Did You Know That Franklin Roosevelt Went On TV After The 1929 Stock Market Crash To Resassure People Everything Would Be Fine??? So Says A 2008 VP Candidate
Posted by WLS:
Making the rounds today — though getting no real play so far as I can tell from the MSM — are the following comments by VP Candidate Joe Biden:
“When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed,” Biden told Couric. “He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’”
As Reason‘s Jesse Walker footnotes it: “And if you owned an experimental TV set in 1929, you would have seen him. And you would have said to yourself, ‘Who is that guy? What happened to President Hoover?’”
It comes along with the very generous caption by Politico “Joe Biden Garbles Depression History.”
I wonder if Palin would have been treated so deferentially? (That’s a rhetorical question.)
Well this obviously explains why Herbert Hoover was President in 1929. Apparently, the Governor of New York, FDR, was lost looking for a non-existent TV station.
Comment by Neo (cba5df) — 9/23/2008 @ 3:43 pm
Biden has denied making the statement. Therefore, OpinionCheck.org has labeled this blog entry “False.”
/sarc
Comment by Mitch (890cbf) — 9/23/2008 @ 3:49 pm
Holy sheep dip.
Laurel & Hardy Run For Office.
57 states?
Comment by EW1(SG) (641bff) — 9/23/2008 @ 3:50 pm
Very funny commentary — worthy of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
That said, it’s not generous to say he “garbled” history. Unless he said he was talking about the crashe “in 1929,” which I haven’t seen that he did. In 1929, the Dow was at in the 300 range. In 1932, when Roosevelt was elected, it was under 50. The “crash” was a long slow spiral, and Roosevelt was elected at the bottom. He then did exactly what Biden said, except he did it on theater screens and in front of cameras, not the TV.
Other than the TV anachronism, Biden wasn’t that garbled.
Comment by Phil (6d9f2f) — 9/23/2008 @ 3:55 pm
Nice try, Phil. But Biden plainly was referring to the initial, short-term “crash,” not where the market ended up bleeding down to, years later, by 1933. Spin, spin, spin.
Comment by Mitch (890cbf) — 9/23/2008 @ 4:01 pm
I prefer the “Gilligan’s Island” reference on the political satire site: The Peoples Cube. Obama is Gilligan and Biden the “Skipper”.
Comment by C. Norris (b26370) — 9/23/2008 @ 4:08 pm
Nice try, Phil. But Biden plainly was referring to the initial, short-term “crash,” not where the market ended up bleeding down to, years later, by 1933
Please explain how you know this. I clarified that I don’t see it — that’s how the Jessie Walker is interpreting it, because it’s funny.
Comment by Phil (6d9f2f) — 9/23/2008 @ 4:08 pm
Yeah, sorry the MSM missed it WLS, but they were too busy giving Palin Photo ops with Bono.
Comment by Oiram (983921) — 9/23/2008 @ 4:14 pm
Phil’s right. Nothing to see here. After all, it’s not as if what the President of the United States did when the most serious crash in its history occurred is really relevant nowadays.
Let’s stick to the issues. Like, what the Bush Doctrine is.
Comment by L.N. Smithee (0931d2) — 9/23/2008 @ 4:15 pm
If you had been O.J. Simpson’s lawyer at his first trial he’d be by dead now.
Comment by C. Norris (b26370) — 9/23/2008 @ 4:16 pm
Comment by Mitch — 9/23/2008 @ 3:49 pm
An inconvenient truth:
Biden’s statement was taped. I heard it repeated in his voice on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Of course, when you live in an alternative universe, your own voice is not you.
Comment by Another Drew (e8be76) — 9/23/2008 @ 4:17 pm
FDR’s policy of raising prices also extended the depression another 8-10 years. Biden probably doesn’t know that either.
Comment by Perfect Sense (9d1b08) — 9/23/2008 @ 4:18 pm
#12 Not really sure how you know that Perfect.
Oh yeah…… Republican spin….. never mind.
Comment by Oiram (983921) — 9/23/2008 @ 4:20 pm
Biden…God bless him!…he is working out rather well for the republicans isn,t he? Hillary must be laughing fit to burst and bill if she knew where he was would no doubt raise a wry smile.
Comment by thud (4eef1f) — 9/23/2008 @ 4:36 pm
#6 C. Norris:
That works!
Comment by EW1(SG) (641bff) — 9/23/2008 @ 4:41 pm
Obama and Biden are doing more damage to each other than the opposition, as anticipated.
