US Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia gave a history lesson on the floor of the House last night on how President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried (successfully, I guess) to bring Stalinism to America. Political Correction has the video and the relevant quote:
BROUN: Original intent was the general welfare, the general welfare of the nation, not welfare of individuals. We've developed this big welfare system in this country. It all started, in earnest, with President Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt just exploded the size and scope of the government with his New Deal. Both progressives. Both had socialist beliefs. In fact, Franklin Delano Roosevelt sent his advisors, his close friends, his cabinet people to go visit with Stalin in communist Russia to study what he was doing, what Stalin was doing there so that FDR could replicate it here in the United States. And he did everything he possibly could to do so.
OK, that's pretty good, but it's not as pithy or passionate as the Archie Bunker assessment of FDR ("the first creeping socialist"), from 1971. It starts at 0:40.
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