Is it fear of a new New Deal that has the Right feverishly rewriting the history of the old one?

Not many of us see Obama as a new FDR, but the
possibility seems to give the Far Right nightmares.

by Ken

The domestic political world has changed a lot since the Clinton administration, and even since the first term of the Bush regime. We are no longer surprised by the wholesale lies and rewriting of history, and the campaigns of manufactured smears, that Republicans, especially of the extreme right persuasion, by now do so casually. Of course over time they've become ever more brazen and utterly lacking in shame about lying all the time, but again, it's no longer a surprise.

A colleague suggested recently that the incoming administration needs to organize a response team to be as ever-ready as the campaign was during the election period, and this seems to me an excellent idea, bearing in mind how well the opposition succeeded in crippling the Clinton White House by forcing it to devote such massive resources to defending all the legal and propaganda initiatives launched against it. I really hope the Obama people aren't so deluded about the coming era of postpartisanship as to assume that anybody on the other side has signed on.

It also seems to me important to stay on top of the "story lines" being manufactured by the fantasists on the Right, and our friend David Sirota has just called attention to one that he got caught up in during a journey into the belly of the beast, aka an appearance on Fox Noise. Clearly the Righties, watching the economy sink in ways that increasngly conjure images of the Great Depression, and recognizing that this is not apt to be a happy position for them (even they seem to have grasped that it was no help, during the 2008 presidential election, having both Chimpy the Prez and Young Johnny McCranky identified with the Republican president, Herbert Hoover, whose response to the great stock-market crash of 1929 and the ensuing economic chaos and panic was to sit tight and wait for it to turn into a full-fledged depression.

Apparently the Righties have also come to recognize the danger in allowing the Democrats to be associated with the New Deal that President Franklin D. Roosevelt ushered in after voters sent President Hoover back where he came from. The solution, apparently, is to rewrite the history of the New Deal:

Fox News: "Historians Pretty Much Agree"
That FDR Prolonged the Great Depression

By David Sirota
Campaign for America's Future

I appeared on Fox News to discuss both the Blagojevich flap and the imminent economic recovery package from the Obama administration. You can watch the clip here. As you'll see, on that latter issue, Fox News is starting its campaign to stop Obama's big spending plan by stating - as assumed fact - that "historians pretty much agree" that Franklin Roosevelt prolonged the Great Depression, and that therefore, Obama shouldn't try another New Deal.

When I say Fox News' assertion about historians is patently false, they literally laugh at me as if I've said something so clearly untrue, something Americans supposedly assume is so obviously stupid, that it's worthy of ridicule.

The Depression issue was brought up by conservative pundit Monica Crowley - not surprising since this is the conservative talking point du jour ever since the "center-right nation" meme started looking idiotic and ever since fringe-right-wing bloviator Amity Shlaes published her since-discredited book claiming FDR essentially created the Great Depression. Crowley supported her the "FDR ruined the country" meme with the very authoritative-sounding statement that "based on all kinds of studies and academic work done on the great depression" she knows that the New Deal's "massive government intervention prolonged the Great Depression."

Of course, she doesn't offer up a single study or "academic work" as any kind of proof, and yet, when I say her assertion is absurd, Fox News anchor Greg Jarrett starts laughing at me - as if my assertion that FDR's New Deal helped end the Great Depression is so fantastical as to prompt guffawing. Jarrett proceeds to state that historians "pretty much agree" that FDR prolonged the Great Depression, and resorts to insisting that he knows that's true because "it's in the books" - whatever the hell that means. Indeed, Fox wants us to believe that what was only very recently the deranged propaganda of a handful of conservative political pundits is now such a consensus opinion among historians that to say otherwise is to evoke laughter.

David goes on to detail the slight evidence the R's can bring to bear, and then marshall the broad historical rejoinder.

Even I know that in the later 1930s President Roosevelt actually retreated from a lot of the New Deal policies he had instituted in his first term, and there is a lot of feeling that that did indeed prolong the depression. But far from repudiating the New Deal, that reflected a lack of will to stick to the principles that had been set out.

In particular those of you who frequently dialogue with right-leaning folk, be prepared for this wholesale rewriting of history. If you want to be ready with a response, David can guide you.


TOMORROW THROUGH SUNDAY: Noah takes a three-part look at "2008: A YEAR ON STEROIDS"

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