Anyone for clean coal?
How about another McCain is old ad?
Comment by daleyrocks (d9ec17) — 9/23/2008 @ 4:44 pm
“When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed,” Biden told Couric. “He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’”
Hey, Biden ought to know, he was in the Senate when it happened and his party still hasn’t recognized him with any non-seniority based leadership positions.
Comment by daleyrocks (d9ec17) — 9/23/2008 @ 5:01 pm
If you want an authoritative source for how FDR’s economic policies lengthened and deepened the Great Depression, you might want to read the work of this author
http://www.amityshlaes.com/bio.php.
Comment by Another Drew (e8be76) — 9/23/2008 @ 5:06 pm
#13 – Macro and Micro Economics – Raising prices reduces demand,
or could read: FDR’s Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression
Comment by Perfect Sense (9d1b08) — 9/23/2008 @ 5:09 pm
Well … if Barack I-Have-Seen-The-Morning-Dawning Obama’s parents could meet each other for the first time in Selma, six years after he was born ….
These people are shameless. This is not a gaffe. It is arrogance and a total disregard for the truth. Biden is doing his job. He is talking to the morons who are Obama’s base. Do you think they have a clue who was President in 1929 or when television became broadly available?
Comment by nk (796b84) — 9/23/2008 @ 5:18 pm
WLS wrote: I wonder if Palin would have been treated so deferentially? (That’s a rhetorical question.)
I know it is, but it’s a serious one as well. Every misstep of Palin’s has been magnified as if by an electron microscope, while the gaffes of Obama, Hillary, and even McCain on occasion have been laughed off as incidental.
But what cements the obviousness of the bias is the way in which the vaunted
Marie CurieNancy Pelosi — whose shutdown of the House amidst rising gas prices was well-known Democrat strategy — was not taken to task for her cluelessness about natural gas. She didn’t seem to grasp that it is a fossil fuel, not an “alternative” energy source.Governor Palin could have taken her to school on the subject without a second thought.
Comment by L.N. Smithee (ecc5a5) — 9/23/2008 @ 5:45 pm
Someone ought to invent a Biden “I’ll tell you what” drinking game.
Comment by L.N. Smithee (ecc5a5) — 9/23/2008 @ 5:45 pm
a Biden “I’ll tell you what” drinking game.
Careful, that could kill a man.
Comment by Apogee (366e8b) — 9/23/2008 @ 5:51 pm
I agree with nk. Liberal politics is like modern liberal education. It doesn’t have to be true if it sounds good.
Comment by DRJ (c953ab) — 9/23/2008 @ 6:08 pm
#24 DRJ:
Which brings me to my next question: Anybody have a feel for whether or not “Phil” actually believes the nonsense that he spouts?
I mean, some of it is so far out there as to be coming from the Van Allen belt, but he seems to be saying it with a straight face…
Comment by EW1(SG) (641bff) — 9/23/2008 @ 6:41 pm
Biden has long been notorious for being a buffoon.
Comment by SPQR (26be8b) — 9/23/2008 @ 6:41 pm
Well, I’d give Biden a pass on the “television” bit as just a misspeak….but he clearly has no real knowledge of the history of the great depression.
I thought the Democrat candidates were big on their superior education?
I must be missing a nuance here….
Comment by Bill (67661d) — 9/23/2008 @ 6:43 pm
So the AP is no longer MSM?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080923/ap_on_el_pr/biden_mistaken_history_1
I know you’re on a mission to stop the big bad media from picking on Palin, but Jesus Christ, there’s this thing called “Google” that might help you.
Comment by Shodo (dbfcb4) — 9/23/2008 @ 6:50 pm
This is not a gaffe. It is arrogance and a total disregard for the truth.
There is a sincere belief of these people that the public has no memory and that the standard of fact and fiction have melded into one pliable, manipulative substance that can be shaped and molded as one sees fit. Thus, disregard for the truth becomes the ultimate tool of the narrative.
On the upside, my neighbors floored me with a McCain/Palin sign on their front lawn. Who knew!
Comment by Dana (4d3ea0) — 9/23/2008 @ 6:56 pm
Jesus, Phil, give it up!
Biden said “When the Stock Market Crashed…”, NOT “When the Depression was at its worst,” NOR “Four years into the Great Depression” but “when the STOCK MARKET CRASHED”
Oct. 28 & 29, 1929. “Black Tuesday”, the “Crash of ’29″, “The Great Wall Street Crash”, etc, etc.
