And The Survey Says...
An informal survey of 109 "professional historians" shows 98% believe the Bush presidency has been a failure and 61% say it's the worst ever.
I don't think this tells us too much about Bush, but it sure speaks volumes about professional historians.
posted by LAGuy @ 1:28 AM
3 Comments:
What's the point of asking historians about current events? Bush is still President. In fact, I wouldn't really be interested in what historians have to say about anything that is less than 20 years old, to allow time for reflection. If under an Obama administration, the US is repreatedly attacked internally, Israel goes to war with Iran, and Iraq and Afghanistan are conquered by resurgent Al Queda fronts, the Bush administration will look pretty good. Even if that doesn't happen, 20 years from now (after Bin Ladin has died of old age and all the tell-all books come out)historians may have a very different view of the threats that faced the war in the first decade of the 21st Century.
I'm guessing that in 1974, a similar poll would have rated Nixon similarly and now 34 years year those same historian have possibly diminished the invectives a little but largely have the same opinions of him as an individual - despite the large number of achievements that such historians would probably applaud (China, detente, end of war, environmental etc...)- so who can tell. I would argue an even longer period is necessary to judge
I agree its a mistake to judge history in terms of current passions and events- I sort of indulge in the fancy that 50 years from now when all of the decision makers are dead or too old to matter, history books (or whatever media) will have a chapter encompassing both narco-terrorists and Islamic terrorists as similar threats and analyzing the law enforcement vs. military approach. Who knows maybe there an intervening issue which eats up our attention (trouble with Putin, Chinese, Cylons?)- any vision of the future could be undone by what happens tomorrow (or maybe Ted Turner is right and we'll all be sunburnt cannibals by then)
Denver guy wants a minimum of 20 years. New England guy suggests 50 years. My standard is the president has to be out of living human memory before we can even start to get rid of contemporary prejudice.
The point of this post isn't really about the test of time. It's about the monolithic thinking of modern historians which you'd think would be a great embarrassment to them, but apparently isn't. Secondarily, with 61% calling Bush the worst ever, even as we have no way of knowing how almost anything he's done will ultimately work out, or even how it fits into history, it's interesting that today's "historians" are missing, above all, a sense of perspective.
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