A calling to all SERIOUS historians please

[Crazy Dave]

Seriously, it's easy for the average person to say "war criminal", "idiot" and "worst president in our history" but I'd be fascinated to know what someone who has studied or taught world or American history would write themselves or think others like them would write with the added prospective of what our nation will be like 20 plus years down the road. What will educated historians write about this president versus purely "emotional rants" that even I myself bring to the table? What do you feel will be in our school's history textbooks once this administration's cronies and family friends are long gone and not there to protect the family name in Washington?

[HereSince1628]

1. Doesn't it depend on who wins? The victors get to write the history.

on edit: or in our case a potential set of victors get to contol what gets published.

[Crazy Dave]

3. I've noticed that even republican candidates are politely...

...distancing themselves away from this administration. Especially those running for re-election this year. It used to be demanded that the president help his party's incumbents with his support but a lot of republicans are telling GW not even show his face in their states as things and the odds are looking better for their opponents already.

[tabasco]

12. Therein lies the job of the real historian.

To discover the truth as best they can from various sources.

Many Roman historians glorified the Empire, but their writings are valuable sources nonetheless.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

2. The Textbooks Shall Read:

War Criminal, Idiot and The Worst President In Our History.

[SaveElmer]

4. I m about to graduate with a Masters in History...

If that is close enough....

My opinion is that Bush will be regarded in the lower quarter of Presidents. Because the magnitude of the crisis we are facing today - as bad as it is - is not near what other poor Presidents have faced and failed to resolve, and because no major scandal has yet been placed directly at his feet, Bush will not be ranked as the worst. He will be rightly criticized for inflexibility, intellectual laziness, and a foreign policy rigidly based on religious underpinnings. In general he will be viewed as a man in way over his head.

Bush will end up rated ahead of Buchanan (widely, and rightly considered the worst), Harding, Pierce, Coolidge, Hoover, Ben Harrison etc. Other poor Presidents I personally would rank above Bush would include Grant, Nixon, Tyler, and Fillmore.

[JackRiddler]

5. Doesn't this depend?

Was 9/11 an inside job designed to implement the invasions of Afg. and Iraq and the PNAC program?

If so, will that be demonstrated within 20 years, or will it still be considered a historical mystery? (As is today still the case, amazingly enough, with the coup d'etat of Nov. 22, 1963.)

Will there be full exposure of the criminal dealings of the Bush-related mobsters, dating back several decades? (Especially key: the banking plunder operations of the 1980s and early 1990s under Bush Sr, i.e. the matters disguised as a crisis of the savings and loan system and tied directly into the Iran-Contra machinations. Also, the CIA-related drug dealing involvements, especially from that same period.)

Will the riddle of the "missing" 2.3 trillion dollars become an issue?

Will election frauds be fully exposed?

What will be the final outcome of the Iraq invasion, many years down the line?

How radically is the US economy likely to crash, if at all, thanks to overdollarization?

Will this be viewed as the result of its widespread Enronization, and tied to the plunder operations carried out by the Bush-connected mobsters?

That the Bush admin will not look too bright to future historians is obvious.

It's also obvious they'll have a mad fascination with this period, no matter how it turns out, thanks to the evident lunacy and the simple, compelling narrative that it provides.

But the severity of the verdict will depend very much on answers to the above questions. History no matter how honest and rigorous the scholarship is always written for the present, and revised with each generation. For example, our period will be viewed quite differently if the US in 20 years is seen as a fallen empire, with radical losses in Iraq and a shattered dollar, than if the system survives well in relative terms.

And 9/11 is always the great wildcard: was the defining event an incredibly convenient coincidence that just happened to facilitate exactly the program the Bush mob desired, and could not have otherwise implemented? Or was it planned and arranged so as to facilitate that otherwise politically impossible program?

You can certainly guess my answers to these questions from the way I have phrased them. I'm not one to disguise my "biases" (judgments arrived at after due consideration), or to pretend I have nonesuch.

(ON EDIT: Damn, by the time I had finished my "first reply," four others beat me to the punch, including one who asks the exact same question.)

