Posted on 12/14/2011 4:28:27 PM PST by TBBT
Quin Hillyer's latest salvo against Newt Gingrich concerns his long standing admiration for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. To be precise, he is miffed that Newt called FDR "the greatest President of the 20th Century." Ah yes, let's place Newt under arrest right away for expressing such heretical thoughts. Yet I seem to recall that one Ronald Wilson Reagan voted for FDR not once, not twice, not thrice but four times. That's right. Four times!!! Reagan's admiration for FDR hardly dimmed even as he became America's preeminent conservative voice. At a White House tribute in honor of FDR in 1982, Reagan hailed the 32nd President as "one of history's truly monumental figures," "an American giant, a leader who shaped, inspired, and led our people through perilous times." Somehow I don't think the Gipper would have faulted Newt for his admiration of FDR.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
It was a different time in America when FDR was president. Today the progams that have expanded are due mainly to the liberals in congress. Do not believe FDR forcasted that it would be abused to the extent is it now. Some programs are “right” for the time and should later be abolished or cut back...problem is give congress a dime and they will find a way to spend it.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/pearl/www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/fdr.html
“The democrat party of that era was not as radical as the Obamanites and Clintonites of today.”
You can’t be serious. Ignorance of history is no excuse for being stone-cold stupid.
You're right. They just appointed Klansmen to the Supreme Court, elected Klansmen as Vice President, elected a Klansman as president, rounded up Americans and put them in concentration camps, threatened to pack the Supreme Court if they didn't enact the New Deal, and left us with nothing to fear but a decade long depression.
Gingrich has stated that FDR was a better president than Reagan, and has stated that he melts when he's in Bill Clinton's presence.
Playing the “What Would Reagan Do?” card to stifle the debate is silly. Newt said he admires the progressive Woodrow Wilson, and is not ashamed to admit he’s a “Realpolitik Wilsonian”, does that make it perfectly OK?
Perry and REAGAN hold the same views. Newt doesn’t that is my point. Notice Reagan made some gaffes but he won by a landslide.
Reagan was to much of a gentlemen to call FDR a liar. Which he was.
After all they did have to fight WWII.
Frankly, Newt has bigger problems than a lie. It’s called Ethics.
I get a little touchy about Reagan. I LUVVVED him.
FDR is responsible for creating the welfare state that exists today. His economic policies created the Great Depression.
Absolutely right.
FDR is responsible for creating the welfare state that exists today. His economic policies created the Great Depression.
Absolutely right.
His ethics problems are the least of his worries. Most of which aren’t true.
Reagan admired and respected FDR even AFTER he became a republican. Perry was behind ACORN at one time. Newt on socialism stated this during a 2001 interview...it is his thoughts on a nanny govt. “NEWT GINGRICH: Start with a notion that they may tell you whether or not you can build a house on your own property, they may tell you whether or not you can own a dog, they may tell you whether or not you can play music above a certain level in the evening, they may tell you whether or not you can drink on Sundays or Saturdays, depending on which state you’re in. If you look at the Taliban, they exercise the right to tell women they can have no job, they can drive no car, and they can get no education beyond sixth grade. That’s a pretty overweening level of power. Inexorably, if you look at the German system or if you look at the more expensive American states — New York would be, probably, the archetype — the more unionized you are and the more bureaucratic you are, the more likely you are to export your young somewhere else to get a better job. You have better growth rates in places that have fewer obstacles to freedom.
Just think..
If only the disaster that was woodrow wilson had been a “Realpolitic Bismarck”!
OH MY!
Newt is definitly an amphipian of some sort.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
Ronald Reagan on Franklin Roosevelt: In America, freedom was saved, and it gave us the strength to rescue a strife-torn Western world in the 1940s and 1950s.” Perhaps FDR did not realize what he had unleashed:
With his alphabet soup of federal agencies, FDR in many ways set in motion the forces that later sought to create big government and bring a form of veiled socialism to America. But I think that many people forget Roosevelt ran for president on a platform dedicated to reducing waste and fat in government. He called for cutting federal spending by twenty-five percent, eliminating useless boards and commissions and returning to states and communities powers that had been wrongfully seized by the federal government. If he had not been distracted by war, I think he would have resisted the relentless expansion of the federal government that followed him. . . . Government giveaway programs, FDR said, “destroy the human spirit,” and he was right. As smart as he was, though, I suspect even FDR didn’t realize that once you created a bureaucracy, it took on a life of its own. It was almost impossible to close down a bureaucracy once it had been created.
_________________ One can see quite a bit of wishful thinking in Reagan’s analysis. Yes, FDR did run on a platform for reducing government, but that was most likely campaign talk designed to win votes. Was it really the “distraction” of World War II that kept him from resisting the expansion of federal power? Did he truly not realize how difficult it is to dismantle a bureaucracy once it is established? How can one set up as many agencies as FDR did and not expect them to perpetuate themselves? Obviously, Reagan desired to maintain FDR’s reputation despite his profound disagreements with the direction FDR’s policies took the country.
