“The myths of the FDR era never die. All this despite the fact that the Federal Reserve was created sixteen years before the crash on ’29 and its credit expansion brought the crisis about in the first place; despite the signature of Roosevelt’s hand in the current crisis (Fannie Mae originated with him); despite the fact that for years we have been told the post-New Deal economy was one that would not fail us the way the ‘laissez-faire’ 1920s did. Indeed, we confront one of the great paradoxes of the left-liberal/neocon/establishment economic narrative: Supposedly, in enlightened modern US politics, the failed reliance on free enterprise has long been discredited, and so all the social democracy in the 20th century has finally saved us from the predations of greedy corporate America. But at the same time, corporations are allegedly more powerful and greedy than ever. They reconcile the contradiction simply by lying about Bush’s record, saying he has loosened the government’s grip on the economy. But there is virtually not a single area in which Bush has been more laissez-faire than Bill Clinton.” (07/18/08)