Amen. Reagan was one of America's three greatest presidents, the other two being, of course, Washington and Lincoln.

There's no question that FDR is hugely overrated, no doubt because he served 4 terms and because he was President during World War II. There's also no question that FDR was an excellent wartime leader. Listen to his radio broadcasts, which were very frequently prayers for our men in arms. They certainly bolstered American morale. But that doesn't diminish the fact that his New Deal was an unmitigated disaster which not only failed to end the Great Depression but actually prolonged it. (It might not have been "Great" but for FDR's idiotic economic policies.)

Most historians agree, even those on the left, that the Great Depression ended only when America entered the war, because the war launched a huge expansion in the US economy. But what is less well recognized is that much of the economic "recovery" engendered by the war was the sudden and nearly immediate REDUCTION in the US labor force with America's entry into the war. By 1945, there were nearly 12 million Americans in the armed forces (probably 98% male). With a US population of 138 million in 1945, that represents nearly one American in ten, and MORE than one-fifth of the 1940 labor force, when the unemployment rate was still more than14%! Little wonder that unemployment was no longer a problem, when the labor pool was reduced by 20% because nearly every able bodied man under 30 had enlisted or been drafted into the armed forces. (Do the math.)

FDR's economic policies were essentially "national socialist" (which is not to say Nazi, with all of the genocidal evil that goes with that). (But see "Three New Deals" by Wolfgang Schivelbusch, which describes the startling similarities between FDR's New Deal, and the economic policies of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in the 1930s.) And, like the other "national socialist" economic regimes, the only way FDR could create growth and reduce unemployment was by going to war. (There were, of course, plenty of other reasons to fight Hitler, even though he, like Saddam, never attacked us.) I hope that won't be the ultimate outcome of Obamanomics, which is also essentially "national socialism," but I wouldn't be too surprised if it were.

Bill