Amity Shlaes, Columnist

Margaret Hoover Talks Politics, Depression Economics: Echoes

July 12, 2011 at 1:05 PM UTC

Amity Shlaes, chairman of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation, is the author of "Great Society" and co-editor, with Matthew Denhart, of a new edition of Coolidge's autobiography.

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Calvin Coolidge and the businessman-as-president were the topics of my column last week. In it, I depicted Herbert Hoover as a businessman who suffered the supreme humiliation of failing at the business of the presidency. Hardly an original move -- who doesn't criticize the 31st president?

But now Hoover is striking back, at least through the medium of his great-granddaughter, the television commentator and author Margaret Hoover.