Reality sucks, cognitive dissonance is fun!
Comment by Eyas (b1955c) — 9/23/2008 @ 7:16 pm
I can’t wait for SNL routine mocking him!
*crickets*
Comment by Patricia (ee5c9d) — 9/23/2008 @ 7:31 pm
Truly pathetic, Phil. Just because someone points out a Biden gaffe doesn’t mean you have to deaperately try to spin the unspinnable.
Comment by Icy Truth (a6d81b) — 9/23/2008 @ 7:35 pm
I’m with Phil. He got the fundamentals right, even if the details are off (obviously he got on radio, not TV. But “when the stock market crashed” can refer to the resulting crisis, which lasted far longer than three years. Note that Biden never says 1929). Does it really do anyone any good to nitpick to this extent, in regards to Biden or Palin?
The argument “they do it too” doesn’t cut much ice given the negative pub “they” generate when “they” do.
Comment by David Warner (569e58) — 9/23/2008 @ 7:36 pm
During lunch, my husband switched over to one of the CNN channels, showing a crew of editors/researchers tossing around a Palin story, as to whether or not she knew/approved of the City of Wasilla charging rape victims for rape kits.
The conversation went something like this:
Editor/Researcher 1: “Well, we can’t find any proof of the story either way…”
Editor/Researcher 2: “Yeah, there’s no confirmation that she was either for it or against it…”
Editor/Researcher 3: “Well, we don’t know anything about her, so lets run with the story.”
Said husband wanted to give CNN credit for at least putting that out in the open…damning by faint praise.
.
A couple hours later, Campbell Brown is calling to “Free Sarah Palin” from the sexist treatment of the McCain campaign.
I used to think I didn’t have enough popcorn, now I’m wondering if I’ve got enough Tums.
Comment by X_LA_Native (69d423) — 9/23/2008 @ 7:38 pm
No, David, Biden did not get any “fundamentals” right.
What happened was the usual thing with Biden, he tried to show off knowledge he doesn’t have. Evidently he didn’t learn it in the coal mines of Wales.
Comment by SPQR (26be8b) — 9/23/2008 @ 7:38 pm
I’m with Phil. He got the fundamentals right
I really don’t see how he got any of the fundamentals right.
The stock market went down 17% on Black Tuesday in 1929. In comparison it went down 22% on Black Monday in ’87. That’s the crash. If you want to say it kept going down, okay, but that’s a crappy market.
This is grade school stuff. The fact the stock market crashed in 1929 is something anybody with the most basic level of economic education knows of (i’m sorry, it is). Hence, why it’s called the “crash of ’29.”
So, he didn’t get the President right and didn’t get the medium right.
Comment by Anon (03ab2e) — 9/23/2008 @ 8:14 pm
Well, he’s on a roll then.
He’s never got anything on Iraq right either.
Comment by Another Drew (e8be76) — 9/23/2008 @ 8:31 pm
In fact, reading up on this: the low was in 1932 when it went down to 34 – so it really doesn’t make sense to include 1933 and the Roosevelt presidency in this unless you want to say the stock market crash lasted well into the ’40s and ’50s when it reached 1929 levels again.
Face it, this really is grasping at straws to defend this.
Comment by Anon (03ab2e) — 9/23/2008 @ 8:32 pm
I’d guess 70% of Americans share Biden’s understanding of the events (sans TV, of course). It’s what the kiddies are taught in school, and its reinforced and then some in college.
Pick your battles.
Comment by David Warner (569e58) — 9/23/2008 @ 9:12 pm
I’d guess 70% of Americans share Biden’s understanding of the events (sans TV, of course). It’s what the kiddies are taught in school, and its reinforced and then some in college.
David, you get this number from where?
I know of no one who would not say that the stock market crash occurred in 1929.
Literally. No one.
Comment by Anon (03ab2e) — 9/23/2008 @ 9:21 pm
Typical Joe “my IQ is higher than yours” Biden gaffe. BTW, my grandfather was a Welsh coal miner and we don’t claim Biden at all….he’s not Welsh!! Can’t tell bituminous from anthracite coal. He’s pretending to be Pa’s 3rd senator; I’m tired of his tired ads.
Comment by poodlemom (9af796) — 9/23/2008 @ 10:52 pm
Hmmmmm, I wonder if that is where the old saying, “Harder than times in ’29″ comes from? Nahhhhhh couldn’t be, could it?
