A Two-Fer On The Gloomiest Day Of The Year (January 23)

Yesterday, at a football watch party, one of the Dumbos (GOP-faithful) here in Geezerville tried to tell me during a lull in the action that Dub was a "good guy." It's better to tell me that Adolf Hitler was a "good guy." In nearly chocked on my bean dip. In an old biography of Walt Disney, Richard Schickel predicted that when fascism comes to this country, it will come wearing mouse ears. Close, Richard. Instead, fascism has already come to this country wearing a dumbass grin and telling everyone in listening distance that "so-and-so is doing a heckuva job." If this is (fair & balanced) fear & loathing, so be it.

For the first part of the two-fer, Tom Tomorrow opens up the mind of a Bushie. Click on the image to enlarge it.

[x Salon]
The Modern World
By Tom Tomorrow



Copyright © 2006 Salon Magazine

Then, an historian at Miami University asks some tough questions of historians on the History News Network's blog — POTUS.


[x POTUS — An HNN Blog]
A Firebell Rings in the Night, but Where Are the Historians?
By Jeffrey Kimball

Where are the historians? Where is the historical analysis of one of the gravest constitutional and political crises of this nation's history? Where is the active, loud, and intelligent discussion of historical comparisons and issues? The touchstone of the crisis is the claim made and repeated by a president elected under questionable circumstances and by narrow margins that he possesses whatever powers he deems necessary to wage an executive war, funnel money to private military contractors, spy on citizens without warrant, torture prisoners, leak classified information for political purposes, appoint cronies to high position without congressional approval, foster the installation of tamper-prone electronic voting machines, invent "signing statements," and carry out innumerable other acts that conform to the archaic constitutional phrase, "high crimes and misdemeanors"—while he effectively allows a great American city to die and lacks wise policies to deal with issues ranging from the China challenge to global warming and nuclear proliferation.


The majority party in both houses of Congress, flush from ten years of the material fruits of power but now mired in its own scandals, is too sycophantic, complicit, or apathetic—and perhaps too ignorant of history—to care about its own constitutional powers vis-à-vis the president. It limps toward phony investigations of selected crimes and misdemeanors, uninterested in carrying them out in a serious, meaningful way. Meanwhile, Bush's "political base" in the hustings is reported to care more about fluctuating gasoline prices, abortion, income taxes, "intelligent design," and Old Testament "values" than to worry about corruption, nuclear proliferation, poverty, capital punishment, infrastructure disintegration, and constitutional issues. Occasionally this base worries about the war in Iraq and other foreign policy issues, but only briefly, perhaps because their "news" comes from such stellar "newsmen" as foxy Bill O'Reilly, Right-wing radio talk shows, or religion-based radio and TV networks.

Many in the press are doing excellent work in reporting the facts or analyzing the crisis, yet while they and we are still relatively free to do this, it seems not to matter to the "base"—and certainly not to the administration or the majority party. A report in the Associated Press on a recent research study concludes that even college students "lack the skills to perform complex literacy tasks," suggesting that the general public also lacks these skills.

Still, where are the historians? Hobbled by their own ideological divisions or by postmodern epistemological relativism? Apathetic? Feeling powerless and useless? Weary? Confused about the difference between analysis and political opinion, between the past and the present?

Last night I attended a bipartisan meeting in Cincinnati of a newly formed group—the first in the state—worried about the crisis in foreign policy (in addition to the crisis in domestic affairs). In political terms, there were Democrats, Independents, and Republicans in attendance. In occupational terms, there were lawyers, doctors, consultants, business-persons, bankers, academics, and others. All agreed with the Republican who said that this administration has wasted American military power and squandered America's moral stature (the greatest victory of Osama Bin Laden), and who also agreed with others who said that this administration has failed in almost every category or endeavor, except holding and expanding its own political power. They, we, are concerned, but we want to analyze, write, speak, network, use what expertise we have, and offer solutions.

But we Americans need historians of the United States and the world to speak, too—to speak on this blog site, POTUS (Presidents [or Politics] of the United States). Or will we go silently into the dark night?

Jeffrey Kimball is a professor of history at Miami University and the author of To Reason Why, Nixon's Vietnam War, and The Vietnam War Files.

Copyright © 2006 History News Network

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