Obama as FDR?

As the Boston Globe offers a sobering reflection on what a 2009 depression might feel like, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman calls for the emergency swearing-in of Barack Obama, stating that stock and credit markets “have started to price financial stocks at Great Depression levels, not just recession levels.” The comparision between our current economic crisis and the 1930s — and between Obama and New Deal architect Franklin D. Roosevelt — are everywhere. The Nov. 24 TIME cover, headlined “The New, New Deal: What Barack Obama can learn from FDR — and what the Democrats need to do,” makes the point most directly — through what appears to be Obama’s face photoshopped onto FDR’s body. But one person who’s cautious in making too strong a link between presidents and economic downturns is Curtis Roosevelt, FDR’s grandson. He spoke about his new memoir last week with The Daily Beast, pointing out some contrasting points:

You can’t look at columns like Paul Krugman’s in The Times yesterday about “Franklin Delano Obama” and not see the new interest! Everyone is asking why doesn’t Obama simply emulate FDR? Why don’t we pick up and start a New Deal? Straight down the line, they have been comparing this recession with the Great Depression. The thing is, there is a substantial difference between now and then. Even Wall Street types were perfectly willing to give FDR dictatorial powers if he would cope with the financial crisis. Nobody’s mentioned that with Obama, and you won’t see it.

You cannot imagine how people were affected. People walked to work; the subway was a dime—John D. Rockefeller Sr. going out to the streets on 5th Avenue and handing out dimes to people. It was ludicrous. To put it in simple terms, parents would go to sleep at night hearing their children crying from hunger in their beds. And what could you do? You have not eaten yourself. That’s what I mean about the Great Depression. We are in a deep depression, but not like that.