Steve Fritsch -  Publisher stevefritsch@thecincinnatusstandard.com
Liberals Call Bush a "Dictator," But What About FDR?
Throughout his controversial presidency George W. Bush has been labeled many things by many different peoples. Conservatives have called him a cowboy (in a positive way), the liberator, the heir to the Reagan model of governing, a failure to the Reagan model of governing, a big government conservative, and a conservative fraud. On the other hand, liberals have called Bush a cowboy (in a negative way), an idiot, the worst president ever, a religious fanatic, a fascist, and of course, a dictator. However, it is the left's vociferous use of the dictator comparison that I'd like to focus on presently. What exactly has Bush done to make some liberals actually believe he is a dictator? And compared to presidents of the past, is Bush really the most dictatorial of them all?
For starters, instances of Bush being labeled a dictator by those on the left are plentiful. During the 2004 presidential election MoveOn.org infamously compared Bush to Adolf Hitler in a commercial mostly only seen on the Internet. There have been dozens, if not hundreds of stories reported across the nation of leftist college professors calling Bush a dictator. And more recently, two high profile Democratic politicians described Bush as dictatorial. Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison compared Bush to Hitler and California Senator Barbara Boxer said that Bush was the "closest we have ever come to a dictatorship."
Obviously, both Ellison and Boxer had some political motivation behind their remarks (if they did not mean them outright as well). The President's approval rating is abysmal and it thus allows the Democrats leverage to push the envelope in attacking Bush. Yet is Bush really the "closest we have ever come to a dictatorship" in this country? Ironically for Democrats, of all the negative labels that are thrust onto Bush the dictator analogy is perhaps the most peculiar. For if we look back into history at another controversial presidency during a time of extreme crisis we notice perhaps that Bush doesn't come close to another president who has also had the "dictator" term thrown his way: the forefather of modern liberalism, Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The critiques on FDR's presidency have been growing steadily over the last ten years or so. A wide range of books have tackled FDR's approach to governing the nation and the more that seems to be revealed, the more that seems to justify the critics complaints: that FDR mightily abused the executive powers that he was entrusted with.
First and foremost, FDR's decision to run for an unprecedented third presidential term (and then an even more incredible fourth term) is the easiest position in which to attack FDR as having been "dictatorial." Though a majority of Americans in 1940 and 1944 agreed with Roosevelt that he was the only man who had the qualifications to lead the country, the fact that FDR willingly chose to accept two additional nominations from the Democratic Party and break the historical precedence of past presidents not to serve more than two terms was certainly controversial, if not dictatorial. No president before FDR ever seriously flirted with the decision of running for a third term-- which admittedly they were not prevented by the Constitution from doing at the time-- thus honoring George Washington's decision to leave office after two terms.) And while Roosevelt apologists will argue that FDR's decision was both legal and based out of patriotic service in a time of great uncertainty, the fact remains that Pearl Harbor was still a full year away after Roosevelt won his third term and the country was not yet in a full-scale international crisis. (Domestically speaking, the nation was still mired in the crisis of the Great Depression in 1940, in which FDR's New Deal programs failed to solve; in fact, it wasn't until the massive industrial production of war materials, first for Great Britain through the Lend-Lease Act, and second for the U.S. itself after it joined World War II that brought the Depression to an end. Most historians and economists agree that the New Deal only prolonged the Great Depression.)
Another issue that many critics of FDR's mention as being dictatorial was his decision to attempt to increase the number of Supreme Court Justices who would then push through his New Deal programs that had initially been struck down by a conservative Court. Known famously as the "court-packing" plan, FDR's attempt to tilt the balance of the Court in his favor was a failure and cost him tremendous political capital with members of both parties and much of the American public. In conjunction with his 1936 landslide election victory and the international spread of fascism, FDR's attempted power grab heightened popular and congressional sensitivities to the accumulation of state power.
In regards to the civil rights and liberties of American citizens, one of the most heinous acts ever committed by a president occurred under Roosevelt's watch. The relocation and internment of over 112,000 Japanese-American citizens into concentration camps after the Pearl Harbor attack and declaration of war on Japan is yet another solid argument for those who believe Roosevelt was often dictatorial. Furthermore, during the war FDR authorized law enforcement to wiretap telephones, read the mail of Americans allegedly favorable to the Axis powers, and spy on congressional members who opposed the administration's policies. Additionally, FDR directed the FBI to compile information proving that famous aviator Charles Lindbergh and other members of the isolationist group America First Committee were engaged in assisting Nazi political aims. (The FBI never could find any evidence supporting FDR's accusations.)
To pause for a second, I want to make clear that I am not calling FDR a dictator, and I am not suggesting that some of the tough decisions he had to make were essentially dictatorial. However, I do feel that FDR certainly had few reservations in pushing the limits of his executive authority and in some cases he most definitely abused his powers. Furthermore, it is certainly easy to look back in hindsight and critique FDR's decisions, or any president's decisions for that matter. Certainly after Pearl Harbor there was great hysteria on the U.S. west coast regarding Japanese-Americans possibly being spies and saboteurs, just as there were suspicions of German-Americans and Italian-Americans being spies and saboteurs. But the fact remains that the Japanese were not white, as the Italians and Germans were, and this made it easy for FDR to make his decision. In conclusion, FDR's move was racist and wrong. Whether it was dictatorial depends on whom you ask, I guess.
But when comparing the actions of George W. Bush and Franklin Roosevelt under this barrage of known facts, it is obvious that FDR far exceeded his presidential powers more than Bush has. For in the end, George W. Bush has not relocated Muslim-Americans into concentration camps, has not attempted to force major changes of a government institution to impose a certain domestic agenda, and despite some worrisome aspects of the PATRIOT Act (which was signed into law with overwhelming bipartisan support), has not bypassed Congress or the courts in his attempts to monitor potential terrorist activities inside the United States.
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Though time will tell how far Bush went in using or abusing his executive powers one thing is certain: that no matter what gray areas Bush may have delved into after the 9/11 attacks, his responses were much more carefully examined and moderate in comparison to Franklin Roosevelt's. And therefore, while Democrats may be currently enjoying picking on an unpopular Republican president, their irresponsible rhetoric and actions will live on through history and their shame will prove to future generations that the liberal way is definitely not the rational way.