Topic: NewsBusters
Warner Todd Huston is still operating on a blown gasket. Fresh from ranting against anyone who identifies "Hillary haters," he's now asserting that historians who think George W. Bush ranks among the worst presidents are America-haters who lack academic credentials.
In an Aug. 28 NewsBusters post, Huston rages against a McClatchy article he calls a "pointless Bush bashing presidential rating story filled with quotes from partisan, hack 'historians.'" Huston asserted, "These "ranking" stories are always full of partisan left nonsense and this one is no different," adding that "these 'historians' are part of the far left University system we are saddled with." Note Huston's repeated use of scare quotes around "historians."
By contrast, a historian quoted in the article who said that history has yet to judge Bush is praised by Huston as a "reputable and brilliant historian"-- no scare quotes needed.
Huston then digresses to a rant about Andrew Jackson's place in history:
Every time we see these ridiculous stories, I harken back to the fact that from the 1820's until about the 1920s Andrew Jackson was considered one of the most famous presidents we ever had. How many "Jackson" towns, counties, schools, streets, and other such named municipal buildings do we have across America? "Historians" thought Jackson the best president ever until the PC idea that his owning slaves and fighting Indians made him persona non grata. Now, no matter what he did as president, his name is anathema to these so-called historians all his work forgotten, shunned even, despite the fact that his name is so ubiquitous across the country --now with no one even knowing why thanks to these "historians."
These Charles Beard/Anthony Zini [sic] influenced America haters have no standing by which to be believed. They are almost universally uneducated enough to assess economic history and this makes them completely useless in assessing any president after Andrew Jackson destroyed the Second Bank of the US. Worse, few if any of them have the slightest clue about Constitutional history and interpretation.
Huh? Andrew Jackson's presidential ranking was lowered by his owning of slaves? Huston offers no evidence to support the claim. Anyone who disagrees with Huston's idea of history have "clue about Constitutional history and interpretation"? Really?
And yes, Huston is saying that any historian who disagrees with him, and who would rank Bush low on the presidential scale, is an "America hater." He offers no evidence that any of the historians quoted in the McClatchy article were "influenced" by Charles Beard of Anthony Zinni, or why it's purportedly such a bad thing to have been "influenced" by them.
As an extra added bonus, Huston rails against Franklin Roosevelt:
The proof of this is the fact that these so-called historians continue to rank Franklin Roosevelt as one of our presidential "greats."
Roosevelt was a socialist in everything but name. He destroyed our Constitution, ruined the economy, made the Great Depression last decades longer than it had to, did nothing about Civil Rights, and lied our way into WWII. His "legacy" is high taxes, welfare, a broken and unconstitutional social security system and a Supreme Court run amuck. But to the extreme leftists in our Universities he is a great president despite all the harm he did to our nation.
This goes beyond revisionhist history to fiction. FDR "made the Great Depression last decades longer than it had to"? Social Security is "unconstitutional"?
And a strident supporter of President Bush bashing another president for having "lied our way" into war? Oh, the irony.
