Henry David Thoreau once wrote: “There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers.” I thought of that recently in seeing some of the media pushback against the publicity generated by the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Texas this week. Thoreau’s quote is as true as ever about the state of contemporary philosophy, but it is also true about the state of historical inquiry: these days we have professors of history more than historians.
The professoriate is a class with its own interests and its own agenda, an agenda that largely overlaps with that pursued by the majority of our lamestream media. That agenda does not include the practice of history in the abstract, insofar as that involves presenting the evidence, weighing the options, employing reason, and drawing conclusions. To most professors of history and folks in the media these days, history is only useful insofar as it serves their left-wing agenda. Hence their resistance to the displays in the Bush library.
Consider this article from Yahoo! News:
DALLAS—As former President George W. Bush prepares to officially open his presidential library on Thursday, a question arises as it has for his predecessors: How objective will it be about his time in the White House?
Bush left office five years ago as one of the most unpopular presidents in history, his poll numbers weighed down by public discontent over his handling of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and worries about the economy.
But the former president wanted to take the controversies about his presidency head-on, say several former aides who worked closely with him on the library. One way of addressing the challenge is an interactive exhibit allowing visitors to see what it was like for him to make decisions as leader of the free world. People will hear information Bush was given by aides, then be asked to make their own choices. Afterward, the former president’s image will appear on a screen to explain what decision he ultimately made and why.
“He really wants people to go in there and get a sense of what it was like to be president during that time and to use that to make an informed decision about his presidency,” said Karen Hughes, a longtime Bush adviser.
In some respects, the article strives to be slightly more balanced than I’m giving it credit for being, since it does point out controversies over the presentation of material in both the Clinton library and the LBJ library, as well, but I think it is materially different, too, in that Bush is trying to present the information that influenced his decisions and both the media and some so-called historians are crying foul over the fact that he is doing so.
One reason they don’t want Bush to tell his version of the story is that as the nightmare that is the Obama administration continues to develop, Bush is regaining popularity. While I don’t often share Dan’s enthusiasm for Peggy Noonan’s writings, I was intrigued to see her recognizing the depth of the differences between the two men in her column this week where she wrote:
But to the point. Mr. Obama was elected because he wasn’t Bush.
Mr. Bush is popular now because he’s not Obama.
The wheel turns, doesn’t it?
Here’s a hunch: The day of the opening of the Bush library was the day Obama fatigue became apparent as a fact of America’s political life.
And she isn’t the only one. Writing for Politico this week, Keith Koffler complained about “Obama’s hubris problem,” prompting Neo-Neocon to ask the question that is on many of our minds: “And he thinks it’s only a second-term phenomenon? Where has he been, on planet Xenon?”
It seems like the media is unhappy this week because Bush is getting a fresh chance to tell his story independent of their filter, whereas the public is increasingly growing tired of the combination of arrogance, divisiveness, imperiousness, incompetence, and the need to politicize everything for which President Obama is increasingly known.
Perhaps, to modify Noonan a bit, the opening of the Bush library was uncomfortable for many of his admirers because, in seeing all five living presidents together again, the public got a chance to see them and to size them up, and as Joseph Curl wrote in the Washington Times W. easily outclassed Obama.
Mr. Obama at the GWB Presidential Library ceremony resembled nothing more than a precocious, self-righteous, obtuse undergrad, desperate to appear as dignified and humbled as the other four men standing next to him.
Unfortunately for us, this cretin has actually confessed to believing his own bullshtein, and proceeds accordingly.
He knows he can’t run with the big boys and never will.
Decade after decade of reformers and their reforms and still the headlines remain the same.
The public school system can’t be fixed, it should be shut down and all assets auctioned off to the highest bidder. That money, and all the taxes used to support the public school system should be returned to parents who can then decide to home school or send their children to private school. The good teachers will rise to the top and command a good living in such a free and competitive environment while those teachers that can’t perform will find another line of work. The only role for government should be oversight. This is a scenario that will prepare our young people to survive in this modern world. As an employer, I’m constantly amazed at so many graduates being turned out by the public school system who can’t read, don’t know weights and measures, can’t do simple math without a calculator and can’t show up for appointments on time.
I know this post may not seem to be on topic but really it is.
Although I haven’t seen Clinton’s library, I’ve repeatedly read that it is virtually scrubbed of any scandal, all of the minute references to Lewinsky, impeachment, etc. placed in an alcove entitled “Politics of Persecution”.
I’m one who thinks these grandiose, expensive edifices are merely opportunities to re-write history and feed insatiable egos and agendas. Grand public monuments aren’t what used to represent the United States, particularly those who glorify pretentious office-holders. I’d take a shopping mall any day.
1 My Sharia Moor “…nothing more than a precocious, self-righteous, obtuse undergrad…”
Did you mean precocious or precious? 🙂
That’s because it’s hard to fit all of Bubba’s “bimbo eruptions” into a double-wide trailer.
That, and he was thinking ahead – he knew that if Hillary ran again, there would be no question that he wouldn’t want her connected to his scandals.
Funny how the State-Run Media is wondering if “a Bush should run again,” but make no mention of a second Clinton.
Regards,
Peter H.
Certainly worth scrapping the current “public” education industrial-complex; maybe a hybrid of private home education via computer—and public tutoring, seminars, and social-interaction and very-importantly sports through the former-schools and the libraries.
We not only don´t have any historians, we don´t have any professors or teachers of history. What we now have are brainwashed leftists imparting the revisionsts version of history. I wonder how many persons actually did research at the The Reagan Library, The George H.W. Bush Library and even the William Jefferson Clinton Library to research from primary sources. How many will go to the George W. Bush Library? Or will they continue to use the Democrats criticisms as factual information?
