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TechnoratiGeorge W. Bush's Revisionist History
With the mainstream media fixated on remarks by preachers at Trinity United Church in Chicago, it has largely ignored far more consequential comments by the president of the United States. Unlike the church sermons, these remarks go to the heart of how George W. Bush has governed as the leader of the free world as well as the likely approach of John McCain, who endorsed what Bush had to say.
In remarks before the Israeli Knesset, President George Bush implicitly conflated Barack Obama's willingness to talk with hostile foreign leaders with appeasement of the Nazis. To strengthen his case Bush cited an unnamed Senator who allegedly said, "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland ... 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided."
The Senator to whom this quote is attributed was not a Democrat, but Republican William Borah of Idaho. If Borah is to be a negative exemplar for today's foreign policy, the upshot is the opposite of what President Bush would have us believe.
Unlike Obama, Borah was not an advocate of multilateral foreign policy committed to engagement with an often messy and unpleasant world. Like most other Republicans in the years between the world wars, and much like President Bush today, Borah was a nationalist who believed that America should act unilaterally to protect and advance its exceptional civilization and not tie its destiny to foreign peoples and regimes.
"I obligate this government to no other power," Borah said during the debate over American participation in World War I. No "vital issue," he said should be submitted "to the decision of some European or Asiatic nation."
In 1919, Borah joined with a majority of other Republicans in the Senate to defeat the Versailles Treaty that would have committed the U.S. to joining the League of Nations. America's disengagement from the world during the interwar years contributed to the rise of Nazi aggression under Adolf Hitler. After Germany's invasion of Poland Borah again joined with a majority of Republicans in Congress to oppose revision of the Neutrality Act to permit trade with the allies. In 1940, Borah and most congressional Republicans opposed the draft and in 1941 they also opposed the provision of Lend Lease aid to the allies. Without these measures, the Nazis would almost certainly have conquered Great Britain and possibly Russia as well.
Conservative attacks on political leaders for negotiating with our alleged enemies are nothing new. In the waning days of the Cold War, conservatives blasted one of the own, President Ronald Reagan, for pursuing arms control agreements with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev.
In 1987, Republican Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina and his political operative Tom Ellis formed The Leadership Coalition For Freedom Through Truth to "delegitimize the Soviet Union." They urged Reagan to cease negotiating with the Soviets and to recognize that Gorbachev was not "a new kind of Soviet leader." Conservative columnist Michael Johns charged that. "Seven years after Ronald Reagan's arrival in Washington, the U.S. government and its allies are still dominated by the culture of appeasement."
Conservative leaders Richard Viguerie and Howard Phillips forged an Anti-Appeasement Coalition that compared Reagan to Hitler's notorious appeaser, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Republican Senator James A. McClure of Idaho said, "We still have a lot of faith in Reagan but there is a lot of distrust of the negotiating process, a feeling that it leads to concessions that are unwise."
Undaunted by such criticism from the right, Reagan negotiated with Gorbachev the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty that eliminated Soviet and US missiles from Europe. Reagan scorned conservatives who "have accepted that war is inevitable" and sold the treaty to the American people. Without the removal of these deadly, hair-trigger missiles and the mutual trust that the Treaty engendered it is unlikely that the Berlin Wall would have fallen in 1989 and that freedom would have come to the satellite states of Eastern Europe without a single Soviet soldier firing a shot in defense of Communism.
The final irony in Bush's revisionist history is that Borah may never have said the words that Bush quoted. The line about Hitler was not reported in the press at the time and does not appear in Borah's correspondence. The line comes from a single source, journalist William K. Hutchinson's error-filled memoir, in which he attributes the line to a private conversation with Senator Borah.
Allan J. Lichtman is the author of White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement (Grove/Atlantic, 2008)
17 Comments so far
Show AllMiMiCcS: Great post. Too many lefties forget that the biggest war-mongering presidents of the twentieth century were all Dems. That hypocrite Wilson deserves a special mention because of the consequences of his actions. Nazism was a direct response to the unfair treatment the Germans received after the armistice.
