Month: March 2008

How is history going to judge George W. Bush?

While the answer may seem obvious (he will be ranked somewhere between Warren Harding and the Holocaust) academic work on the presidency shows an interesting lack of objectivity on the matter.
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We like to think of ourselves as impartial observers, but look no further than Ronald Reagan to understand how history interacts with PR campaigns.

Various attempts at ranking the presidents – some academic, some popular – show substantial variance in Reagan's placement. In reality, Reagan was a pretty middling president. His assets were his tremendous confidence, optimism, and ability to soothe with his words. These qualities become very important only when considered in the proper context – the miserable 1970s. Post-war prosperity ended. The economy was in shambles. Major cities often resembled war zones. America's position in the world was not as strong as it once was. Under these circumstances, Reagan was just what the doctor ordered. He also excelled at working constructively with the Democratic majorities in Congress – the mark of an outstanding president in the Neustadt model.

On the downside, Reagan was not a rocket scientist. He strongly advocated economic policies he didn't really understand. He engineered a dangerous, possibly reckless, increase in tensions with the Soviet Union. He accomplished no major act of domestic policy save the 1986 revision of the tax code. Most importantly, he created a "Government = Bad, Period" ideology that left government oversight of public health, education, safety, and the environment in shambles.

So what was he? He was an important president who was the right person for the moment. He also had serious flaws in his legacy, although on balance let's be generous and call his two terms more positive than negative.
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That would suggest a president in the top half of the rankings, but not an excellent one. If the 43 presidents are broken into quartiles, Reagan deserves a ranking in the 12-20 range.

Instead, the trend in recent years is to rank him somewhere in the top 8, occasionally even the top 5. Make no mistake: this is pure appeasement. To the right-wing media, Reagan is #1. Any ranking system that does not recognize his greatness is biased. So Ronnie has steadily crept up the list as academics, historians, and journalists cave in (deciding that it's easier to just throw him at #6 than to deal with conservative histrionics). Twenty years of retrospection have made him Great.

My question is, are we are going to have to play this game with George W. Bush? I mean, Ronnie was likeable enough that most people do not have to swallow too hard to sneak him into the top ten.

Overrated? Definitely. Awful president? No. Bush, on the other hand…ranking him higher than Ass Cancer would qualify as "overrating." And he is certainly a thoroughly awful president. Which will the Cato Institutes and Fox News anchors of the world choose: will they simply try to forget Bush as quickly as possible?

Or are we honestly going to be expected to Seriously and Solemnly look at him in hindsight before concluding that he belongs on Mount Rushmore?

Every year I think about writing this post exactly once. It happens when I mail a check to the IRS.

Even though we have essentially the lowest rates of taxation in the industrialized world, incessant bitching about taxes seems to be an American birthright.

Some people allow it to take over their lives until they become, at best, unpleasant, consistent and predictable ranters in the office break room. At worst they become "tax protesters" who divide their time between tar paper shacks in Idaho and Federal courtrooms.

Oliver Wendell Holmes said "Taxes are the price we pay for civilization." That sums up the way I feel. Due to peculiarities in the manner in which grad students are paid at my University and a pair of very active online trading accounts, I inevitably end up owing Uncle Sam several hundred dollars annually. I don't like paying it. You could even say I dislike it. I often utter profanities as I write the check. But you know what? I put it in the mail and proceed to get the fuck over it.

The fact that millions of my countrymen are unable to do so is, well, sad. I pity them. The amount of energy they waste and the amount of time they spend being pissed off about this is as unfortunate as it is illogical. The ideology of the Tax Bitcher seems to imply that without taxes and their accompanying rage he or she would be happier. The older I get, the more I doubt that.

Tax rage is just a symptom of how the (largely white) middle and upper-middle classes react to the steady erosion of the American Dream(tm) since the 1960s. No one understood the proper formula for political success in this era and with this demographic better than Ronald Reagan: pick something that angry white people are predisposed to dislike and blame it for their fading prosperity. The statement "_________ is/are taking all of your money" may be Ronnie's greatest legacy. It works with just about any convenient target. Welfare queens. Government. Immigrants. The liberal media. Black people. Any noun will do in a pinch.

People buy so heavily into a system and a way of life, even though it regularly fucks them, that they're willing to defend it more viciously than those who actually benefit from it.
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Explaining one's miserable, unhappy, unprosperous life by confronting the systemic flaws and rampant inequality built into our society is emotionally difficult after a lifetime of defending it.
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Picking a target and blaming the hell out of is easy. All it requires is a willing suspension of rationality, as if dropping the Tax Bitcher's burden from 28% to 20% would solve all of his problems and lead to non-stop, rainbows-out-the-ass happiness.