I would expand that statement to include Progressives and liberals in general.
John Hinderaker wrote:
See that closing sentiment: that would make an honest man or woman blush?
The Democrat Party and most professors of history and folks in the media and Progressives and liberal men and women are in a cesspool of personalizing every issue, demonizing every opponent, smearing the opposition and doing it with no regard for the truth, civility or decency.
That is to say, Progressives and liberals are so agenda driven that they will use any means, however immoral or unethical or drastic to attain their ends.
Yet, as the several preceding threads indicate, Progressive and Liberals demonize, smear and personalize conservatives if they can latch onto a sniff of a conservative using their own Progressive and liberal tactics.
Vince and Rusty came to the dinner table and started a game of alienation. They hi-jacked the thread to turn the dinner table into their personal cesspool by naming each guest and relating the person to a character in some obscure, fatuous sit-com or movie. The game is a tired old variation of a four-year-old saying “you are a dirty birdie” and the other person trying to deny he is a dirty birdie while the confederate ups the the ante and says “you are an old poopie, dirty birdie.”
The only thing to do when adults act that way is to hose them down or leave the table and let the Kindergarten Kids have a food fight and dissolve into hysterics as they roll around on the floor and chew the table legs.
Some Progressives come to the site with malice aforethought and bring their ideological stuff to the fore. When challenged, they insist that all challenges must be handled in complete accord with their rules and they are the final arbiter of whether the rule applies, how it applies and when the challenge is over-ruled by the keeper of the rules. Stupid. Vapid. Childish.
Which takes me back to the issue of the left-wing agenda. If you can’t stand the heat of the challenge, then own up to the fact that you will lie, cheat, steal, ignore facts, name call, shift the topic, place blame, personalize, demonize, and more because you are so ideologically agenda drive that you do not have the honesty, integrity or character to blush at what you and your political friends will resort to in order to have your way and access to power and control over the rest of us.
I really do not see how you can demand integrity and honesty when you will turn your head and ignore the cesspool of corruption and deceit you call home.
Progressives and liberals quietly allowed the ideological agenda to pin Gabby Giffords’ shooting on Sarah Palin. The same crowd is bored silly with the Kermit Gosnell embarrassment. The same crowd is desperate for the “Boys of Boston” to be just coincidentally connected with Islam. The same crowd sees zero connection between changing the rules to allow two men to marry while telling Muslims that the number “two” can not be changed.
When you lie, corrupt, ignore the inconvenience of the truth, name-call and all of the rest, you forfeit your right to an important area of respect: being treated as an equal. When I see what you will stoop to to gain what you want, my respect for you is the same wary caution I have for winos suckering me up for a little money to buy “food.”
There are people on this site who see my comments and walk into them with the opinion that I am consider myself to be morally superior, a douche, a religious heavy-hitter, a queen, an evolution whacko, a fuddy-duddy, tiresome, meddlesome, a homophobe, etc. So be it. I am not going to try to change their assessments of my character flaws. Enough people seem to take far less umbrage with my comments which permits me the comfort feeling a certain sense of belonging.
This business of playing games to alienate and reporting and tattling to the principal or just crying in public is not particularly useful or productive. However, it is not the job of the site managers to referee food fights either.
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” As “underlings” (commenters) it is our collective and individual jobs to monitor our own civility and sense of decorum. If someone cries “foul” it is a fair warning that toes have been trod upon. But, then again, crying “foul” is no automatic pass for escaping criticism, either.
Or beat the holy livin’ snot out of them.
Heliotrope, you mentioned an Irish lab assistant that you once (still do?) work(ed) with.
What would be his suggested remedy for the millions (yes, with a capital ‘M’) in this country, much less this blog, that act out this way EVERY day?
Thanks!
” that is to personalize every issue, and to demonize every opponent with smears that would make an honest man or woman blush”
Heliotrope
This is what wingbats do on both sides. Hell the author of this post projects and smears the president in the 2nd to last paragraph.
No, mike, it’s what your Obama Party leaders and the Barack Obama that you support do.
And that was exactly Heliotrope’s point. You endorse Barack Obama and gush over what a good man Barack Obama is when Barack Obama called Mitt Romney a murderer and a tax cheat with ZERO evidence or factual basis.
And that is because you wanted Mitt Romney destroyed and Barack Obama in office, and you didn’t care what had to be done to do it.
Mr. Obama voted against the Born Alive Bill and then lied about it so where does that put him on any body’s moral standard?
Video of Live Action’s President Lila Rose talking about her organizations shocking abortion videos that have just been released:
http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2013/04/live-action-president-lila-rose-talks.html
smear = telling the truth about a democrat.
Cool! littlelettermike is all in to lie, cheat, steal, ignore facts, name call, shift the topic, place blame, personalize, demonize, and more because he says “everyone is doing it.” Therefore, being so ideologically agenda driven that littlelettermike does not have the honesty, integrity or character to blush at what he and his political friends will resort to in order to have his way and access to power and control over the rest of us is not a problem.
Thanks, littlelettermike. You have addressed your own character and methods very nicely.
You apparently are so deep into the cesspool and so corrupted that you can’t tell the difference between civil disagreement or differences or opinion and what the demonizing rats do without restraint.
Painting yourself into that corner, littlelettermike, makes you an automatic loser in all of your troll games. Your only use, apparently, is as the guy who carries the turd he floats in the punch bowl. What a calling.
Evidently mike (or littlelettermike as Heliotrope calls him) thinks an honest description of Barack Obama’s behavior in office and on the campaign trail constitute “project[ion]” and “smears.”