It came recently from the historian Robert Dallek, writing about presidential candidates and the question of judgment vs experience:
"Herbert Hoover, one of the most experienced public figures ever to get to the White House, demonstrated dreadful judgment in believing that the Depression would resolve itself with minimal government intervention."
Arrgghh! Herbert Hoover was no fan of minimalist government, neither as president nor before. He was a progressive all his life. As Secretary of Commerce under Calvin Coolidge, he spent more and did more than any before him. As president, he spent so much money fighting the Depression that by 1932 his administration ran a significant budget deficit, for which he was attacked in the fall campaign by none other than...Franklin D. Roosevelt. This book explains this much further.
It's amazing how tenacious is the myth of Herbert Hoover the supposedly-do-nothing-president. But it's a myth nonetheless.
