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Historian Sean Wilentz recaps Bush’s presidency and concludes it’s headed for colossal historical disgraceBefore dismissing the historian as a left wingnut, consider that his professional reputation is on the line when he makes such pronouncements. To attack his conclusion effectively, his facts and comparisons must be credibly challenged.Check out Wilentz’s opinion piece yourself: Worst President in History - Rolling Stone. If you want to see an organized executive summary, check out Daily KOS diary about the Rolling Stone article. Below are some passages from the Rolling Stone piece. To support his opinions, historian Wilentz states some alleged facts. Partisans can always come up with ways to argue that alleged facts are not being accurately stated due to some technicality or another. For example, is it a “fact” that Bush believes he has authority to violate federal law and order torture? It appears he does so believe, because that’s what he did - except that Bush and his partisan supporters argue that the torture was not really “torture”, and so no law was violated. AHHH! I see! Bush’s supporters redefine torture! Therefore, under the new definition, the President didn’t order torture! Slick Argument! Problem: The entire non-Republican civilized world seems to disagree with this redefinition of torture. The world will judge Bush for posterity, not Bush’s partisan supporters. Therefore, the history books will say Bush authorized torture. With the above in mind, let’s proceed to a few excerpts from the Wilentz piece:
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3 Responses to “Historian ranks Bush among the worst presidents, headed for colossal historical disgrace”Leave a ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment.
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April 19th, 2006 at 10:32 pm
I like James Toranto’s take on this:
‘A Good Propagandist, Maybe’
Remember Sean Wilentz? He’s a Princeton historian who last appeared in this column back in November 2000, when he organized something called the Emergency Committee of Concerned Citizens 2000, which spent more than $125,000 buying ads in the New York Times urging a “revote” in heavily Democratic Palm Beach County, Fla., in the hope of installing Al Gore in the White House. (Mark Steyn subsequently satirized the effort.)
As it turned out, several of the “signatories” of the ad said that they never saw the final text and that they disagreed with it. And of course, the “revote” idea was preposterous. No one, not even the Florida Supreme Court, considered it seriously.
In a forthcoming issue of a prestigious academic journal, Wilentz, described by the journal as “one of America’s leading historians,” takes the measure of President Bush. According to the Drudge Report, Wilentz’s article declares that “George W. Bush’s presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace.” The journal’s cover carries the blurb “The Worst President in History?” and has a caricature of the president sitting in a corner wearing a dunce cap.
Oh wait a second. Rolling Stone isn’t exactly an academic journal, is it? Wilentz, however, is a historian, and he has strong ideas about historians weighing in on current politics, as he explains on Princeton’s Web site:
I do think that historians must always be careful that their history writing doesn’t become infected by their politics. The minute you start with a political idea and try to find a version of history that affirms it, you’re a bad historian. A good propagandist, maybe, but a lousy historian.
Now, one might argue that speculation about where the Bush presidency “appears headed” isn’t history writing at all, and thus it is a completely extracurricular activity that has no bearing on Wilentz’s reputation as a historian. But the magazine is trading on that reputation to peddle his piece of partisan punditry.
One would think that professional pride would restrain Wilentz from participating in such an exercise. But perhaps the academy is so politicized these days that such foolishness will only end up enhancing his reputation among his colleagues.
April 21st, 2006 at 9:57 pm
This does seem to be extracurricular activity by a historian, whole clearly enjoys saying bad things about Bush.
But is the historian accurate in his guesstimate of how the Bush legacy will read? Isn’t that the core issue, rather than the political leanings of the writer?
It’s so Easy to find evidence for the GOP revolution’s major failures in governance these days. With so much of importance going so wrong, it’s hard to come up with a credible attack on Wilentz’s perceptions, and yet it’s so Easy to try to dismiss his judgments just because he might be of an opposing political philosophy.
A historian might tell you that History is History, and that sometimes the historian will enjoy making the judgments and sometimes he won’t enjoy it, depending on his philosophy.
This Wilentz piece is a case where the historian clearly enjoys making the judgments.
Attack the material facts underlying his judgments, and you will make a credible dent. But pointing out that he enjoys making the judgment? Well, that’s not an intellectually satisfying or very effective means of rebuttal.
It does appear that Bush is on track to be among the “Worst Presidents Ever”, and his GOP government will go down in history smeared with a similar lable.
April 26th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
We shall see. They tried to say the same thing about Reagan until the Russians provided proof that he bankrupted the USSR. All the facts about Bush won’t be known for decades. Until then, try not to confuse opinion with fact.