History

If ObamaCare is defunded (and, wow!, listen to all the lies and obfuscation flying around with that!), I recently wondered how historians will rate President Obama.  No doubt they'll be swayed by the fawning of the LameStream media and mostly undeserved praise he gets from them.  And, those who rate Presidents, largely college political science and history professors, are generally on the left of the political spectrum.

I remember, too, that historians and their textbooks still credit FDR and his New Deal for ending the Depression, when they did no such thing.  That's a hard one to dispel, so firmly ingrained is this historical myth.  Facts, for example, of unemployment and production numbers do little to persuade people after what they've, often erroneously, learned in their history courses.  After all, "The textbook says...."  I've had this discussion with a number of folks and they refuse to listen to any contradictory evidence.  I wonder what is the fascination with FDR that historians have.

I suppose it's like Kennedy and the myth of Camelot.  He is often, not always, but too often portrayed as a good President.  Some, esp the people on the street, identify him as "a great" one.  That, of course, is hardly so.  His record as "a cold warrior" was not enviable.  He was very lukewarm on civil rights, finally goaded into a minimum amount of action by his equally-lukewarm brother Bobby when he finally changed his views. I will credit JFK for inspiring Americans to do more than they might have thought capable and, over the past 10 or 12 years, I've changed my mind on this.  I think this was the most important aspect of JFK's Presidency.  But, when queried about what made Kennedy "great," what it boils down to is he was assassinated.  So, to be "great," all a President has to do is get assassinated.  That's a tough criterion.

I know how I will rate Obama and it's not good.  Even if I left my personal animus aside (I think he's a fraud, a hypocrite, a narcissist, and more--and I was infuriated when, for a while, there was a move to favorably compare him with Abraham Lincoln, certainly, if sincere, quite an ignorant attempt), which I would, he would be rated poorly.  To head off some who might find fault with that, I also rate W. Bush poorly.  Neither were good Presidents, not even close.  And, even worse, the times really necessitate good Presidents.  In the end, I could blame the American voters and I do--to an extent.  But then I remember the alternatives and they were bad, too (although my school's still out on Mitt Romney).  For that I blame the Democratic and Republican leadership/establishment--they gave us the rotten choices.  I suppose voters could demand better, but they don't.

I think it was Fatty Arbuckle, back 100 years ago, who said, "You get what you pay for."  (It might have been Juan Valdez?)  I suppose that goes for politics, too.