Spin on you useless little demoncraptards.
Comment by peedoffamerican (389cf6) — 9/23/2008 @ 11:03 pm
“I’d guess
70% of Americansthat I share Biden’s understanding of the events (sans TV, of course). It’s whatthe kiddies areI was taught in school, and its reinforced and then some in college.Pick your battles.”
Fixed that for ya
Comment by Lord Nazh (ce25e3) — 9/24/2008 @ 2:47 am
“He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened. My screen turned blue, and then everything crashed.’”
Comment by Amphipolis (fdbc48) — 9/24/2008 @ 5:28 am
It is priceless how the trolls even attempt to spin this. It is fun watching them trying to re-write history right in front of your eyes.
Comment by JD (41e64f) — 9/24/2008 @ 5:46 am
David Warner —
I’m with Phil.
– Your first mistake.
He got the fundamentals right, even if the details are off (obviously he got on radio, not TV. But “when the stock market crashed” can refer to the resulting crisis, which lasted far longer than three years. Note that Biden never says 1929).
– Biden “got the fundamentals right” because FDR talked about the economy on the radio? ‘When it crashed’ could mean ‘after it crashed’? That isn’t fundamental; that’s painting with the broadest possible brush. And where’s the proof that FDR explained in detail why the crash happened?
Does it really do anyone any good to nitpick to this extent, in regards to Biden or Palin?
– Hilarious, coming right after you tried to nitpick in order to defend Gaffe-O-Matic.
The argument “they do it too” doesn’t cut much ice given the negative pub “they” generate when “they” do.
– Huh?
I’d guess 70% of Americans share Biden’s understanding of the events (sans TV, of course).
– I’d be willing to bet the mortgage that I know from which orifice you pulled that number.
It’s what the kiddies are taught in school, and its reinforced and then some in college.
– What . . . lie to make the liberal position appear correct?
Pick your battles.
– Fold up your tent.
Comment by Icy Truth (391c85) — 9/24/2008 @ 7:13 am
Just FYI, here’s a link to FDR’s 1st Inaugural Address (March 14, 1933), the “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” speech. It makes interesting reading in light of the present financial crisis.
President Bush will be speaking tonight. I hope he makes a great speech.
FDR’s 1st Inaugural Address
Comment by Peccator Dubius (0a6237) — 9/24/2008 @ 1:33 pm
You know, it just occurred to me that if Biden was around to see Franklin Delano Roosevelt give that great speech, he probably would have told Roosevelt to stand up and take a bow.
Comment by Sean P (e57269) — 9/24/2008 @ 1:34 pm
“Iran trains Al-Qaeda”- John McCain
“reducing the energy supplies to Czechoslovakia.”- John McCain
there hasn’t been a Czechoslovakia in over 15 years!
“That’s why I believe the chairman of the FEC should resign and leave office and be replaced.”
he’d fire the head of the Federal Election Commission?
He gave his captors in Vietnam the names of the Pittsburgh Steelers, rather than what has been widely retold as a listing of Green Bay Packers.
Thats not a gaff , thats just a lie. I could go on and on about the lies he’s told. Maybe you give him a pass for being 72!
Comment by conservative must be an acronym for hypocrite (563aec) — 9/25/2008 @ 12:02 am
Why not? YOU get a pass for being an idiot.
Comment by Icy Truth (7b38bb) — 9/25/2008 @ 12:34 am
Stock market didnt bottom until 1933.
FDR – 32nd President of the United States
In office
March 4, 1933 – April 12, 1945
Video of first inaugural address:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oblTN1ojsAA&feature=related
Comment by Ryan (4542e1) — 10/2/2008 @ 8:18 am
Whatever Biden meant: As many noted, Biden said “Franklin Roosevelt” (Governor of NY at the time) not “President Roosevelt” (unless there’s more to that point outside the quotes.) And FDR was using radio around 1929, see http://www.poliblogger.com/?p=14217Poliblogger.
But the bottom line: Most speakers make mistakes from time to time, like so many switching Iran and Iraq. Biden does it more often, but he has so much other material for them to be buried in. Palin just hasn’t said that much at all recently that we can hear, or writings to look at. If she’d sounded good 90% of the time, those odd gaffes wouldn’t matter. Also, Palin just didn’t know what to say, but Biden flubbed it – emptiness is worse than a mistake.
Comment by Neil B (5d72e3) — 10/2/2008 @ 4:39 pm