Brother, Can You Spare Me From Bush's Slime?

My friend Elizabeth, aka maker of the world's best cocktails, pointed out this article in Salon by Sidney Blumenthal. The comparisons between Bush and Herbert Hoover are pretty amazing. And Hoover's "more profitable job selling apples," sounds eerily like Cheney's suggestion that many Americans are now employed selling things (aka their old shit) on eBay. (You may have to click through the ad to get to Blumenthal's article, but it's worth it.) After noting that Bush recently gave yet-another Rose Garden announcement that he won't ever change his policy (whatever the fuck it is) in Iraq, Blumenthal writes that:

"Historians now agree that Hoover did take important steps to deal with the Depression, for example, creating the Home Loan Bank system and the Reconstruction Finance Corp., among other measures. However, it was all too little, too late. He clung desperately to an ideology of social Darwinism masquerading as laissez-faire individualism. And he came to regard change outside the narrow parameters of his vision as evil, threatening the self-reliant American character as he understood it. In the name of ideology, he vetoed public works and unemployment insurance.

Hoover repeatedly expressed his faith that the Depression was ending as though such faith itself were sufficient to restore the economy. On May 1, 1930, he said his policies had "succeeded to a remarkable degree" and "we have now passed the worst." A month later, he declared there was no need for further measures: "The depression is over." Later, after leaving the White House, his illusions persisted. "Many persons left their jobs for the more profitable one of selling apples," he wrote.

Hoover entered office with overwhelming one-party dominance over Congress. In the 71st Congress, the Republicans had a 100-seat majority over the Democrats in the House of Representatives and a 17-seat majority in the Senate. Two years later, in 1930, the Democrats controlled the House by six seats and the Senate was deadlocked.

In 1932, Hoover campaigned against the promise of the New Deal as something that "would destroy the very foundations of our American system." When he heard Hoover's remark, Franklin D. Roosevelt said: "I simply will not let Hoover question my Americanism."

Like Hoover, Bush builds walls of denial as the facts tumble down on his policies. And, like Hoover, who periodically proclaimed prosperity just around the corner, Bush almost daily announces progress in Iraq. Like Hoover, he sustains a Micawber-like optimism that something will turn up in the face of worsening conditions. Hoover's rigid approaches inspired a crisis of confidence. His inviolate integrity fostered greater frustration about him as his honesty turned into sanctimonious armor. He suffered a crisis of credibility because his statements were glaringly at odds with reality. But Hoover was not responsible for creating the Depression. And no one accused him of being a liar. Bush, by contrast, has created his crisis himself.

On the day after Bush made his brave statement in the Rose Garden about "nerve" against "the terrorists," his ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, is reported to have observed that there have been more assassinations by Shiite militia than killings by the Sunni insurgency. Khalilzad also delivered a message to Shiite leaders that President Bush "doesn't want, doesn't support, doesn't accept" the man they had selected to be prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, and demanded that they depose him."