[NoPasaran]

6. Twenty years is not much time

Twenty years is not much time to develop an historical perspective. I think we're just now getting to the point where we can start looking at the First World War period with some objectivity.

[MrPrax]

7. He will be hailed as a Founder...

of a New America and the beginning of an unprecedented GOP incumbency that will last much longer than 20 years.

Historians will compare the Bush administration to Wilson and the Bushkids in their 20s now, will be in their 40s then, and will see Bush as the President that took risks.

Everyone of course will look back at the Oughts and think (just like 80s) that life was simplier then, richer and jobs were plentiful. Gas was relatively cheap and the American way of life was in ascendency as it was under Eisenhower in the 50s.

The main criticism of Bush will be his brashness, his unabashed patriotism and his lack of respect for diplomacy--all of which are also qualities of leadership valued by most Americans.

[JackRiddler]

15. Thanks for the corrective

Something approximating historical truth may be possible, historical justice is seldom indeed.

There's no guarantee the regime will topple into ruins, its paragons hauled up before a Nuremberg tribunal, the institutions of secret government uprooted, the promise of democracy restored.

What you write is at least as possible. I even find the contrast delicious - the hint of free will in human affairs, still at work.

How about we don't focus overmuch on the history geeks game of Presidential Standings (Harrison's .333 average is an abberation, he only got 3 at bats, FDR gets an asterisk for the home run record since he had many more lifetime ABs than Teddy, etc.)?

Since even as a serious exercise this is about projecting a speculative future, how about we write one in which the outcome is as I wish, and not as MrPrax threatens?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

8. that's a toughie. Let's see how reputation has changed with just

four presidents over time.

Carter
Nixon
Reagan
Roosevelt (FD)

Carter
As time goes on, Carter's instincts were more and more accurate, while his ability to execute appears more and more limited. He was right about human rights, and making it a keynote of foreign policy caused the CIA to actively rebel and undermine his other decisions. At first, he did not realize fully how much of a domestic enemy he had to deal with. Democrats, more willing to deal with the status quo than change (sound familiar?) did little to support him. the GOP realized that once he was on the ropes, they could make mincemeat out of him, and did so, just to insure a victory in the next election cycle.
The report card today? much more respected, much more loved, yet aware that he was ineffectual.

Nixon
While people still point to SALT and China as major changes, most people forget just how many domestic policies were created and fixed by Nixon. the EPA, social security, tax rates, education, veteran's affairs, and many other policies started up or were made more accessible and financially sound. Today, any person even suggesting half of what Nixon created would be labelled a liberal commie pig by the Main Stream Media. Worse yet, he refused to kowtow to Israel and wanted a real peace in the ME.
A fatally flawed and paranoid person, he nevertheless knew power and what to do with it. Whether by luck or as a result of his natural talents and brilliance, Nixon's star is rising in the history books. Was he a lawbreaker, a sick man and untrustworthy? Absolutely. But, his extremely tarnished star is rising (slowly).

Reagan
His second term was ravaged by his disease process, which was most likely accellerated by his shooting. His aides controlled all administrative decisions by then, and the worst of his hands' off policies had come home to roost in utter disaster. The Iran Contra affair still echoes through the land, and but for some timely pardons and midnight deals, Bush I, Rumsfeld, North, Regan, Cheney and others would probably be jailbirds.
His first term is still looked up with great respect by neocons and ultra-conservatives. Despite all facts to the contrary.
Domestically, he single-handedly permitted the AIDS crisis to become one, just when timely intervention, study and funding could have saved millions. His cutting of welfare probably cleaned out millions of dollars of fraud, but only at the price of fracturing the poor and needy. His cutting of health benefits and food programs (ketchup is NOT a fibrous veggie, Ronnie) led many on the cusp to drug dealing and minor crime just to survive.
In Foreign affairs, he brought the nation to the brink of at least three major disasters, ignoring Iran-Contra. People did not so much respect him as fear him. Not a way to create a permanent peace or long-standing relationship building. While his actor's dignity and speaking ability served him well, he probably knew less of what was happening to the country as a result of his decisions than any other president since the the Teapot Dome Scandal.
Although he promoted an image of resolute power, unflinching and brave Americanna, it was anything but. almost 2000 troops to invade Grenada, simply because Cuba had sent teachers, engineers and construction teams there to support and invest in a country that elected someone far too left for Reagan. The force they attacked? a couple of hundred Grenadan police and military and a couple of hundred Cuban security. Despite overwhelming power, including tanks, jets and helicopters, the invasion showed how poorly prepared the US forces were. communications troubles, a lack of CCC, and total mismanagement caused a two day job last for three months.
Beirut is where Reagan really shined. After many days of warnings and multiple credible reports of upcoming terrorist attacks on US forces, Reagan ordered all the troops into a hotel, rather than to protect the perimeter and defend themselves. Once the truck bombs killed hundreds of trapped US troops. Reagan's response? to tuck tail and run like a rabbit.
Except with the most neocon of supporters, his star is fading fast. As it should.

