Many more readers of this essay by economic historian Robert Higgs will, I predict, agree with Higgs’s portrayal of George W. Bush than with his portrayal of FDR.
I believe that Higgs’s portrayal of both men is fair. The reason his portrayal of FDR will be regarded by many as unfair or ‘biased’ is because FDR has become a secular saint, an icon whose self-proclaimed good motives and soaring oratory (and the popular memory of these things) insulate Roosevelt II from any real criticism – despite a record that amply justifies harsh castigation.
