Matt Yglesias

24 Responses to “Bush’s Place in History Now Secure”

1. LFC Says:
   October 7th, 2008 at 3:16 pm

   Truman had one big advantage … no YouTube. Bush’s idiotic statements, stammers, and outright lies are immortalized.

   Truman also had no e-mails to preserve, but “OOPSY!” the Bush administration managed to “LOSE” hundreds of thousands of those, so I guess on that they’ll end up even.

2. Strangely Enough Says:
   October 7th, 2008 at 3:18 pm

   Screw Truman. Bush going for Nixonian greatness.

3. Jeffrey Davis Says:
   October 7th, 2008 at 3:20 pm

   Truman hasn’t been “vindicated”. He’s been forgiven/considered correct in his decision to drop the Bombs. He won a stirring back-from-the-dead victory in 1948, but aside from the general splintering of the parties due to Thurmond and Wallace, most people don’t have a clue as to what the race was about. Most of the stuff Truman is fondly remembered for are things almost anyone in his position, other than Sarah Palin, would have done: the Berlin Airlift and the Marshall Plan. Then, Truman gets problematic. Korea is either the first time we stood up militarily to Commies since Wilson or it’s a prime example of why you don’t get bogged down in land war in Asia. U Pick ‘Em.

   I’m trying to imagine the Republicans who look back fondly on sacking MacArthur or seizing the steel industry or integrating the military. Somehow integrating the military doesn’t fit well with race baiting Obama, but maybe that’s just me.

4. anonymiss Says:
   October 7th, 2008 at 3:23 pm

   Washington Times found John McCain saying in 2000:

   “the most obscene chapter in recent American history is the conduct of the Kosovo conflict when the president of the United States refused to prepare for ground operations, refused to have air power used effectively because he wanted them flying — he had them flying at 15,000 feet where they killed innocent civilians because they were dropping bombs from such — in high altitude.” (emphasis mine)

5. Cugel Says:
   October 7th, 2008 at 3:59 pm

   Truman hasn’t been “vindicated”. He’s been forgiven/considered correct in his decision to drop the Bombs.

   This is an aside, but of course that’s totally false. Truman KNEW when he dropped the bomb that it wasn’t necessary to win the war against Japan. He and Sec. of State James Byrnes deliberately decided to drop the bomb anyway in an effort to threaten/impress Stalin.

   This has all been conclusively documented by historians based on the now available primary source documents and written up in excruciating detail in: Gar Alperowitz’s The Decision to Use The Atomic Bomb: And the Architecture of an American Myth, (New York 1995).

   Almost Truman’s entire cabinet and all the senior military commanders were opposed to the decision but he overrode them.

   “The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. . .[I]n being the first to use it, we had adopted the ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”

   —- Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to the President (the President’s chief military adviser).

   “Atomic bomb or NO atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.”

   — Hap Arnold, Commanding General, U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF)

   “I voiced to [Secretary of War Henry Stimson] my grave misgivings. . . .Japan was already defeated. . . [D]ropping the bomb was completely unnecessary.”

   —- Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower

   So much for the myth that the bomb was necessary to win the war.

6. Farren Says:
   October 7th, 2008 at 4:13 pm

   I always knew he was some kind of sub-Truman

7. Njorl Says:
   October 7th, 2008 at 4:44 pm

   I don’t think even 1% of Truman’s disapproval rating was due to dropping the bomb. I also disagree with:

   Truman is fondly remembered for are things almost anyone in his position, other than Sarah Palin, would have done: the Berlin Airlift and the Marshall Plan.

   The Marshall plan was opposed by Robert Taft, the most prominent Republican in congress. There were 17 nay votes in the senate, and over 70 in the house, and that was after a lot of wrangling. Oddly, you mentioned an opponent of the Berlin airlift, Henry Wallace, in the same paragraph where you claim anybody but Sarah Palin would have supported it.

   They were things that in retrospect seem obvious, but they were real, contested issues at the time.

8. Rajen Says:
   October 7th, 2008 at 4:48 pm

   This might mean that it’s even more important than ever to tie McCain to Bush, not only for political reasons, but because it is entirely valid. No one seems to have a good answer as to how McCain will provide significant policy changes. They seem to only be able to talk about how he is a maverick, has stood up to his own party, has supported the surge from the start, etc. There are holes in these claims to begin with, but that’s beside the point. What significant policy changes will he bring in regards to foreign policy, the economy, and energy? Who is answering this anywhere?

9. Bob Weber Says:
   October 7th, 2008 at 5:13 pm

   What I found amazing was that 25% of those polled STILL APPROVE of Bush! Assuming 200 million adults, that means 50 million approving adults! What does it take for disapproval, killing and eating human babies on television?

10. tom veil Says:
    October 7th, 2008 at 5:25 pm

    It’s especially impressive considering that, as “Dewey Defeats Truman” showed, pollsters in the 1940s were still working out some very basic rules of the profession, and routinely exposed their polls to major, systemic biases by accident. GWB, however, got his numbers fair and square.

11. aleks Says:
    October 7th, 2008 at 11:43 pm

    Three interests have been well served by Bush.
    1. Al-Qaeda
    2. The oil companies
    3. James Buchanan, whose ghost will no longer exist with the shame of being the worst president ever

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