Charlie Rose

REMant  12/12/2008 12:47 AM Report

I have not seen Meacham's book. I know a fair amount about the subject, however, and there's nothing to admire about the guy, or the party. The Democrats (and many of the Anti-Federalists before) were the Reaganites of their time. Putting Jackson together with the current Illinois governor in the same program is but justice, for they operated on the same level. His admin paid lip service to free-trade, sound money and state's rights, but did exactly the opposite, which is why SC revolted. He may have thought the Bank corrupt, but having none was far worse, causing the Panic of 1837. BTW, it was the campaign against the Bank, orchestrated by Van Buren, that raised NY to its present status in the financial world. Hammond notes that in Taney's mind if the Bank lent it was corrupting and enslaving, and if it didn't lend, it was starving the people. Calhoun observed in Congress that the whole nation had been converted into stock jobbers and speculators. And it was at this time that state govt corruption lost them the control of incorporation. Many present-day state constitutions with strict provisions on elections, etc were written in the 1840s in response to the problems of these years. Jackson's admin, like Wilson's and FDR's, greatly expanded the executive branch as well, and the Jacksonians began machine politics in America. Comparing their media manipulations and demagoguery with Obama's, is precisely what was troubling about the latter's campaign. My guess would be that this book like McCullough's on Adams and Isaacson's about Franklin will get a lot of publicity, but that ppl should look beyond it for any real understanding.

tartufe  12/11/2008 03:37 PM Report

This guy's good. Jackson an unknown to me and I'm betting many other undereducated amongst us. Would consider reading his book but current affairs seem to relegate recreational reading downscale somehow, as in unpatriotic damn near.

But, I'm obsessed. The mauling the auto guys are getting (deserved as it is), is shameful by comparison to the free-pass the financial wise-guys are getting by with and they're responsible for it all. Go figure! Rubin, Citigroup et al would not stand in an honest investigation of their self-serving corruption. If the ------ovitch governor of Illinois is guilty of selling a senate seat, Rubin et al are guilty of buying the whole lot. All for exploitive deregulation that ultimately led to the world-wide melt down. They want the CEO's head of GM. By this yardstick the financial wise-guys should be GITMOized and then bastilled, or better yet forced to live under a bridge with their victims. Obama will falter on this issue down the road. Rubin, Summers have purchased him like so much political fodder. Paulson, Bernanke, Bush have bailed out the most culpable, namely hedge funds and big banks that should have been excised to remove the main points of corruption. A culture that tolerates these human damages deserves the natural outcome. Would trade Osama bin Laden's damage for the abject misery these guys are causing. They're both self-serving bastards and they're both getting off scot-free. The financial wise-guys need to be run to ground as well.