 years is a political lifetime.

By: Jeremy Young

Jeremy Young — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:59:22 +0000

I’m no fan of Obama — in fact, I tend to get angry when I even think about him (despite the fact that I voted for him twice). However, I can’t see that he merits comparison with Hoover. I don’t see much evidence that Hoover actually wanted to build a brave new world — he tended to believe that such a world already existed and just needed a little help. Obama at least understands the enormity of the tasks facing him, even if he’s utterly unwilling to spend political capital to accomplish them.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:46:33 +0000

Sorry- Hoover took office in ’29

By: Rachel

Rachel — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:59:41 +0000

Well, I do have to say I feel like waving my Hoover flags- my empty pockets have been flying high as historian positions are few and far between. I actually made the same comparison as Baker a few weeks ago. I don’t know if I agree that the comparison between Obama and Hoover is spot on- but I do think, having read quite a bit on the early 20th century and taking classes on the subject at Baa Ram U, that we expected drastic change when Obama was elected, just as people facing the Depression did when Hoover was elected, and have not seen that change (at least I haven’t). When he took office in ‘30, Hoover took a very conservative approach to dealing with the Depression. He felt the government could not and should not compete with private business or employ people, the federal budget should always be balanced, and the government should not give direct aid to the unemployed but should provide in-direct aid. The reason Hoover failed to deal with the Depression is because he was inflexible. Although FDR’s programs did not really get the country out of the Depression, his New Deal did succeed in making people feel like the government was doing something to help them find jobs or support themselves. FDR’s approach to the Depression was not radical by any means, but what made him different from Hoover was that he was willing to experiment.

Obama has tried a few things, for example the new federal grants for sending older adults back to school, but it doesn’t seem like these types of initiatives have been enough to really get things going. So, I guess the lesson is, Obama cannot continue to walk a conservative line and expect great change. Either we do something different or we look for change elsewhere.

By: RKMK

RKMK — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 01:31:17 +0000

What Emma said.

Also, I can’t help at look at the State Department, and what a tightly-run ship that is, and wistfully think about what might have been.