Saturday, December 27, 2008
Standards of corruption change over time -- such as since FDR's day.
Paul Krugman writes that FDR's administration -- indeed the entire Democratic party-managed government of his era -- was so clean that
The point here is that standards of corruption -- and of Presidential behavior, and of reporting of it -- have so changed since the 1940s that FDR could do right out in the open what would have gotten Nixon indicted.
As David Brinkley recalled in his memoir about his early years as a reporter covering FDR's White House...
Yes, indeed ... if a news story broke today saying Dubya had called up the IRS and ordered it to cut the taxes owed by one of his cronies by more than $250,000 (or more than $2 million) I can just imagine what the NY Times editorial pages would be writing about it -- Krugman in particular!
But back then FDR did it right in front of the press corps, and none of them considered it even worth thinking about...
Paul Krugman writes that FDR's administration -- indeed the entire Democratic party-managed government of his era -- was so clean that
"when a Congressional subcommittee investigated the W.P.A., it couldn’t find a single serious irregularity"Of course, that was a Democratic progam being investigated by a Democratic Congress that to do so named a Democrat-led committee that picked a Democrat-led subcommittee with a majority of Democratic members who reached that sterling conclusion. But I digress...
The point here is that standards of corruption -- and of Presidential behavior, and of reporting of it -- have so changed since the 1940s that FDR could do right out in the open what would have gotten Nixon indicted.
As David Brinkley recalled in his memoir about his early years as a reporter covering FDR's White House...
That $17,000 tax cut ordered by FDR for his friend was more than $250,000 in today's money (adjusted by CPI, or more than $2 million adjusted by its size relative to GDP)....the Internal Revenue Service had investigated the financial dealings of a Roosevelt friend and ordered him to pay twenty thousand dollars in fines, interest and penalties.
The president thought it was too much, telephoned the director of Internal Revenue and told him, "Cut his fine to three thousand. I think that's enough."It is diverting to imagine the scandal today if a president ordered the IRS to reduce a fine for a friend and it was duly leaked to the Washington Post, as it would be. But in Roosevelt's case he made the call in the hearing of some of us in the press corps, and nobody seemed to think it was news or even very interesting...
Yes, indeed ... if a news story broke today saying Dubya had called up the IRS and ordered it to cut the taxes owed by one of his cronies by more than $250,000 (or more than $2 million) I can just imagine what the NY Times editorial pages would be writing about it -- Krugman in particular!
But back then FDR did it right in front of the press corps, and none of them considered it even worth thinking about...
