Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Obama misplaces gilded age

Sen. Barack Obama was in Cedar Rapids, Iowa yesterday at a school named for Theodore Roosevelt, and used the great president's legacy to criticize President Bush, claiming that our current chief executive wants to create a "second gilded age."

From USA Today:

Obama said he chose Roosevelt as an example because he took office at a time when wealth was concentrated in a very few hands and because he earned his reputation by going against the rich.

"It was an era known as the gilded age," said the Illinois senator. "Theodore Roosevelt decided not to play along."

Roosevelt earned a repution as a "trust buster," but the gilded age Obama refers to, by most historians' accounts, ended with the Panic of 1893, eight years before Teddy Roosevelt was sworn in as president.

Technorati tags:

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear God what were they thinking
putting a nut job like Obama in
the White House?

Anonymous said...

Arrogant bug eyed Freak!!!!!!!

mattmcc said...

Revisit your historians and this time go beyond the community college level. The "Gilded Age" term was coined by Mark Twain and historians attribute its demise to the start of WWI, definitely NOT the Panic of 1893. If such a profound shift were the case, McKinley would have lost in 1896 and JP would not have been asking TR, "You have your man meet with my man and we'll work this out.." in referencing the Northern Securities trust.