MiMiCs:
Indeed we live in a lie, and everyone should be made to understand that, especially children in school.
DJM related, "All we need to do is make sure we keep talking." ~ Stephen Hawking
People say MONEY is evil, but the Bible says the LOVE of money is the root of all evil. Perhaps the nature of "talk" falls into a similar category. The Bush people, McClellen included, kept TALKING but WHAT they were talking was willful lies. So it's not just that the conversation happen, but that it have some quality of Truth, some spirit of humanity behind the words conveyed. As the issue of media consolidation has played a direct role in the willful compliance of mainstream media to the promotion of a war without just cause, we recognize again that it's not just to keep talking... it's to OPEN the air WAVES to diverse views, not just those of the war-profiteer authoritarians.
DJM--Thanks for a very timely and eloquent quote.
Someone pointed out this great quotation shortly after the Pres-idiots remarks before the Israeli Knesset ;
"For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking." ~ Stephen Hawking
"Unlike Obama, Borah was not an advocate of multilateral foreign policy committed to engagement with an often messy and unpleasant world. Like most other Republicans in the years between the world wars, and much like President Bush today, Borah was a nationalist who believed that America should act unilaterally to protect and advance its exceptional civilization and not tie its destiny to foreign peoples and regimes."
Yes, Borah was a Nationalist, as were most Republicans at the time, and was concerned mainly with the general welfare of the American people. He believed in Fair Trade. If every nation traded in the interests of their own nation, each nation would prosper. He was also against getting involved in wars of other nations. Neither Bush nor Obama are Borah. I would vote for Borah, but his kind are extinct as dinosaurs.
"I obligate this government to no other power," Borah said during the debate over American participation in World War I. No "vital issue," he said should be submitted "to the decision of some European or Asiatic nation."
Yes, what a crime. Insisting on American soverignty. Maybe we should get back to this. Scrap WTO, NAFTA, etc.
"In 1919, Borah joined with a majority of other Republicans in the Senate to defeat the Versailles Treaty that would have committed the U.S. to joining the League of Nations. America's disengagement from the world during the interwar years contributed to the rise of Nazi aggression under Adolf Hitler. After Germany's invasion of Poland Borah again joined with a majority of Republicans in Congress to oppose revision of the Neutrality Act to permit trade with the allies. In 1940, Borah and most congressional Republicans opposed the draft and in 1941 they also opposed the provision of Lend Lease aid to the allies. Without these measures, the Nazis would almost certainly have conquered Great Britain and possibly Russia as well."
"The ignornace of the ignorant is truly the malady of the ignorant." People forget who got us into WW I. A Democrat, Wilson. Despite running on an antiwar platform in 1916, within months into his 2nd term, he involved us in WW I. WW I was w/o a doubt the most mindless war ever fought. There were no good guys or bad guys. We had no reason to take the British side over Germany or vice versa. If not for our involvement, both Germany and the British would have negotiated a peace. Our involvement on the British side led to Germanies defeat.
The Versailles Treaty was the single most important reason that led to WW II. Many people at the time said this Treaty was so unfair as to guarantee another war within 20 years. There would not have been a Hitler or WW II if not for this treaty.
It also led to the British and French mandates in the Middle East. These 2 countries then so completely scr*wed up the Middle East that most of todays problems can be traced to this. Israel would not have existed if not for the British Mandate, and a need for Israel would not have existed since there would have been no Hitler.
The Nazis had no intention of invading Britain. None. They did not have the navy to do it, and Hitler never had any desire for anything but peace with Britain. Remember, it was Britain who declared war against Germany over Poland. The Soviets also invaded Poland weeks after Hitler did, and yet the Soviets became our ally in the war, and after the war, was allowed to keep the Eastern half of Poland they invaded, and install a puppet government in the West. The war over Poland did not work out well for Poland.
