Citing History, Bush Suggests His Policies Will One Day Be Vindicated-Historians Disagree

[babylonsister]

Citing History, Bush Suggests His Policies Will One Day Be Vindicated

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 9, 2008; Page A03


Meet George W. Bush, time traveler.

He's in Poland in 1939 as Nazi tanks advance on Warsaw, then flying with his Navy-pilot father to battle imperial Japan. He's alongside Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, William McKinley on his deathbed and Franklin D. Roosevelt on D-Day. He lingers with Harry S. Truman, another U.S. president deeply unpopular in his time.

President Bush leaps forward as well, envisioning a distant future in which Iraq is a tranquil democracy, Palestinians live peaceably alongside Israelis and terrorism is a tactic of the past.

"Imagine if a president had stood before the first graduating class of this academy five decades ago and told the Cadet Wing that by the end of the 20th century, the Soviet Union would be no more, communism would stand discredited and the vast majority of the world's nations would be democracies," Bush urged graduates at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs nearly two weeks ago.

As the door begins to close on his tenure, Bush is increasingly drawing on selected events of the past to argue that history will vindicate him on Iraq, terrorism, trade and other controversial issues.

Historical analogies have become a staple of Bush speeches and interviews this year, whether he is addressing regional leaders in Egypt or talking to workers at an office park in suburban St. Louis. Bush will continue this historical focus in a visit to Europe this week, where he will commemorate the Berlin Airlift in Germany and deliver a speech in Paris marking the 60th anniversary of the Marshall Plan.

White House aides say Bush, who majored in history at Yale, likes to emphasize historical comparisons because they are easy for the public to understand and illustrate in dramatic fashion how differently future generations may come to view him.

Unfortunately for the president, many historians have already reached a conclusion. In an informal survey of scholars this spring, just two out of 109 historians said Bush would be judged a success; a majority deemed him the "worst president ever."

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/08/AR2008060802255.html

[rpannier]

1. Here's a history lesson DUH-bya should know well

Q: Who was the only owner in Major League Baseball to vote against changing baseball from a four division 2 league sport into a six division two league sport with wild card teams?

A: george DUH-bya bush

Q: What did DUHbya say after the vote went against him?

A: History will prove me right.

Guess what? It didn't. Baseball makes infinately more money today than it ever did.
Most people who have studied baseball say that had they stuck with the old system MLB would be making much less money now.

And that boys and girls is today's history lesson.

[babylonsister]

4. And thank you for that! Has this assclown ever made any good decisions? nt

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

6. Don't forget the Sammy Sosa trade...

BRILLIANT! VINDICATED!!

[Flying Dream Blues]

2. Wow, I never knew Incurious George majored in History. He seems to lack any sense of it himself. nt

[hobbit709]

3. Bush, who majored in history at Yale

I thought he majored in partying.
Publius Quinctilius Varus probably thought history would vindicate him too.

[Supersedeas]

5. who will have to clean up after Pissypant's mess--while * takes credit for the clean-up

The mess....what mess?

[elizfeelinggreat]

7. He also thinks he managed to rewrite his own personal history

He's delusional.

[gratuitous]

8. Bush's history: Dodging responsibility for everything

Why shouldn't history continue along just as it has all his life? This "history will vindicate me" nonsense is just more dodging of responsibility for the enormous mess he's created.

[tuggle]

9. It feels good to be vindicated

Too bad it ever had to happen at all.