Washington, Lincoln, Bush

Here's a desirable "learning outcome" for first grade students in the public schools of Georgia: being able to answer the question, "How are Washington, Lincoln, and Bush alike?" In their classrooms, Georgia's 6-year-olds "will compare and contrast information about Washington, Lincoln, and our current president. This information will be recorded on a Venn diagram."

I don't know how many other states require this Venn diagram to be created, or whether first-grade teachers will accept -- as information for the place where the three presidents' circles overlap -- commonalities like not having gills, possessing opposable thumbs, or putting on their pants one leg at a time.

But I do know that George Bush loves to say what he has in common with Washington and Lincoln: how little it matters what people say about him today. "I don't think you'll really get the full history of the Bush administration until long after I'm gone. I tell people I'm reading books on George Washington, and they're still analyzing his presidency," he told 60 Minutes. At Camp David, he told ABC's Charlie Gibson, "I tell people I read three books on Washington last year, and if they're still writing on the first guy, the 43rd guy isn't going to be around to see it... I spent a lotta time reading about Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln had no earthly idea that the Gettysburg Address was a great speech.... You know, history, it's just, it, I, I've always felt that there needs to be a long leash to history. That you can't judge an administration, immediately. And, particularly one that has pushed hard for some big ideas, like, like, my administration has done."

Ah, yes, those big Bushie ideas. Tax cuts in wartime, the unitary executive, signing statements, waterboarding, gay-baiting... You can almost imagine a first grade exercise that teaches them. Put a circle around the ones that don't belong:

A. American Revolution.
B. Civil War.
C. Iraq War.

A. Beware the baneful effects of the spirit of party.
B. The party lash and the fear of ridicule will overawe justice and liberty.
C. Democrats are terrorist-loving cut-and-runners.

Bush, of course, takes the long view of his place in presidential history. No one who saw this fly-boy swagger beneath the "Mission Accomplished" banner (on the USS Abraham Lincoln, no less) is qualified to characterize that act as one of the most loathsome, preening, hubristic degradations of the presidency in all of American history because... well, because none of us is dead yet! It'll take a hundred years, and a hundred books, before people have the perspective needed to acclaim his guitar-strumming indifference to Katrina as just what our glorious Republic needed from its POTUS at the time. His flying back from a Crawford for a midnight signing of the Terry Schaivo bill? Why, the only presidential historians who can call that one correctly (a victory for the rights of the undead? a miracle of long-distance diagnosis?) will be the great-great-grandchildren of kids in first grade right now.

I have no difficulty imagining the future historians who will rank W right up there along with the Father of Our Country and Honest Abe, rather than way down there with Warren Harding and Franklin Pierce. After all, the servile savants already beatifying Bush on Fox News, right wing talk radio, and in The Washington Times are as likely to pass their genes and memes down to future generations as is slime mold, and the Snopes clan that inherits the earth in Faulkner's dark vision. And as someone who lived through the Nixon terms, and then the Nixon funeral, and the Reagan terms, and then the Reagan funeral, I'm all too familiar with the press's fondness for the revisionist airbrush. De mortuis nil nisi bonum: speak only good of the dead.

The thing I'm having trouble imagining, though, is the scenario for America's future that George W. Bush thinks will ultimately make him look good. Does he really believe that future historians will look back at his Middle East record as the happy tipping point between radical-fundamentalist-jihadist-extremism and freedom-is-on-the-march? Or does he secretly hope that the tragedy looming in that region's future will be blamed not on him, but on his successors who inherit his broken crockery? Can he really imagine that his contempt for checks and balances, and for the Bill of Rights, will one day be compared favorably to Lincoln's boldness in saving the Union? Or does he believe deep down that the fact he ended up not being impeached will in the long view of history more than outweigh any pesky lefty aspersions about his abuses of power?

Follow Marty Kaplan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/martykaplan

Comments

[clifwest]

Mr. Kaplan,

And what do you think history will record as your most important accomplishment? How will history treat you, if you indeed become part of history? I would imagine you will fade into the not having been on earth status along with the rest of us. When one thinks of the billions of humans who have populated this planet since the beginning of time and only a handful are noted in our historical records then all of this rhetoric seems rather pointless, doesn't it? The secret, then, is producing or creating something worth remembering. A great philosophy lives beyond the author, beyond the name.