Reagan’s dislike of New Deal programs is evident, as illustrated in one of his radio commentaries from the 1970s. In it, he compares the policies of the late Roman Empire with the New Deal and sees some striking similarities. They should serve as a warning for America, he cautions. Rome witnessed a growth in government intervention in which the government “set interest rates, devalued the currency, created a wheat subsidy & then dumped wheat on the market.” Further, “there were extensive public works like our New Deal-W.P.A.; a welfare system & food stamps.” When Rome suffered through a depression, it created something similar to FDR’s Home Loan Corporation. There was even an Agricultural Adjustment Administration, “which plowed under half the grapes to stop overproduction of wine and their basic coin the Denarius sank lower & lower in purchasing power.” Rome increased the money supply by the addition of copper to the coins and then went to wage and price controls. “By that time,” Reagan concludes, “government in Rome had brought commerce and industry to a halt with confiscatory taxation and a network of regulations.” His message: If this caused Rome to fall, what did it portend for America?
Reagan had to acknowledge that the fervent New Dealism of his younger days was a misplaced zeal. Writing to his childhood friends, the Cleaver family, he admitted in 1974, “I remember once, many years ago when I was an ardent New Dealer during the first term of FDR, you remarked that we could not spend our way into prosperity. I thought you were wrong at the time. Now, from hindsight, I realize that we took a turning back there in 1932 that has led to our present troubles. I watch the present administration in Washington with a certain unease. There are indications they are going to continue the same old shopworn government panaceas. I believe the time is too late for that.”
http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=1082&theme=home&page=4&loc=b&type=cttf
Sorry they are.
How did he go from a !0,000 net worth guy elected to Congress to a 7+ million net worth when he left.
He didn’t save his Salary, he was involved in the House banking scandal. He had 22 checks at the House bank. So tell me WHERE did all that money come from? Oh sorry, we do know Murdoch made a great book deal for him. 4 million until all the uproar from Repubs. Then it was changed to royalties. very special royalties. Newt is the definition of CRONY CAPITALISM.
But I guess crony capitalism isn’t a problem anymore. Oh well.
But let’s be real, this ain’t 1982, and this ain’t Ronald Reagan’s Republican party. It’s a party that has lost it’s way and even after dumping that idiot Michael Steele as it’s leader, it remains leaderless and clueless as to it’s true identity. You look at the GOP today and it believes it’s supposed to become Democrat Lite in order to continue to function.
"With his alphabet soup of federal agencies, FDR in many ways set in motion the forces that later sought to create big government and bring a form of veiled socialism to America. But I think that many people forget Roosevelt ran for president on a platform dedicated to reducing waste and fat in government. He called for cutting federal spending by twenty-five percent, eliminating useless boards and commissions and returning to states and communities powers that had been wrongfully seized by the federal government. If he had not been distracted by war, I think he would have resisted the relentless expansion of the federal government that followed him. . . . Government giveaway programs, FDR said, “destroy the human spirit,” and he was right. As smart as he was, though, I suspect even FDR didn’t realize that once you created a bureaucracy, it took on a life of its own. It was almost impossible to close down a bureaucracy once it had been created."
~ "An American Life" by Ronald Reagan
That's not what he said though. He said he was the greatest president of the 20th century.
FDR is the reason we continue to suffer from ever growing gov't. Others before him can be blamed for laying the ground work, but the country got behind FDR and we were forever changed. FDR was a domestic albatross.
FACT...Reagan on FDR in 1982!! “Reagan’s admiration for FDR hardly dimmed even as he became America’s preeminent conservative voice. At a White House tribute in honor of FDR in 1982, Reagan hailed the 32nd President as “one of history’s truly monumental figures,” “an American giant, a leader who shaped, inspired, and led our people through perilous times.”
Doesn’t sound like Reagan is insulting or calling him a liar and this was AFTER your 1980 post. So Newt and Reagan admired FDR.
It was like that before Reagan too. We've been getting the half-a-loaf-conservatism for a long time.
I don’t agree with Newt on that point but I still say a person can admire certain aspects while detesting other aspects. My guess is that Newt said that because of WWII and not out of praise for FDRs domestic programs. But it doesn’t really matter. I disagree with Romney on far more things than I disagree with Newt Gingrich.
Reagan admired President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose “New Deal for the American people” provided jobs for his father and brother during the depths of the Depression. His parents were Democrats, in a Republican area, and Ronald Reagan remained a Democrat until after he turned 50. Although he never lost his admiration for FDR, Reagan became an ardent conservative and switched his registration to Republican in 1962.
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