FDR is Under Attack

This morning on the Stephanie Miller Show during her "Rightwing World" I heard Brit Hume of Fox News become the latest in a series of conservative wing nuts to demonstrate their ignorance and confusion about the Great Depression. Hume was following the lead of George Will who seems to have taken it as a personal crusade to destroy FDR. In the clip Hume insisted this morning that "the New Deal -- everybody agrees, I think, on both sides of the spectrum now, that the New Deal failed." Really? Everybody agrees? I don't agree. I'm pretty sure a fair amount of economists would not agree.

Hume went on to say that, "President [Franklin] Roosevelt waged what could only be called a jihad against private enterprise." Personally I like the use of "Jihad" here. Nothing like putting such a scary word.

The nutters on the right have been repeating similar nonsense for years, but over the last couple of months they have ratcheted up the rhetoric. It's demonstrably false, and quite preposterous, but then that's never stopped them in the past. David Sirota has jumped into the breach and written a couple of excellent items lately, responding to the ridiculous Republican talking points related to FDR and the Great Depression.

David Sirota appeared on Fox News to discuss the upcoming economic recovery package, and during the discussion was be told that FDR's New Deal "prolonged the Great Depression". You can watch the clip here.

Sirota devoted his first newspaper column in the New Year to looking at this claim, and whether conservatives have any shred of evidence to support their claim that the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression.

Paul Krugman also wrote a column in November, where he noted the "intellectual industry, mainly operating out of right-wing think tanks, devoted to propagating the idea that F.D.R. actually made the Depression worse."

MSNBC's David Shuster did an entire segment on the patently false conservative argument.


We don't often see this kind of fact-checking segment on national television.

Muckraker of the Day - Joe Klein

David Schuster was hosting MSNBC's show, 1600 Pennsylvania, and introduced their new feature "Muckraker of the Day". The first Muckraker of the Day was Time's Joe Klein. Now Joe Klein is someone I have had a lot of problems with. I believe he was a great example of all that is wrong with the corporate media in America. However in recent months I believe Joe Klein finally woke up as to the reality of the world that George W. Bush was forging. Joe Klein was yesterday's Muckraker of the Day for his editorial "The Bush Administration's Most Despicable Act". In this article Klein goes after Bush for not telling the truth and Bush's authorization for torture.

Joe Klein gives a great interview with David Shuster where he declares the Administration of George W. Bush is unAmerican.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

David Shuster Grills Senator Inhofe

David Shuster of MSNBC should have his own show. Yesterday he interviewed Senator James Inhofe (a total whack job Repuglican from Oklahoma) who recently released a report citing “more than 650 international scientists” who back up his claims that manmade global warming is a hoax. If you don't know Inhofe, he once said that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”

This list of scientists was a revision of his original compilation last year of 400 names earlier in the year. Upon close examination though the list fell completely apart. When real experts looked at the report they pointed out that many of the people Inhofe was citing had no background in climate science, and some actually “demanded to be taken off the list, since they didn’t disagree with the scientific consensus on climate change at all.

Since Inhofe basically got away with it he decided to release the report again and this time he cites 650 “experts.” However Inhofe’s new report doesn’t seem to be much better. than the last one.

One scientist Anja Eichler, is cited by Inhofe as believing that half of the earth’s warming is caused by the sun. She has come out and said that her work is being “misinterpreted” by Inhofe. The truth is that she believes the “Earth’s temperature does not change randomly — it changes when it is driven to do so by an external forcing.”

TNR’s Bradford Plumer also found others on this list new who appear to support the theory of manmade global warming.

Yesterday David Shuster had Senator Inhofe on to discuss his report, and he brought up the case of Anja Eichler. He pointed out all the problems with Inhofe's report, and at one point actually asked, “Senator, if there is a hoax, isn’t it this report of yours?”