Saturday, September 30, 2006
Are we there yet? Part III
Reader No. 1 writes back to say no, no, no. The part of Michael Barone's piece he found interesting is what followed the Iraq poll numbers. Sorry. Right. King Charles II and King William III. Now we can include the Duke of Marlborough, William Pitt and Pitt the Younger when comparing Bush to Winston Churchill, FDR and Harry Truman. I liked Barone's last two sentences the most:
I suspect the 'where' has something to do with 'winning' a certain war. Until that happens, I don't think it's unfair to say Bush these days appears to be hovering closer to LBJ than FDR. ... (Didn't LBJ also follow the 'utterly charming' and ultimately 'inconsequential' JFK? -ed. Yes, but every historical analogy breaks down at some point.)
Reader No. 1 writes back to say no, no, no. The part of Michael Barone's piece he found interesting is what followed the Iraq poll numbers. Sorry. Right. King Charles II and King William III. Now we can include the Duke of Marlborough, William Pitt and Pitt the Younger when comparing Bush to Winston Churchill, FDR and Harry Truman. I liked Barone's last two sentences the most:
The analogy of Charles II/William III and Bill Clinton/George W. Bush obviously breaks down at some point, indeed at many points, as all historical analogies do. I will leave it to you to decide just where.
I suspect the 'where' has something to do with 'winning' a certain war. Until that happens, I don't think it's unfair to say Bush these days appears to be hovering closer to LBJ than FDR. ... (Didn't LBJ also follow the 'utterly charming' and ultimately 'inconsequential' JFK? -ed. Yes, but every historical analogy breaks down at some point.)
