http://uspolitics.einnews.com/article.php?nid=262027President Bush Unconcerned About History's Judgment? Maybe He Should Read Some of It
By Tracy Dove, Ph.D
Editor, Russia Today
April 20, 2007
President Bush recently told reporters this week that he was unconcerned about how history will judge him, and he re-affirmed his conviction that despite waning popularity he has made the right decisions for the country. Self-confidence is a virtue, over-confidence is dangerous, and it is the latter that led the United States into two unfortunate wars that history has repeatedly shown us are un-winnable. President Bush is also eager to defend his intellectual stature, which has over the past 6 years taken a beating from editorials and critics about his war aims; recently Mr. Bush told reporters that he reads as many as 50 books a year, which works out to about one per week, and most of what he reads are biographies of Presidents past. To keep up with such a reading list is a Herculean task for even the most accomplished intellectuals, so when the President's answers to reporters' questions come out- well, unintelligible- it invites even the most objective observer to question whether the Commander-in-Chief actually understands any of what he reads.
Hopefully President Bush has acquainted himself with the biographies of William McKinley, because it is this former President who most resembles our current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in both aspects of Christianity and war. In 1896, McKinley was elected Republican President of the United States, and he took his own version of devout Methodism with him into office. Just like George W. Bush, this 19th century President was a firm believer in the provenance of the United States as God's chosen country, and in his inaugural address he affirmed his convictions in the following way:
"I assume the arduous and responsible duties of President of the United States, relying upon the support of my countrymen and invoking the guidance of Almighty God. Our faith teaches that there is no safer reliance than upon the God of our fathers, who has so singularly favored the American people in every national trial, and who will not forsake us so long as we obey His commandments and walk humbly in His footsteps."
The campaign that brought McKinley to office was masterminded by Mark Hanna, an Ohio industrialist who raised the unprecedented sum of $3.5 million and outspent the democratic opponent 12 to 1. Hanna was to McKinley then what Carl Rove is to George Bush today; the man behind the scenes who found industrial interests that needed a president in office who would cater to their needs. Naturally when the 19th century Democrats found out about Hanna's kneeling before the un-busted Trust Funders they cried foul and tried to warn the public that McKinley was simply a tool in the hands of the unreformed barons of industry, but to no avail. McKinley won thanks to Hanna, who was the first to use wide publicity and specific focus on issues to get McKinley on the radar screen of the American voter. In this way, Hanna's campaign was the forerunner to the modern political election machine which Carl Rove himself has mastered adroitly and to which he has made significant improvements.
In regard to war, again McKinley stands out as the best contender for presidential Doppelgaenger to George W. Bush. Back in the 1890's, America had business interests in Cuba and the Philippines, but Spain's brutal control of the Caribbean island vexed many American companies who saw their profits diminishing rapidly. For years the Americans had wondered how to remove Spain from Cuba, and in early 1898, the sinking of the battleship Maine under mysterious circumstances in Cuba's Havana harbor finally gave them their causus belli. George W. Bush also entered the White House with aims at controlling Middle East oil and somehow removing Saddam Hussein's hold on this vital energy source; luckily for the Bush Administration, America had its own repeat of the Maine incident with the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. Facing national tragedy, both McKinley and Bush revealed that they had prayed for guidance from God before declaring war, and naturally God came down firmly on the side of fire and brimstone vengeance against the heathen powers at work against good Christian capital:
McKinley: "I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night."
Bush: "I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,' and I did."
President McKinley was struck down by an assassin's bullet in 1901, shortly after taking the oath of office for a second term. It is here that the comparison ends, although there have been unsuccessful attempts on President Bush's life as well. The latter has survived- thanks to Theodore Roosevelt's quick decision after the assassination to include presidential security as one of the primary tasks of the Secret Service. McKinley's life and legacy were cut short, and now the ink is dry; George Bush still has just under a year and a half to alter his own legacy, and if it is true that he enjoys presidential biographies as much as he claims, then it is hard to believe that he is so nonchalant about how history will judge his two terms in office.
Tracy Dove, editor of Russia Today, is a Professor of History and the Department Chair of International Relations at the University of New York in Prague.
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