CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- President Barack Obama faces challenges similar to those that confronted Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and has made a good start toward helping the nation recover, columnist Jonathan Alter said Thursday evening.

Alter said Obama's economic strategy hasn't been perfect, and his stimulus package didn't include enough long-term projects. But he said Obama has inspired the country and made huge investments in public infrastructure and education.

"I'm puzzled by this sort of mythology that he hasn't gotten anything done," said Alter, a senior editor at Newsweek magazine.

"He's off to a better start than any president with the exception of Lyndon Johnson in 1965 in terms of actually accomplishing things," Alter said. "If Obama gets health-care through -- which he's likely to do -- he will have had one of the all-time great first years."

Alter, who is also an NBC correspondent, weaved a series of comparisons between Obama and Roosevelt into the annual McCreight Lecture, a West Virginia Humanities Council program held at the Culture Center.

His 2006 book, "The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope," was a national bestseller that received widespread attention when the White House revealed Obama and many of his staff were reading it. Alter is now working on a book about Obama.

Speaking to a near-packed house in the Culture Center Theater, Alter said Obama in some ways faced a scarier financial crisis than FDR did when he took office in 1933.

In the 1930s, Alter said, worried citizens stood in line to try to get their money in a series of "runs" on banks. During last year's financial meltdown, people could do the same thing with the click of a computer mouse -- withdrawing much more money more quickly and causing widespread panic and damage to the system, Alter said.

"People thought the whole democratic-capitalist system was going to end," he said.

Alter said some of Obama's actions compare favorably to FDR's. But he said it's certainly not clear that the administration's stimulus package is going to be as successful as projects like the Civilian Conservation Corps, which created 250,000 jobs in just three months.

"I would fault Obama's stimulus for not having enough permanent improvements built into it," Alter said. He praised spending on high-speed rail projects and tripled funding for science and medical research. But, "most of the rest of it, I'm not sure we will see the results there in 20 or 25 years."

But Alter said Obama generally understands what FDR showed to be true: That getting out of a financial crisis requires huge government investments to create jobs.

"The way you get out of trouble is to spend -- government spending," he said. "It's a terrible concept, but the vast majority of economists, even conservative economists, understand this. It's a small group of very far right-wing economists who don't sign on."

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- President Barack Obama faces challenges similar to those that confronted Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and has made a good start toward helping the nation recover, columnist Jonathan Alter said Thursday evening.

Alter said Obama's economic strategy hasn't been perfect, and his stimulus package didn't include enough long-term projects. But he said Obama has inspired the country and made huge investments in public infrastructure and education.

"I'm puzzled by this sort of mythology that he hasn't gotten anything done," said Alter, a senior editor at Newsweek magazine.

"He's off to a better start than any president with the exception of Lyndon Johnson in 1965 in terms of actually accomplishing things," Alter said. "If Obama gets health-care through -- which he's likely to do -- he will have had one of the all-time great first years."

Alter, who is also an NBC correspondent, weaved a series of comparisons between Obama and Roosevelt into the annual McCreight Lecture, a West Virginia Humanities Council program held at the Culture Center.

His 2006 book, "The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope," was a national bestseller that received widespread attention when the White House revealed Obama and many of his staff were reading it. Alter is now working on a book about Obama.

Speaking to a near-packed house in the Culture Center Theater, Alter said Obama in some ways faced a scarier financial crisis than FDR did when he took office in 1933.

In the 1930s, Alter said, worried citizens stood in line to try to get their money in a series of "runs" on banks. During last year's financial meltdown, people could do the same thing with the click of a computer mouse -- withdrawing much more money more quickly and causing widespread panic and damage to the system, Alter said.

"People thought the whole democratic-capitalist system was going to end," he said.

Alter said some of Obama's actions compare favorably to FDR's. But he said it's certainly not clear that the administration's stimulus package is going to be as successful as projects like the Civilian Conservation Corps, which created 250,000 jobs in just three months.

"I would fault Obama's stimulus for not having enough permanent improvements built into it," Alter said. He praised spending on high-speed rail projects and tripled funding for science and medical research. But, "most of the rest of it, I'm not sure we will see the results there in 20 or 25 years."

But Alter said Obama generally understands what FDR showed to be true: That getting out of a financial crisis requires huge government investments to create jobs.

"The way you get out of trouble is to spend -- government spending," he said. "It's a terrible concept, but the vast majority of economists, even conservative economists, understand this. It's a small group of very far right-wing economists who don't sign on."

Alter said that Obama could become tripped up by a foreign war the way Truman was in Korea, Johnson in Vietnam and Bush in Iraq.

"Foreign policy has a way of drowning out the domestic dreams of presidents, and that very well may happen with Afghanistan, or God forbid, Pakistan and India," Alter said.

In response to audience questions, Alter said that a much more elaborate candidate vetting process has probably hurt Obama's ability to fill some key government jobs.

"The vetting process is kind of out of control," he said. "The list of questions gets longer with every scandal. It takes quite a while to fill those slots."

Alter attributed Obama's election victory in part to changing demographics across the country. While Sen. John McCain won voters who were 65 and older, Obama won energized young people, he said. And McCain won the same percentage of white voters as Obama, but still lost by a wide margin overall.

"Republicans are in danger of becoming a regional, white party," Alter said. "Whether that holds up the next four years, who knows."

Alter, who is also a media critic, said he thinks the White House made a mistake by trying to take on Fox News.

"I think they were really trying to rally their base," he said. "But I don't' think it generally helps. It lowers the stature of any administration."

Still, Alter said the media landscape is changing away from a model of non-partisan, straight news reporting toward a more European model similar to what was widespread in the U.S. during the 19th century.

"I don't think it's a good development, but it's happening," he said.

One clear problem, though, is the declining number of professional reporters out covering beats and digging up news.

"It's expensive to gather news," Alter said. "All of this noise is fine, but the real thing is reporters out gathering news."

Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kw...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1702.