[Rockyman]

Anonymity is preferable to infamy!

[whimsicalpig]

If history serves me, Harding is still a crook, Polk is till a bore and Coolidge is still a quiet little whimp.

The glow of obituary polishing only lasts until the sycophants are all dead.

bush will, perhaps, have a little glow from his misguided apologists, but his final obituary will be written by dispassionate historians who will illucidate in great detail just what damage he attempted to do to our constitution.

Unless cheney"classifies all written and spoken word for the years 2000-2008, the dirt will eventually come out.

that is if he ever leaves office.

[MutualDisdain]

If Iraq ever becomes a stable, democratic country, Bush will get credit for it. He made the commitment of U.S. resources and he will be remembered for it for better or for worse.

Considering the propensity for the human condition to move towards freedom, I think it is likely that Bush's legacy will be fulfilled. (even if it could have been done more effectively, and even if it is not a direct result of his actions)

[NOSMAVAN]

Yeah, like the fall of the Berlin Wall was the work of Ronald Reagan.

[GuiltyUndertaker]

If Iraq ever becomes a stable, democratic country it will be in spite of Bush and his gang of evil clowns, not because of him/them.

Besides, democracy in Iraq was never the real goal of Bush and the neo-conservatives. It was exclusive access to oil.

[whimsicalpig]

How true, that fact will be the legacy of bush. the desperate attempt of american business to preserve their own skins and the great enablers cheney and bush.

[markusmarkus]

We write about the tragedy foisted upon America by the boooosh aristocracy. But, has anyone thought to ask each of the the Democratic candidates what s/he will do when s/he gets into the WH? Will they sweep it under the rug? Will s/he thank God s/he was preceeded by such a horrible preztwit named GWB? Or, will s/he appoint some hard-charging DepAG to go after the scoundrels, come hell or high water?

Comments?

[Dangoodbar]

In my view Bush's comments that he will look good in 100 reveals that Bush does recognize some reality.

That is for Bush to say Bush will look good in 100 years to me says Bush realizes that today Bush looks like the worst president in American history.

And I agree with Bush's description of today’s reality.

[Rotcod]

I think Bush truly believes in what he is doing. It's hard to fathom, I know. But often, stupid people are too stupid to know how stupid they are.

[FOXYLADY]

I AM SO THRILLED TO SEE THAT THOSE POSTING TODAY ABOUT KAPLANS ARTICLE HAVE INTELLIGENCE AND COMMON SENSE.....­SOMETHING MARY IS HAVING PROBLEMS WITH IN THIS ARTICLE...­.OR....IS BEING SARCASTIC???????

[lisakaz]

Bu$h thinks there will be historians who buy his excuses and like his brand of fascism (as "unitary executive"). There might be a few, just like who excuse slavery and such heinous acts. But the corruption and incompetence and arrogance will abide and no amount of excuses can wash them clean.

Bu$h is deluded to think "history" will exonorate him. The reputations of Washington and Lincoln ave not dramatically changed over time. Bu$h's cluster---- won't either. He needs to think this to hold onto his bubble. One wonders when he'll ever recognize the disaster he truly is but I wonder if God even could prove it.

[FOXYLADY]

MARTY KAPLAN....­......ARE YOU SURE YOU ARE ALRIGHT?? PERHAPS YOU ARE TRYING TO BE "SARCASTIC"? IF WHAT YOU BELIEVE IS REAL THAN IT WILL JUST PROVE THAT THE CLOSE MINDED SO CALLED BORN AGAINS HAVE TAKEN CONTROL == OR THE UNITED STATES HAS BEEN TAKEN OVER BY ILLEGALS AND MUSLIMS...­........

[tbmmoe]

Whoa!! Can you imagine Bush on Mount Rushmore along with St. Ronnie?! Thank God this nightmare is finally coming to an end. I just feel sorry for the world, and anyone who has to work at cleaning up the mess that has been made. Bush should be studied by students of history as an object lesson in how to take relative peace and prosperity, and turn it completely around. That is the only legacy he deserves.

