Semi-Daily Journal Archive

The Blogspot archive of the weblog of J. Bradford DeLong, Professor of Economics and Chair of the PEIS major at U.C. Berkeley, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Kevin Drum gets hornswoggled. He writes:

The Washington Monthly: LET THE SELLER BEWARE.... Jonah Goldberg is taking some abuse for pointing out today in his maiden column for the LA Times that FDR lied about World War II. I don't think that defending Jonah will become a regular feature here, but there's actually nothing much objectionable about saying this. FDR, after all, was a pretty consummate smooth talker...

Ah. But Jonah Goldberg doesn't say that FDR lied about World War II. Jonah Goldberg says:

Los Angeles Times: Clare Boothe Luce... insisted that FDR "lied us into war."... Luce wasn't slandering Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Indeed, the evidence that FDR lied is far greater than the evidence that Bush did...

Yes, FDR wanted desperately to convince America to rearm, and to aid the allies. He was eager to fight Hitler to the last Briton, and to use American economic pressure to convince Japan to end its attempt to conquer China.

But Jonah Goldberg's claim that FDR "lied us into war"? That's a lie. America's war in the Pacific began when Admiral Nagumo's warplanes attacked Pearl Harbor. America's war in Europe began when Hitler declared war on the United States.

Save your powder, Kevin. The interesting thing for you to write about is not Jonah Goldberg's lies about FDR, but Jonah Goldberg's "Yeah. Bush lied. So what?"

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