FDR
This is a toughie.
most of his domestic problems were made worse, not better, with his works programs. Finances were trashed. he even continued some of the tarrif problems caused by Smoot and his idiotic fiends in the Senate. Very, very few of his domestic programs actually worked well. But a few did, and one cannot blame him for trying anything and everything in an effort to fix the worst economic disaster (except the one we are about to experience due to Bush) in our history.
His mass arrrest of western japanese- americans, and the theft of billions in their property and belongings ranks as one of the worst domestic decisions ever made. (many of the younger people asked to serve in Italy and Germany, only to be put in jail)
War
Here, he shined. He appointed good, strong military leaders, and while letting them do their jobs, he also demanded that they be responsive to his needs as CinC. Ike, Patton, DeWitt, Bradley, Hicks-Hodges, Patch and others were solid, briliant, resolute and successful. Forgeting Mac and his ego, FDR put the right people in the right place and allowed them to win. His funding and personnel decisions in the Manhattan project made it a fact, not a fiction.
Foreign affairs.
Here, a very mixed review. His ability to connect with the brits, the aussies, the free french and others was good. It created the closest international relationship in recent history (US-UK) but as his illness grew worse, and he was more feeble than in control, Malta literally led to the Cold War with the USSR. He was eaten alive by Joe, allowing Joe to think that all of America was as week and unaware as FDR.
Selecting a surprise candidate for VP, Truman was a brilliant stroke, even if he did not know it at the time. Truman shone in the most difficult of times and continues to rise as FDR continues to flounder, even, fall.


So, what about Bush?
There is a chance, an exceedingly small and highly unlikely chance, that the collective wisdom of the world, of DU, of the growing majority of the American public, of the DOD before Rumsfeld fired them, of political scientists, experts, intelligence and people with hands-on experience and knowledge, that Bush might actually be right about Iraq. I doubt it, but there is 0.000618% chance that he was.
He blew it by appointing cheney. He blew it by appointing Rice and thinking that so-so piano skills and a major in 1970s Soviet Economics somehow translated into the most important advisor's seat in the nation - the Chair of the NSC. She was so far out of her league that any chance we had at stopping 9/11 was destroyed the day he was sworn in, followed by the day that she was confirmed.
With every single opportunity he has faced, he has unequivically and determinedly taken the wrong choice. Even flipping a coin to make a decision would have left us better off than taking the path that Bush and his destructive group of neocons has led us down. Domestically, we are at war with ourselves, not just because of Patriot, domestic spying or the step-by-step destruction of the middle class, but because he has placed religion far higher than science, religion far higher than domestic programs and religion far higher than rational decision making. Frankly, I could care less if he was not religious, but for the fact that it will take a generation to fix the problems he deliberately and with malice aforethought has created. Domestically, he is by far the worst president in the history of the United States.
Foreign affairs?
What more can one say about the attacks on the UN, ignoring Darfur, screwing up Afghanistan, screwing the entire Middle east with a pro-Israeli lobby so powerful that i hope 144,000 do float up in the sky soon, just to get them off the planet. The list of transgressions, failures, pointless and destructive insults, and idiotic mistakes grows so long, that listing them all would take twice as much space.
He is in every way, the worst president ever.

