Misunderestimation

The reputations of historical figures are not static things; sometimes they rise and fall, long after that person has exited the world stage.

Thomas Jefferson was revered for a century and a half after his death – he was considered the most brilliant of the Founders, an ideal for all Americans to live by. In 1962, John Kennedy, addressing a roomful of Nobel Prize winners in the White House, said that “This is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

But in the past twenty years his stock has taken a beating. Numerous scholarly and popular works of history have compared Jefferson’s contribution in the American Revolution to that of John Adams, and found that perhaps the Sage of Monticello had received too much credit and the Duke of Braintree too little. More devastatingly, the DNA test showing Jefferson did in fact impregnate his slave Sally Hemings was a blow from which his historical reputation may never fully recover.

Harry Truman, on the other hand, has seen his reputation soar. Truman left office in 1953 with staggeringly low approval ratings - his low of 22% "beats" the lowest of Nixon (24%) and Bush (25%). He was seen as something of a folksy bumbler, a nice enough man in over his head. But now, he is widely considered to have been the ideal steward of America’s foreign policy in a post-war world. The twin achievements of the Marshall Plan and NATO helped ease in a half century of (mostly) peace and prosperity. In polls of Presidential historians, Truman ranks as high as fifth, behind Washington, Lincoln, and the Roosevelts.

(The historian David McCullough played a prominent role in both of these shifting reputations, through his biographies of Truman and Adams. He’s the E.F. Hutton of American historians.)

I bring all this up because George W. Bush has returned to our lives. The publication of his memoirs, the continuing measured success in Iraq, and the troubles of his successor has some wondering: can George W. Bush enjoy a Trumanesque revival?

It’s too early to tell, of course, and regular readers of this space know I am loath to make predictions. But I can, perhaps, give you a hint of what conditions will be necessary for a latter-day McCullough, writing in the year 2053, to write a book that will revive Bush’s reputation.

For that hint, we’ll turn to another President – one whose reputation as a great American has held steady: Dwight Eisenhower. In 1946 General Eisenhower was in command of the Allied occupation of Berlin, following the end of the Second World War. Ike was asked by a reporter, how we would know if the Occupation was a success?

Eisenhower said, “The success of this occupation can only be judged fifty years from now. If the Germans at that time have a stable, prosperous democracy, than we shall have succeeded.”

West Germany, of course, was a stable and prosperous democracy within 25 years. In 1990, West and East Germany reunified. By 1996 – fifty years after Eisenhower’s statement, Germany was indisputably a stable and prosperous democracy.

In the early days of the Iraq War, there is no question that the Bush Administration declared Mission: Accomplished too soon. But in the darkest days of the war, around 2005, the war’s detractors claimed defeat too quickly.

Will, in fifty years, Iraq be a stable and prosperous democracy? Forty years? If that democracy is an important part of the antidote to the sickness of radical Islam that infects the Muslim world; if, indeed, the scourge of Bin Laden and terrorism ends up in history’s dustbin along with Hitler and Nazism, will Bush enjoy a Trumanesque revival?

Stay tuned. For a really long time.

Update (6/12/13):  This doesn't mean much in the long run, but Dubya may have started his comeback already.  According to Gallup, his approval ratings today - 4 and a 1/2 years after leaving office, are at 49%.  As the article points out, former Presidents often do better after they go away a while.  But worth noting...

Greater Expectations

[This is a sort-of follow up to a piece I wrote last April called Great Expectations. I started it right after the inauguration but then got distracted by important stuff like Skynyrd pianists and the Super Bowl. I think it's still relevant, though not as relevant as it might have been Inauguration Week. ]


When Barack Obama took the oath of office he did so with the highest incoming approval ratings of any President, at 72%. In a distant second place, at 58%, was Dwight D. Eisenhower.

This is a remarkable thing. Eisenhower possessed, to put it mildly, a stronger resume. He had, you know, led the armies that defeated the greatest evil in the history of mankind (that's a defensible statement, ain't it?). Obama's greatest accomplishment, on the other hand, was the winning of a U.S. Presidential election. Which can't be that hard; after all, George W. Bush did it twice.

The psychology behind this is fascinating but not the subject of this post. I'm more interested in what he does with it. After all, the confidence the American people have placed in President Obama is both a blessing and a curse.

It's a blessing because it gives him enormous political capital, and plenty of room to make mistakes.

The media are so enthralled with him, he could personally chop the fingers off a suspected Al Qaeda operative in the Oval Office on live television, and the New York Times would merely express "slight misgivings". Hollywood is so star-struck he could direct a remake of Howard the Duck with Paris Hilton and Jean Claude Van Damme and he'd be applauded for his artistic integrity. Europe is so smitten he could - hmmm, what would be a terrible thing to a European? Europe is so smitten he could threaten to protect them from Russia with American missiles and they'd actually thank him for it.

But it's not just Hollywood, the media, and Europe. Those high approval ratings show that so much of the country is looking to President Obama to be our next Lincoln, our next FDR. The halo that would have been over Obama's head in normal circumstances has been amplified by the economic collapse. Americans believe we are in one of the great crises in our history and need a Great Man to see us through.

But these expectations are also a curse. As I wrote back in the earlier Great Expectations piece, supporters of Hillary Clinton and John McCain had fairly reasonable expectations for their candidates. But supporters of Barack Obama have wildly unreasonable expectations for their President.

I won't go into all the major problems we're all hoping he can solve - we've been down that road a lot. I'm just very interested to see how he uses these expectations as a political tool to accomplish his goals, while simultaneously trying to avoid the pitfalls of adulation.

It's my read on Obama that he is far more practical and pragmatic than his most idealistic followers. And it's also my read that a lot of Americans are going to cut him a lot of slack.


Policy issues aside, it'll be fascinating to watch him manage these expectations.