Although the Great Depression of the 1930s began under Herbert Hoover, unemployment during Hoover's last year in office was not as high as it became during each of the first five years under FDR.
During the eight years of FDR's first two terms as president, there were only two years in which unemployment was lower than it had been under Herbert Hoover-- and not by much.
World War II has been credited by some with getting the United States out of the Great Depression. What the war did was put an end to the New Deal, as national survival became the top priority and replaced FDR's anti-business and class warfare rhetoric.
Senator Obama's rhetoric today is the anti-business and class warfare rhetoric that worked so brilliantly in a political sense for FDR in the 1930s. But Obama is following an opposite course from FDR when it comes to recognizing threats to American national security.
Senator Obama has repeatedly tried to deal with national security threats with rhetoric. He tried to dismiss the threat of a nuclear Iran with because Iran is "a small nation"-- even though it is larger than Japan, which launched a devastating attack against the United States at Pearl Harbor.
FDR had the good sense to begin urging greater military preparedness in 1940, more than a year before the United States was attacked. He said, "If you wait until you see the whites of their eyes, you will never know what hit you."
Cutting the military budget and taking foreign policy problems to the United Nations are Obama's version of "change."
That is change that we dare not believe in. It is the audacity of hype.
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