Historian quoted by Bush ‘angrily distances’ himself.
In his speech on Wednesday, President Bush quoted an “interesting observation” by “one historian” on people criticizing U.S. efforts to help Japan rebuild after World War II, as support for his policies in Iraq:
You know, the experts sometimes get it wrong. An interesting observation, one historian put it — he said, “Had these erstwhile experts” — he was talking about people criticizing the efforts to help Japan realize the blessings of a free society — he said, “Had these erstwhile experts had their way, the very notion of inducing a democratic revolution would have died of ridicule at an early stage.”
Yet yesterday, the historian, MIT professor John Dower, called Bush’s use of his work “perverse“:
They [war supporters] keep on doing this. They keep on hitting it and hitting it and hitting it and it’s always more and more implausible, strange and in a fantasy world. They’re desperately groping for a historical analogy, and their uses of history are really perverse. … I have always said as a historian that the use of Japan [in arguing for the likelihood of successfully bringing democracy to Iraq] is a misuse of history.
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What do you expect? The Toy Emperor left reality behind a long time ago.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:29 amDO THE MATH! In bushco world 1 + 2 = chair…
yeah figure that one out.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:30 amKarl Rove says Bush is a “voracious” reader of history. Yeah. he’s just not a varacious comprehender.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:30 amThose who do not know history are condemned to repeat it–Santayana
Now let’s see, we can either believe the President or an MIT history teacher—your call.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:31 ammaybe a voracious reader of archie and jughead…
August 24th, 2007 at 11:31 amWell duh. Those who don’t study history….W, the undisputed king of the bad analogy.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:32 amKarl Rove says Bush is a “voracious†reader of history. Yeah. he’s just not a varacious comprehender.
Comment by Badmoodman — August 24, 2007 @ 11:30 am
Spot on! Well done.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:33 amOnce again, reality and facts show its noted liberal bias
August 24th, 2007 at 11:34 amBush doesn’t read. Bush can’t learn.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:36 amThis administration can’t even go back to 1994 for historical insight. Cheney said going into Iraq would result in a quagmire. It’s been verified by historians that those are the last spoken words of truth from Cheney. Shortly after that statement, he was out walking and came upon a crossroads…well, y’all know who he met…
August 24th, 2007 at 11:36 amHistory will prove that Bush was actually worse than Hitler
August 24th, 2007 at 11:38 amNice one, Prof Dower.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:38 amSomeone should have asked the Deciderer is he could define “erstwhile”. I’m betting he can’t.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:38 amThere is NO substance–everything is SPIN.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:44 amNow just wait a minute!
This is the President of the United States of America you are speaking of. How dare you even question ANYTHING he says?
Give the man the full measure of respect he deserves. Like maybe, cutting your toilet paper into little Boy George dolls and wiping your ass with them. That’s the level of respect I have for the inadequate little man.
August 24th, 2007 at 11:47 am#14:
Boy George from Culture club, or our current Boy-King?
August 24th, 2007 at 11:50 amBoy George from Culture club, or our current Boy-King?
Comment by drew_ill — August 24, 2007 @ 11:50 am
Now I have “Karma Chameleon” stuck in my head. Thanks a lot! :(
August 24th, 2007 at 11:54 amOur Great Leader *majored* in History! At *Yale*!
So there! He’s a lot smarter than some ol’ *MIT* nerdling with a pocket protector and a slide rule!
Our Great Leader *understands* people!
*And* he can chug and do lines like nobody’s business!
August 24th, 2007 at 11:58 am#16 - How appropriate!! Lyrics to the first verse of “Karma Chameleon”:
“Desert loving in your eyes all the way
If i listen to your lies would you say
I’m a man without conviction
I’m a man who doesn’t know
How to sell a contradiction
You come and go
You come and go”
You can’t make this stuff up!!!
August 24th, 2007 at 11:59 amSo, there you have, straight out of the horse’s mouth.
For all of you room temperature IQ trolls out there, let me put it in terms you can understand:
Iraq now is not like Japan after WWII. Stop comparing the two.
August 24th, 2007 at 12:02 pmNor was Saddam like Hitler, nor is Iraq, like WWII. The historical comparisons don’t add up.
August 24th, 2007 at 12:04 pmReferring to Bush as Boy George just captures a lot of different issues. He like to dress up, lots of makeup, and it’s all a show.
Besides, it pisses off the sycophants who hate the Boy George of Culture Club but swoon at the feet of Boy George of Clueless Club.
August 24th, 2007 at 12:04 pmI am trying to decide what is funnier: Seeing the White House getting slapped by Mr. Dower, or watching them try to distance themselves from what Mr. Dower actually thinks of the occupation of Iraq.
Intellectually dishonest hacks: Cherry-picking their facts, misrepresenting points of view, taking quotes out of context, and denying doing any of the above.
This is the administration the trolls at ThinkProgress are swooned by.
August 24th, 2007 at 12:16 pmkeep in mind that bush didn’t “earn” a C gpa at Yale, he was given one. If you are getting C’s at an Ivy league University, you’re earing F’s and the profs are being nice.
August 24th, 2007 at 12:27 pmJapan already had a democracy. It was subverted by the war party.
If there’s a parallel here, it’s with the US, not Iraq.
August 24th, 2007 at 12:49 pm.