It is my dime-store opinion that homeschooling is little more than legalized child abuse. Physical abuse and brainwashing are simply opposite sides of the same coin. I'm pretty confident that no one who thinks it is appropriate to control every piece of information that reaches their child should have children in the first place. Your anecdotal story about how you were homeschooled and loved it does not interest me. Good for you. For every one of you there are a dozen socially retarded zombies wandering the Earth with wholly fictional versions of reality in their heads – courtesy of their tinfoil-hatted mom and her Teach the Controversy textbooks.

This video has been making the rounds, taken from an ABC special about a group of homeschooled fundies (homeschooler logic: if we put all of the asocial kids in a room with one another once a month, it counts as social interaction – no different than school, really!) being taken on a tour of a natural history museum. Rather than try to describe it, just watch as much as you can before you vomit.

Let us ignore all of the obvious points of criticism for the moment. If you have ever taught a class in your life – from preschool to med school – the pedagogy on display here has to horrify you. It certainly made me want to projectile vomit. These people seem to have taken the Learning = Rote Memorization formula to an extreme that would shame the worst public grammar school teacher. The concept of "teaching" on display here consists of the guide speaking and then stopping for the children to fill in the missing word. In unison, mind you.

Here we see the three pillars of religious fundamentalism: all-encompassing ignorance, fear, and unquestioning obedience. Nothing says "fundie" quite like a pasty, empty-eyed gaggle of Children of the Corn extras listlessly reciting dogma memorized out of fear of punishment. It's hard to do anything except feel bad for them and baselessly hope that one or two of them will find a way to think for him- or herself. It's a longshot.

On one hand, it's tempting to say Who Cares to the homeschooling issue. After all, homeschooled kids are exceptionally unlikely to bother you or I. The few that enter the economy at any level above Sandwich Artist or Wal-Mart night manager will get degrees at Regent or Patrick Henry before returning to Lizard Lick, NC to embark on a long career of shitting out kids. But the kids didn't volunteer for this treatment. Public and private schools may do a pretty outstanding job of messing up kids, but at least one has a fighting chance of emerging from that environment with cognitive and social skills.

The three remaining presidential candidates have each taken turns suffering through the same "crisis" over the last two weeks. It is entirely a creature of the New Media age with its endless airtime to fill and heavy reliance on the Duelling Pundits format.
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Of course I'm referring to the fact that each candidate has taken heavy criticism on account of someone else's big mouth.

McCain has gotten criticized over John Hagee's virulent anti-Catholic rhetoric. Hillary had to deal with Geraldine Ferarro's enlightened views on race. Obama has taken heat over his pastor's different yet equally enlightened racial views. Personally, I find these discussions diversionary, pointless, utterly irrelevant, and unfair. Unfair? Yes. You may argue that it is fair to criticize the company a candidate chooses to keep. You may also argue that the candidates should be held to account for the views of those who endorse them. If either of those things crossed your mind, I want you to try a little thought experiment.

You wake up tomorrow morning and, through some series of events not relevant here, you are your party's nominee for President, Governor, the Senate, or some other high-visibility political office. Media descend on your home in droves. Everyone you've ever met suddenly claims to be very close with you and is giving TV interviews about you. Many of your friends and family are thrilled to support you vociferously. Now, tell me how long you believe it would take for someone you know to say something asinine on camera. In my case? Given some of the knuckleheads I know?

Three hours. Tops.

Think about all the people you know. Think about how bat-shit insane some of them are. Think about all the bizarre views some of them hold. Think of how completely and totally unprepared they are to have a camera shoved in their face and be interviewed for an audience of 100 million. Think about how terribly, terribly wrong things would go if some of your acquaintances, co-workers, friends, religious community, or family members were given the chance to flap their gums on camera. We don't even need to play the degrees-of-separation game; one degree would be just fine for most of us.

While it can be argued that public figures like Geraldine Ferarro should know better, my point holds – would you find it fair to be held accountable for the words and actions of anyone and everyone you know? I didn't think so. Now consider the fact that Clinton, Obama, and McCain are running for president and their pool of associates prepared to say something stupid is several orders of magnitude larger than yours. Frankly, it is extraordinarily unlikely that this wouldn't happen at some point. Too bad we waste so much time and effort blowing hot air when it does.