[Poiuyt]

19. Good post

[ChairmanAgnostic]

21. thanks. I only wish ours was not such a sordid history.

at least in the exec office.

Look at Clinton. Supremely talented, yet he prefered to lead by polling. (and I don't mean Monica). There was a reaction to that method which led us to Bush, much to our regret.

[yurbud]

24. like Vietnam, there was no "right" way to invade Iraq

In Vietnam, the smart thing to do would have been to back the anti-colonial forces so we could influence them in directions in line with our interests. Even if the Communists gained a foothold short-term, letting people go their own way would eventually work out long term, including for our selfish economic interests as happened after Vietnam anyway (I think I'm wearing some sneakers made there).

On Iraq, a subtler hand and someone smart enough not to drag along stooges like Chalabi might have muted some of the resistance, but not if the ultimate goal was the same: to give Iraq's oil concessions to our oil companies on terms those companies dictate and to establish permanent bases to invade, influence, and intimidate other oil producing countries in the region. As Gen. Jay Garner said in a BBC interview, Iraq was meant to be a "coaling station," a military hub, the way the Philippines was through most of the 20th century. If you are screwing people, they eventually notice.

The sad thing is, even if the Bushies succeeded in their imperial plan, the likelihood of that trickling down to the rest of us is less than zero. Before World War II, the United States was the Saudi Arabia of oil. That didn't seem to translate into any benefit to the average American during the Depression. Even if we controlled the majority of the world's oil, that would only benefit those oil companies.

If we were just worried about access to oil, we would simply do what China did with Iran and the tar sands of Canada--buy them.

[TankLV]

30. Nicely done.

A lot to chew on.

[KharmaTrain]

9. There's No One Interpretation Of History...Welcome To The Brave New World

It was easy to control "conventional wisdom" when there was a limit to either the printing press or the airwaves. The "written record" was placed on a privilidged few and it was their view (or conventional wisdom) purely based on their ability to either control or have access to the scroll, the printing press or the microphone that determined how "history views things".

In the video age many past views of history radically changed. The view of the "pesky redskin" and the racial stereotypes of the early 20th century (that had been carried on for centuries prior) were blown away as more voices...especially minorities, were able to push their way onto the stage and add their voice to the historical record...past and present.

Now with the internet, not only do we have millions of people who can express their views of history, but it's globally connected, so that various worldviews mesh or different prespectives are added. Sadly, it will enable those who want to distort history to do so with ease...and those who want to live in a bubble world of myopism to be able to do so and surround themselves with all sorts of lies that vindicate their conveluted worldview.

My hope is this regime has finally woken up enough people that the overall view of the past 6 years will be one of fear and regression...a time when people had to struggle and of great social and civil repression. However, the view of the time...where history looks back from is always dependent on where you're viewing from. If this country sinks into further repression and division, these times, like the Raygun years, will be looked on by some as a "good time". :shudder:

Cheers...

[DetroitProle]

10. still working on my degree...

Just a few observations, though, as objective as possible:

My best guess is that Bush will be remembered amongst the bumblers: Hoover, Carter(though certainly most scholars don't blame either of these men entirely for what happenend during their terms), and also Nixon, especially if things get worse. We've never seen a president quite like this. At this point, he has everything against him.
I think he'll also be noted as a divider(despite what he's said to the contrary). Even Nixon, in such a heated, close election, managed some semblance of moderation(and even liberalism). Reagan may have been far-right and incredibly stupid, but he was still charismatic, had a competant staff, and reflected a genuine shift in the American electorate. Bush has none of those. The nation has never been so divided.
It is also useful to note that in historical circles, the Patriot Act legislation is regarded as the most repressive and destructive anti-civil liberties legislation in history. Far surpassing the alien and sedition acts et al. of the Red Scare. He will certainly be remembered for this.

On a final note, it's not like any of this matters. The 20th Century was called the American Century. Those days are long gone. Get ready to be a footnote in history in the Chinese Century.

[blindpig]

11. Not a historian but,

due to his being on the wrong side of every enviromental issue, accelerating problems, not even admitting them much less mitigating them, he will be cursed by posterity. Today the chickens are just starting to come to roost, in twenty years we'll be living with the results. Twenty years from now all but the seriously demented will be environmentalists, but it will be to late. Might be already, but the lame pos could at least try to stave off ragnarok instead of accelerating it.

