Quote of the Day: A President in a Time of Economic Crisis

I'm going to give you a little quote, and you tell me if it resonates at all with current events:

[The president] brought some convictions with him to office about how the economy worked, how government worked, and what his role as President should be.  As the [country's economic problems] deepened, he did the best he could within those limits, but nothing seems to have made him reconsider the mix of progressive ideas that he brought with him to the White House.  As months of failure and disappointment grew into years, he doesn’t seem to have questioned those core ideas or to think about ways in which the economic emergency might require steps that in normal times would not be taken.  He not only failed to end the [economic crisis]; he failed to give people a sense that he understood what was happening.  Over-optimistic forecasts issued in part to build confidence came back to haunt him.  To the public he seemed fuddled and doctrinaire, endlessly recycling stale platitudes in the face of radically new economic problems.

Think we're screwed?  Look after the fold and see just how screwed we might still be.



The quote is actually by Professor Mead about Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression.  A lot of people have been saying that Obama's like Carter -- or even that a repeat of Carter is a best-case scenario.  (Gulp.)  So ... if Carter is the best-case scenario, then  ... ?