Comments From Left Field>>Reasonable people can disagree about the success or failure of the President’s surge strategy, the Iraq war in general and even whether or not this exercise is helping or hurting American interest domestically and abroad. It happens every day in the comment section of this blog and millions of others springing up across the internets. What reasonable people seem to get bogged down in is whether ideological rhetoric can and should be passed off as fact.
August 24th, 2007 at 12:56 pm> Iraq now is not like Japan after WWII. Stop comparing the two.
Indeed not. Although Japan, after it was carpet-bombed and nuked just for the fun of it, got the dubious distinction of being the first post-WWII country of having class-A war criminals, ultra-nationalists and mobster glitterati installed by the occupying power as The New Liberal Hope Against Communist Takeover. The result being that it’s still like Southern Italy with ISO9000 labels.
August 24th, 2007 at 1:24 pmBush, the arrested-developmental president had a favorite high school song :
“don’t know much about history, don’t know much biology…”
and he still doesn’t know!
August 24th, 2007 at 1:40 pmI like the part where the professor says they are “desperate to find a historical analogy.” We are in new ground, torture, secret armies, blatant cronyism towards Halliberton and oil. And unparalleled incompetence.
August 24th, 2007 at 1:45 pmFIX YOUR EFFING SITE TP!
August 24th, 2007 at 2:45 pmThe Roosevelt administration began planning for the occupation of Japan shortly after Pearl Harbor was attacked.
The Bush administration began planning for the occupation of Iraq…
Well, they haven’t really planned anything, yet.
They’ve been too busy writing Bush’s bullshit speeches for him. Why waste a lot of time and effort thinking things through? It’s so much easier to just keep lying about everything.
August 24th, 2007 at 3:35 pmI wish someone had asked him if he knew what “erstwhile” even means. I wonder who put that word in his mouth.
“He he he. I like that. Erstwhile experts. That’s two “E” words in a row. That’s cool! What’s that called again, when you do that with letters? Illiteracy?”
August 24th, 2007 at 4:01 pm#29 Uriah Heap
I like the part where the professor says they are “desperate to find a historical analogy.†We are in new ground, torture, secret armies, blatant cronyism towards Halliberton and oil. And unparalleled incompetence.
Try this for historical analogy. It was 1899. McKinley was president. The U.S. was being run by imperialists. And in the process of “liberating” the Philippines from the Spanish, we proceeded to battle Filipino insurgents, most of them Muslim, for 14 years. Somewhere between 250,000 and 1 million Filipinos were killed and 4,324 American soldiers died:
Timeline of Philippine-American War
Here’s what Mark Twain had to say about it:
“There is the case of the Philippines. I have tried hard, and yet I cannot for the life of me comprehend how we got into that mess. Perhaps we could not have avoided it — perhaps it was inevitable that we should come to be fighting the natives of those islands — but I cannot understand it, and have never been able to get at the bottom of the origin of our antagonism to the natives. I thought we should act as their protector — not try to get them under our heel. We were to relieve them from Spanish tyranny to enable them to set up a government of their own, and we were to stand by and see that it got a fair trial. It was not to be a government according to our ideas, but a government that represented the feeling of the majority of the Filipinos, a government according to Filipino ideas. That would have been a worthy mission for the United States. But now — why, we have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater. I’m sure I wish I could see what we were getting out of it, and all it means to us as a nation.â€
August 24th, 2007 at 4:12 pmiraq is not japan, iraq is not vietnam, iraq is not germany, john is not suzie, but parallels can be drawn, and are.
August 24th, 2007 at 8:55 pmbut parallels can be drawn, and are.
Comment by umbra — August 24, 2007 @ 8:55 pm
Except that, as Mr. Dower already pointed out, Iraq’s situation now is not like Japan’s after WWII.
No parallel can be drawn that withstands scrutiny.
The comparison is invalid. End of story.
August 25th, 2007 at 12:44 amAnother George once said:
“Thiose that can not remember the past are doomed to repeat it”
August 25th, 2007 at 3:58 pmGeorge Santayana
I hope Bush doesn’t read number 3.
August 25th, 2007 at 6:24 pmI can hear him proclaim “I’m the comprehenderer”
IRAQ is not JAPAN,,, your darn right it’s not…. JAPAN was “forced” into ww2 with us because FDR gave LENDLEASE to ENGLAND but not GERMANY or JAPAN…
FDR,,, claimed the USA was neutral… but lied…
FDR lied and 500,000 US GI’s died….. I’m sure everyone can recall the QUESTIONS the country gave FDR after pearl harbor,,,, I mean not being neutral and all…. NOPE,,,, sad to say,,, there were no LIBERALS back then,,,, and it cost us 500,000 deaths… vs.. 4000 in IRAQ,,, Society sure has changed since then.
It appears the GREATEST GENERATION (based on todays standards) was not so great after all… PITY
On JAPAN and democracy,,,, based on the emperor thing,,, we stand a better chance of democracy in IRAQ than we ever did in JAPAN. (they don’t really practice democracy today, anything this country helped set up MUST be crap)
August 26th, 2007 at 12:06 amThose who couldn’t pass History are doomed to misquote it…
August 26th, 2007 at 12:13 amGeorge Bush and John Kerry got the same grades in COLLEGE…. If george can’t pass History then neither can john….. (of course the Folks in Massachusetts believe john is smarter than george) Just look at the Women he hangs out with to STEAL thier money…
August 26th, 2007 at 12:27 amNow thats SMART.