What Congressmen Know

Comparisons between the economic mess now and The Great Depression are nothing new, but a GOP congressman shows just how much history he knows this week when he blamed President Franklin Roosevelt for the Depression.

According to history scholar U.S. Rep. Steve Austria of Ohio:

"When (President Franklin) Roosevelt did this, he put our country into a Great Depression," Austria told the Dispatch as he criticized the economic stimulus package currently moving through Congress. "He tried to borrow and spend, he tried to use the Keynesian approach, and our country ended up in a Great Depression. That's just history."

Um, no. That's not history. Alert, brainiac -- the Depression started in 1929. Roosevelt took office in January of 1933. Listen to his comments.

Alert number 2: "Freshman Congressman Steve Austria conceded today that President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not cause the Great Depression."

Whew.

Okay, so our history major is a Republican and Roosevelt was a Democrat whose Fair Deal looks similar to what Obama is trying. Clearly there are politics at play here, so much so that this guy let his political predispositions get in the way of clear thinking. Even regular people do this -- misspeaking to make a political point, even if a bad one, remembering things in ways that fit our predispositions. This guy just gets to be the ass of the week.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, start your engines...