Now the pundits and historians are beginning to compare Bush to Hoover, for supposedly not doing enough and thus letting the collapse happen. LRC readers know the truth about Hoover, that it was his big-government response to the market crash that began prolonging and deepening the depression before FDR ever got to office.
If the hyper statist Bush regime is remembered for being too inactive, both in domestic and foreign policy, it portends bad things for the future of America and the way Americans perceive our nation's history. As I mused on LRC back in 2004, "The worst likely outcome would have Bush going down in history the way Herbert Hoover has: a clueless, "laissez faire conservative" who refused to increase government activity sufficiently in the face of a national crisis."
Also in one of my first articles, I wondered if any pro-war libertarians would have supported the New Deal. We might just find out.
