I notice that no one bothers to defend FDR’s treatment of the Japanese-Americans. You’ll hop up to defend his economic and military plans but for the domestic issue of an entire ethnic section of the country not one voice.
The main difference between Bush and Roosevelt is in their abilities to project to the people. FDR was a master, Bush was not. That does not detract from the fact that they both did things that were bad. I doubt the Japanese-Americans were very happy about having their houses and businesses confiscated just because of how they were born. If you think about it has there been a forced movement of Americans of the Muslim faith anywhere in the US by the government?
Another problem is that FDR died in office so we cannot say whether the man wanted his economic policies to live past his Presidency. A number of them are hurting the economy at the moment, like the TVA and SS. Unemployment did improve but is it really an improvement when inflation is going up and all jobs are payed through tax revenue? Every job created by the government is payed for through tax revenue, which makes me fearful of Obama’s promise of more government jobs, this takes money from the private sector without stimulating it.
In terms of Japan there was a real chance of peace with the country before the first bomb fell if the Roosevelt Administration had been willing to make some concessions to Japan and from there, according to sources in Japan at the time there was a real chance for a negotiated peace between China and Japan. This disappeared as the US was unwilling to talk with the Konoye government in power before Pearl Harbor.
