The Hoover-Palin Ticket

AP photo / Gerald Herbert

Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his vice presidential running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, at a rally in Bethlehem, Pa., on Oct. 8.

By Robert Scheer

And the winner is … Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Remember him—the great Democratic president who saved capitalism from the capitalists by reining in their exorbitant greed? Forget the Reagan Revolution heralding a new era of small government, which turned out to be nothing more than a fig leaf for legalized corporate crime. The hero of the hour is FDR, as the essential wisdom of his New Deal is now embraced by most Republicans as well as Democrats.

Roosevelt's legacy was acknowledged Monday when GOP presidential nominee John McCain absurdly accused his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, of advocating policies pursued by Herbert Hoover, the Republican incumbent whom Roosevelt defeated in 1932. While clueless GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin prattled on at the same rally about Reaganomics and getting government out of the way of business, most other Americans noticed—and are grateful—that the federal government now directly manages many of our biggest businesses in the all-important financial sector.

The banking bailout is pure FDR at his big-government best. Greedy bankers are being taken to the woodshed and read the riot act: If they behave, then they will once again have the opportunity to be filthy rich—that's the American way.

As McCain put it Tuesday: "I will begin by making certain that the $700 billion already committed to economic recovery is not used to further enrich the very people and institutions that invited these troubles with their own reckless conduct."

Yes, McCain finally gets it: "I will not play along with the same Washington games and gimmicks that got us into this terrible mess in the first place. I am going to Washington to fight for you." I didn't check whether this performance made it into the "Moment of Zen" in "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," but it should have. "I am going to Washington" is a classic proclamation of stupidity that assumes the rest of us are unaware of where McCain has been these past three decades.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081014_robert_scheer_october_15_hoover_mccain/