The Drop of A Hat

Pejman Yousefzadeh isn’t taking the internet mockery of his anti-FDR agitation well.

Apparently–and this is the latest pronouncement from the Reality-Based Community–we are not supposed to study things that happened 74 years ago, or perhaps longer.

That seems like a reasonable way to characterize the point that one wouldn’t usually get worked up reading a squib entitled “70 years ago this week in monetary policy.” Anyhoo,

Dude: I don’t care how long ago this pathetic and frightening policymaking fiasco occurred. It is appalling that it ever happened and in order to make sure that no President ever again thinks of arrogating unto himself/herself the authority to engage…

See, now here I got confused because it seemed as if the train was barrelling straight into Limit Unchecked Executive Authority station, but luckily it was shunted at the last minute onto the Kevin Drum Is a Communist siding. Yousefzadeh’s main point, though, is that turnabout is fair play, and that Kevin Drum’s failure to denounce the incessant, venomous anti-Hoover diatribes one hears from the left shows his true colors. No, that really is his point.

Of course, if a Republican President engaged in this kind of nightmarish policymaking, we would never hear the end of it . . . even if this hypothetical Republican President was in office 74 years ago, or longer. And Kevin–Dude, if I may–if you’re so hung up on the need not to beat dead historical horses, why don’t you write a post telling Democrats to stop raising the specter of Herbert Hoover at the drop of a hat?

Why indeed? The ‘my opponent fails to denounce this atrocity’ charge has always been a little tired, but when it’s spruced up with ‘fails to denounce this entirely fictitious atrocity‘ –well that, my friends, lends the whole outfit a jaunty air, much as a moth-eaten bird lolling its single glass eye might add panache to a threadbare, workaday hat. Naturally I moseyed on over to Technorati to glean the very latest anti-Hoover blog posts. I leave you with the wit and gentle Lileksian wisdom of Cape Cod Today’s Jack Sheedy, from his post “Happy Herbert Hoover Day!”:

Think about the length of a year. Four seasons. Twelve months. Fifty-two weeks. Three hundred and sixty-five days (366 during a leap year). That’s a long time! Too long if you ask me! During that long, long year we have these little breaks called weekends wedged in between Friday and Monday. Two days to unwind, to mow the lawn, to change the oil in the Chevy, to read a book, to write a blog, and to sip a nice cool beer or two….But sometimes, even weekends aren’t enough. So God, in his infinite wisdom, scattered “holidays” throughout the calendar to spice things up….Therefore, I propose that we find a way to provide August with a holiday … or perhaps two. The most obvious choice would be to celebrate a President’s birthday. Actually we have four to chose from: Aug 10 for Herbert Hoover, Aug 19 for Bill Clinton, Aug 20 for Benjamin Harrison, and Aug 27 for Lyndon Johnson. My vote is for Hoover on the 10th, as his birthday falls right in between Independence Day and Labor Day. And it would be a nice way of making it up to Hoover for always blaming him for the Great Depression.

There you have it. I await Drum’s denunciation with but little hope.