« Not Gonna Happen |
Main
| Local News »
19 Dec 2008 03:45 pm
The Appeals Court Of History
Beam analyzes Bush's legacy tour:
By now, the broad strokes of the Bush legacy refurbishment plan are clear. It rests on three planks:
1) Bush's presidency never deviated from its core principle of promoting freedom.
2) Mistakes were made, but only in unwavering service to this principle.
3) Bush succeeded in making the United States safer.
One recalls Lionel Trilling's comment on Tacitus:
It is not, as I gather, that Tacitus
lacks veracity. What he lacks is what in the Thirties used to be
called "the long view" of history. But to minds of a certain
sensitivity "the long view" is the falsest historical view of all, and
indeed the insistence on the length of perspective is intended
precisely to overcome sensitivity---seen from sufficient distance, it
says, the corpse and the hacked limbs are not so very terrible, and
eventually they even begin to compose themselves into a "meaningful
pattern."
Share This
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451c45669e201053688197c970c
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference 'The Appeals Court Of History'