[Joe Fields]

13. I would say Benjamin Harrison. Crooked as a river

And his administration dripped with cronyism.

[Joe Fields]

14. But when the Bush 2 presidency is said and done...

I believe he will top the list as the worst man to inhabit the White House.

[Crazy Dave]

16. Self reply to say "Thank You" everyone so far.

I'd love to reply to every and all posts but it would seem like I was "kicking the post" as I've been accused of before. A few of you really went out of your way and provided detailed and very thought provoking posts. This was what I was hoping for and I hope there will be many more posts with the same serious attitudes towards this topic.

We can always find a typical "Bush sucks" thread anytime but I visit DU to learn as much as I do to share my thoughts. This thread is helping me learn a lot even though some may call it speculation.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

20. I'm not a historian,

but I'd probably make a case for "second worst president in the last 70 years", and arguably longer.

I think Nixon was probably worse - the continuation of Vietnam was worse than the initiation of Iraq, and he was clearly as opposed to allegedly corrupt - and Reagan not quite as bad - although there's an interesting post higher up the thread arguing the reverse opinion that sounds better informed than I am - but I don't know enough about Hoover and how much his decisions aggravated to the Great Depression to weigh him accurately against Bush.

One thing I would say is to reserve judgment for a few decades - it will be much easier to judge the relative merits of Bush and previous presidents when they're both previous presidents, and so there's no subconscious urge to weigh one more than the other.

[JackRiddler]

Never mind the knee biters!

Please, feel free to reply much as you like & don't worry about someone complaining that you're kicking yourself. Please! Your threads are your babies, how long do they last anyway before they drop forever into the archive?

Do it with pride. This was a fine, neutral way to provoke interesting posts.

[JackRiddler]

28. Never mind the knee biters!

Please, feel free to reply much as you like & don't worry about someone complaining that you're kicking yourself. Please! Your threads are your babies, how long do they last anyway before they drop forever into the archive?

Do it with pride. This was a fine, neutral way to provoke interesting posts.

[Lisa]

17. they've certainly started to try to write their own history ...

Even though Yale doesn't seem to have made much of an impression on Georgie (who was a history major), his administration has already recognized the value of controlling the news ("history's first draft"), and they've already made noises decrying "revisionist historians" and even "postmodernists" -- that is to say, anyone who disagrees with their motives and assumptions. Meanwhile, they make much of anyone on their team who writes books putting forward their viewpoint on how things ought to be seen (e.g. Lynne Cheney and William Bennett, and David Frum ... even Bob Woodward, whom they felt they could get on-side with promises of exclusive access). This is kind of different from some earlier neo-conservatives, who despised the "chattering classes", and didn't really care what academics thought of them.

"We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''"
http://www.cs.umass.edu/~immerman/play/opinion05/WithoutADoubt.html

But some of the administration are seeing beyond this ... beyond the next election year, anyway ... and are trying to defuse historical criticism of themselves, or at least, trying to put it off as long as possible.

I suspect that they are hoping to create a long-term cultural change about which attitudes and topics are "beyond reproach" (just as it was thought unsporting, even nutty, to question Christopher Columbus, George Washington, etc., until a few decades ago). The schools were supposed to encourage hero-worship, not "tear down" iconic figures ... and I wouldn't be surprised if this lot wants to see itself as a new bunch of icons who are Saving America and the World.

(I should add that I'm not a "real" historian, just a social scientist with a side-interest in imagemaking and who controls information ... and that I've seen some interesting parallels between the present day, and the situation in, say, ancient Rome. If one looks at the political and personal reasons why Josephus started writing positive things about Vespasian, a Roman general whom he'd fought against -- and how that shaped our view of the Roman empire today -- I can't help but speculate that the current White House would LOVE this to happen to them. If not bin Laden, some other high-ranking al-Qaeda type suddenly changing sides. Look at the way they trot out Iraqi expatriates to praise them, every chance they get ... they are hoping for historical legitimacy.)

