Obama, the Other Huey Long

The president is more like the Depression era's populist Louisiana governor than like FDR.

The “Obama as FDR” meme emerged immediately after the elections. The November 20 issue of TheEconomist noted, in an article critical of the comparison:

Washington is currently buzzing with talk of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Members of Mr. Obama’s inner circle are reading up on FDR’s first 100 days. No political conversation is complete without a knowing reference to the squire of Hyde Park. Both Time (on the cover) and the New Yorker (on an inside page) feature pictures of Mr. Obama as FDR, smoking a cigarette, driving an open-top car and looking very much as though he has nothing to fear but fear itself.