My grandpa remembers watching Roosevelt on TV in 1929

When he talked about the causes of the finanical mess that started the great depression.  He was also comforted by the Fireside Chats from President Truman over the TV as well during World War II.

Seriously Senator Biden?  Do you really not know your American History?

Let’s take a look at the quote again, in an interview with CBS Anchor Katie Couric:

“Part of what being a leader does is to instill confidence is to demonstrate what he or she knows what they are talking about and to communicating to people … this is how we can fix this,” Biden said. “When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed. He said, ‘look, here’s what happened.’”

A couple of problems with that statement. 

1.  According to Wikipedia the first working television system was created in 1928, so it would be very experimental so I doubt many people saw Roosevelt talking about the cause of the stock market crash  Also NBC demonstrated inter-city television broadcast on February 1, 1940 according to this Wikipedia entry.  So how many Americans had TV in 1929?

2.  The bigger issue is who was President in 1929?  Not Roosevelt, but Hoover.  In fact Hoover probably lost the election because of the stock market crash and how he responded to it.

Congrats Senator Biden, you don’t understand American History at all