This is a great question Dave's raised ... I think it's possible that if things stay as they are now, and nobody calls them on it, for the next 2 or 3 decades, some (if not the majority) of history books might cut Bush a lot of slack (ranging from "visionary leader who chose a new course" to "noble goal but failed implementation", to "some of his ideas appeared justifiable at the time, given the constraints he was under").

Eventually there would be longer-term analyses looking at the ineffectiveness (and downright harmfulness) of Bush's policies, but wait for a "last gasp" of historical revisionism from Bush's people themselves -- in the form of self-serving books and interviews, years down the line. (Like "The Fog of War", but less honest?)


I remember seeing an article a while back, speculating on what kind of impact the regime of Pinochet might have on the folklore of Chile ... the writer suggested that parents in the distant future might frighten their children with threats of a hideous monster called the "pinchot", or something along those lines. In the case of the US, I wouldn't be surprised if Bush displaces Nixon in the Pantheon of Poor Presidents (sorry -- couldn't resist the alliteration). If you ask kids if they know who "Tricky Dick" was and what he did, some of them say vaguely that he was "scary" -- possibly due as much to media portrayals of him, as to overheard adult conversations -- even if they don't have specific information about him. (Either that, or Bush'll fade into obscurity within a couple of generations, because people just refuse to talk about him.)

p.s. what an earlier poster said, about Nixon's accomplishments -- ironically, BushII might even speed up the reassessment of Nixon, because at least some of what he did looks positive by comparison.

[Rex]

18. They will question if he ever really was president.

Or if the BFEE has its way - I don't think we will make 20 years as a species.

[Yupster]

22. Former high school and college history teacher here

Also authored a sixth grade history textbook for a major publishing house.

In my opinion, Bush will forever be remembered with the war on radical Islam. How he'll be remembered will depend on how the war goes. That may take 50 years before it's known.

On Bush's side, normally frivolous guerilla wars aren't remembered prominantly in history texts. Who is blamed for the guerrilla war in the Philippines for instance? I'd say no one.

I think there's a chance he may be remembered like a McKinley who started a war which ended up being over a mistake.

As far as the Civil liberties issues, I don't expect them to have much lasting impact either. I'm not a fan of Lincoln's because of his civil liberties excesses, yet he hardly suffers in history for it.

The economy? Not much lasting impact there either. Unless there's a depression, presidents are rarely remembered for their economies. What was the economy like when Benjamin Harrison was president? Harry Truman? Not many people know.

[sandnsea]

23. Of course he is

Terrorism and religious chasm. The environment. Choosing nuclear energy with no solution for the waste. Stopping stem cell research. The list goes on. He's failed at every turn and robbed the country blind in the process. I don't know what glasses anybody could be looking through and see it any differently and I don't really care what sort of credentials they have behind their name. What they have in their bank account might make a difference though.

The only possible way he will be seen as a visionary is if this global governance thing works out and somehow doesn't throw the workers of the planet into abject poverty and a feudal state. That's a sort of when pigs fly scenario.

[RoyGBiv]

25. No serious historian ...

No serious historian can fully answer that question as asked. With the added perspective of what our nation will be like 20 plus years down the road you enter the realm of speculation. Historians might tackle, lightly, the possibilities based on past trends, but historians are not prone to committing to paper conclusions based on what is not known and cannot be known. For example, I know a number of historians who focus on the late 19th and early 20th centuries who are very concerned about the dismantling of banking regulations that were put in place during FDR's administration to prevent what happened in 1929 from reach the depths of the global crisis it became, and they will certainly advise, loudly, that based on history, this is a very dangerous trend. Republicans generally will be heavily criticized for this if the worst case comes to pass, but it all depends on the "if." Events in the near future could reverse the damage done or could take us off on some other unforseen tangent that minimizes the damage that could have been caused, thus leaving the matter as a footnote.