Now as far as Hitler being allowed to build up Germany from ashes into a military machine, the US and British Industries and Financial Institutions played a big role by investing there. FDR, a democrat allowed this, despite Hitlers Jewish policies and his knowledge of what was written in Mein Kampf. Hitler said what he was going to do there, and he did it, are at least tried, yet no effort by FDR to stop US investment in Hitlers Germany.
Stalin himself was butchering millions of his own people, may of them Christian in his war against religion. Yet FDR diplomatically recognized him in 1933, calling him Uncle Joe, and set up the Export Import bank that guaranteed loans from the US to the Soviets. This was in a time of the depression when American banks were not loaning money to many Americans.
And of course, we know Pearl Harbour was FDR's 9/11. He knew that cutting off Japans oil would lead to war, and still there was no defense even when we were monitoring all of Japans communications having broken their codes. His justification for cutting off the oil was Japans war against China's Nationalist government, a government we let go Communist after the war by not providing them aid while the Communists were being aided by the Soviets.
I look at the number of Americans and others killed in FDR's and Wilsons wars, and wonder if perhaps Bush might be compared favorably to them. I am no supporter of Bush, but if you favour the truth over the myth, thats how it looks.
The country is messed up because we live in a lie.
Spike:
Rule #1: Just have each warring country leader engage in a boxing match, wrestling match or some other contest of strength and skill. The loser gets life imprisonment, the winner gets life imprisonment.
Rule #2: Anyone who runs for political office or expresses an interest in such gets life imprisonment.
Rule #3: Leaders are chosen at random and subject to recall after 2 weeks, unless they do something stupid, for which they get life imprisonmnet.
Bush re Gitmo: "These are vicious killers and they'll get a fair trial." Texas-style....
Sorry whatfools, but after 8 FRIGGIN" YEARS OF BUSHSPEAK, we should call all of his gaffes, misspeaks and outright lies and tattoo every one on his face! Bushspeak got us 9/11 (incompetence, not conspiracies), Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, Attorney gate and on and on because everytime people were short sighted and waved it off to Bushspeak.
Oh, for heaven's sake! It's only Bushspeak!
Dear Awaken, I'd like to see a draft instituted that would require that all government positions, from President on out, be filled from the pool of draftees.
If it's OK for a person to be sent off to fight, then it should be OK for that same person to risk being drafted to serve as Senator or President or High Lord Admiral of the Ocean Seas or in some other titled position.
Lets hope they were handing out free Maalox for everybody that had to sit through a Dubya commencement speech.
Perhaps "personal responsibility" in today's global economy should include drafting everybody graduating from college.
The US apathy epidemic would quickly subside.
Bush gave a speech to college grads this weekend all about taking personal responsibility. That would be funny if he weren't so dangerous. I wonder who wrote it?
I would like to see the draft re-instituted. Starting with all male residents over the age of 70 and then progressively dropping to about age 60. I am 56 so that ensures a safe margin for me.
What would it look like when Grandpappy and Greatgrandpappy get their notices?
Might spur some interesting debates, eh?
MiMiCcS (above): "We had no reason to take the British side over Germany ..."
I believe that Germany's policy of unrestricted submarine warfare had something to do with the US decision to go to war with Germany.
I also believe Mr. Lichtman's piece is very enlightening -- surprisingly so -- and deserves a much wider audience. I wonder if it was submiited to any op-ed pages.
John C June: You are correct. Versailles was the work of France and Britain. However, it was only Wilson's intervention on their side (beginning much earlier than the declaration of war) that allowed Britain and France to set the terms. Otherwise, couldn't agree with you more.
"Nazism was a direct response to the unfair treatment the Germans received after the armistice."
That's right, but the Versailles Treaty was the work of France and Britain - not Wilson.
Of course, it was Wilson who took advantage of the situation, and got us into the war so as to "share in the spoils". And FDR did the same thing in WW II.
Yes, when it comes to war, the Dems are as bad or worse than the Repugs.