[HernQuin2008YouTube]

Matching Test: 1)Hillary Leftover Clinton 2)Johnny Walker McCain 3)Barack Cool-Aid Obama
A. Platitude spouting cult dreamer with a PHD (Pileit High & Deep) in coolness.
B. Manipulative schemer, caters to special interests, tired looking, floundering, cash-drained campaign
C. Out of touch, hotheaded, comeback kid surging to start WW III
Bonus: Which is the lesser of three evils???

[Rotcod]

"Lesser" you'd use with two choices, not three.

[WillfromSF]

It's easy to get consumed by anger (putting it mildly) over Bush and those who would evaluate him as anything but horrendous. But back up a second and look what it's doing to you personally. This is not healthy to spend your days consumed by animosity even if your cause is right. Get away from the keyboard, hug your partner, children, a pet, or yourself and go outside, get some fresh air, enjoy life, and appreciate the planet (while it's still intact).

[julianne]

Bush is a sociopathically arrogant, laconic, amoral cretin who used to own part of a baseball team. Behind and beyond Bush are the historical traitors who own the Fed and much of the financial and industrial base of the U.S. and their private political foundations which promulgated the totally privatized the Iraq invasion and purposefully brought down both Iraq and the U.S. Bush fronted for historically powerful private citizens, foreign institutions and investors, and a messianic foreign nation which empowered our nation's underbelly and rationalized the useful and violent ideology of Neoconservative Fascism. Bush was to a tragic extent much like us and our all of our institutions of government, just along for the ride. They used Bush to bust the dollar and financial base after years of their globalist fire sale that ruined the equity in our working lives, any support for our physical environment and subsequent physical and mental health, our education system, and the craft foundation for the nation's security. Bush and Cheney led an assymetrical attack on the United States and its institutions and culture along with the traitors in the Republican Party. The U.S. is now, to a significant extent, a colonized nation in which the American people have been disenfranchised politically, isolated intellectually, disempowered financially, and are in the process of being melded with the fertility cultures to our south which will balkanize the U.S. and completely destroy the carrying capacity of our environment. The U.S. is now a corporate labor pool with the largest penal colony in the world. The privatized Iraq invasion and all its financial and viral consequences was also an assault on the American people, a betrayal of everything we were and all that we could have been. At this period in our history, we don't need another "liberal" or "conservative" President, we need a revolutionary President with revolutionary leaders in our Congress to seize the people's financial and material assets and restore our institutions of government back into our own hands to save our nation.

[littlemanintheboat]

Well said! Sign me up to fight in the trenches. Maybe we could use the old WWI song, "Over There", tweak it a bit and change the name to "Over Here".."Jo­nnie, get your gun, get your gun, get your gun.."

[USNewsLink]

You are correct and how do you propose finding these people to run for office?

[Rockyman]

Excellent comments! Now that the MSM is able to quash a populist message it would appear even more difficult for the populace to truly see where BushCo and a compliant Congress has taken us. A nearly revolutionary zeal to redress the many abundant inequities is our only hope. We have not taken just baby-steps the wrong direction but leaps and bounds.

[Rosey]

I will never let anyone forget the disaster that was the Presidency of the secretive Dubya and his lunatic minions. He will not be remembered fondly except by the right-wing crazies. (Left wing has crazies too, but, at least this time, they are correct to dislike Dubya.)

[MarkInEugene]

Strange how so many American's believe strongly in W despite the tragic waste of young lives and the billions in debt incurred from Iraq to be paid off by our children.

Strange how so many American's took comfort in the uninspiring, grammatically flawed, inarticulate and often embarrassing words of this president.

Strange how middle-class Republican’s could not see how a President that gave billions in tax cuts to the wealthy has actually made matters worse for the middle class.

Strange how American’s tacitly approved Bush’s veto of the Children’s HealthCare Bill that would have provided $12 Billion in medical coverage per year, while the country continued to spends over half a trillion per year in Iraq?

Strange how American’s made Bush a two term president after he threatened to write prejudice into our Constitution with his gay-baiting approach to winning over the American public.

Strange how American’s seem to be ok with Bush’s blatant disregard for the scientific method and science in general. Never has an American Administration been so dismissive of scientific theory and scholarly recommendation.

Strange…

[Rockyman]

Yes, the fact Bush can still have a nearly 70% approval-rating in his party sheds light on a concerning issue.....­the delusion and ignorance of great numbers of Americans. What hope do we have to mend our ways if so many are "out of touch" with reality!