All that said, historians tend to judge Presidents in part based on what they accomplished as compared to what they promised to accomplish. They also take into account any crisis situation the President faced, how he handled it, and what ramifications emerged out of that handling. We have some information now on this, enough to make a partial judgement, and as another respondent said, it puts Bush in the lower third, probably lower quarter of Presidents at this time. He could drop even more depending on what eventually occurs in Iraq and the Middle East, for one, and what the eventual ramifications are of his lowering the importance of science and education despite his rhetoric. We can speculate, but we don't know. Remember that at various points in Lincoln's Presidency, he was considered the worst President in American history. He continued to be judged harshly by some of the first professional historians for his failures to deal with a crisis. Only after several decades of evaluation did the so-called academy come to something of a consensus on him as being one of our greatest Presidents, as opposed to those who were personal fans or used his image for political gain declaring him such prior to this. I certainly am not suggesting the possibility that Bush will ever be seen in this light; I'm simply pointing out the difficulty of knowing the eventual effects of a President's actions while in office on the course of history and how later generations will view that person. A better example might be Calvin Coolidge. He was judged in a mostly positive light throughout his Presidency and to do this day is not evaluated dramatically positive or negative. However, many historians in recent years have begun to assess his economic and labor programs and "credit" his administration with having more to do with the beginnings of the Great Depression than Hoover ever did.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

26. great points, all!

especially about Cal (ronnie's hero, by the by)

[RoyGBiv]

27. Ronnie's hero ...

Indeed.

I remember a documentary on HBO during Reagan's first term, and it had a montage of movie clips and photographs taken from both Cal's and Ronnie's administrations. There was a picture of Coolidge at a Presidential Ball, then a movie clip of Reagan dancing with Nancy at his inauguration. Then there were clips from the Dust Bowl region in the 20's followed by clips of family farms being auctioned off to corporations. Cal and Ron in dapper suits. Children from the 20's and 80's wearing rags. There was no voice-over, just a song playing: _Everything Old is New Again_.

It was chilling and has stayed with me vividly all this time.

[riderinthestorm]

29. Haynes Johnson and Doris Kearns Goodwin

were on the Diane Rehm Show today (Friday 10 am ET on NPR). You should catch it online if you can....

These two presidential historians were absolutely positive that Bush and his Admin's insistence upon Presidential secrecy, if nothing else, will absolutely doom them to the dustbin of history. These two peerless historicans' recollections of how LBJ for example, went down ignominiously because of his reliance upon "secret" information/intel for the Vietnam War were breathtakingly insightful.

I highly recommend the show to anyone for a refreshing look at how this Admin will go down in flames based upon past historical precedent.

[Yupster]

31. Doris Kearns Goodwin is hardly without peer

Many other historians have had to make embarrassing apologies for their plagiarism too.

[riderinthestorm]

33. So if they are plagiarizing others' ideas here

the more the better. Just means that there are even MORE historians that believe this than just these two media hounds.

Frankly, listening to these two go after the Bush admin was damn surprising.

I'm not going to get into DKG's woes and whether she is peerless or not (and I hear you about your legitimate beef with her sourcing) but the powers-that-be have ordained these two as mouthpieces and they are telling truth here, now.

I am glad to hear it.

[izzybeans]

32. I wouldn't worry about the textbooks. Look at what historians are saying

among themselves in their research monographs.

There have beens some turds. As far as idiots, Eisenhower was very dumb. But not so dumb that he didn't recognize a wrong turn in McCarthy and the radical right. Bush jumped the shark and landed right square in turd blossom. Time will tell just how far the ooze of this blossom will spread.

Richard Hofstader's "Anti-Intellectualism in America" is eerily mirroring today. Though I suspect with all the worry about what is happening to science and our national vanity being tainted we are now entering into a period of national reappraisal; much like we were forced to do after all the intellectuals were marginalized, trade unionists were brutalized, and scientists were tested for "terrorist ties" during the McCarthy period.

The only difference is that in the late 50s even republicans were hoping on board the progressive train. Damn thing is, most of them never got over the New Deal and the Income tax amendment. They'll be back trying to dismantle it after they are momentarily defeated. History is repeating itself; just replace the words "cold war" with "war on terror" rinse wash repeat.

So is Bush the worst, the dumbest, and all the negatives associated with him. Probably in some ways. But his cronyism and anti-intellectualism makes him no different than a line of half-wits we've placed at the wheel.