Hooverville Revisited

Throughout the economy's recent turbulent times — lost jobs, sky-high gasoline prices, plunging home values, a free-falling dollar, shaken consumer confidence, a growth slowdown and possibly even a recession — Bush has projected an air of unwavering optimism, even joviality.

He is the nation's biggest economic cheerleader at a time of deep uncertainty.

Sounds a lot like Herbert Hoover, infamous for presiding over the onset of the Great Depression... History has slapped him with a laissez-faire legacy even though his administration acted aggressively to try to avert that economic meltdown.

Hoover's reputation was built in part on remarks viewed as too rosy. "The problem is not at all insurmountable in the long run," he said on Oct. 6, 1930, as unemployment, poverty and desperation climbed.
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