Revisiting Hoover

Financial Earthquake Likely to
Alter Presidential Reputations

[Dear Regular Readers: Sorry for the extended detour into macroeconomics, politics, etc. This blog's regular focus on Twin Cities real estate -- in the words of the public service address accompanying TV interruptions -- "will resume shortly . . . Please stand by."]

I certainly don't believe that history will vindicate George Bush's Presidency -- but I do think he was right to point out that posterity sometimes judges Presidents (and Presidencies) very differently than contemporaries do.

The best recent examples of that were Harry Truman, and, to a lesser degree, Dwight Eisenhower.

Both benefited from subsequent developments that cast their eras -- and the decisions they made -- in a more sympathetic light. (In Truman's case, it certainly helped that, unlike contemporaries, historians didn't automatically see him in FDR's shadow.)

Already, it's clear that the financial earthquake now in progress will have consequences for a number of U.S. Presidents, even some long departed from the scene.

Depending on what happens from here, the following is an instant snapshot of the Presidential reputations ripest for revisionism:

Reagan: down. Reason(s): seeds of current crisis sown during his terms?
Clinton: down. Reason(s): strengthening parallels between '20's and '90's. A loquacious Coolidge?
Hoover: up. Reasons(s): post-bubble Depressions not so easily avoided or combated.

Next post: back to local real estate!

George W. Bush: The L-O-N-G Wait for Redemption

Is Bush's Leadership Like Wagner's Music?

"Wagner's music is better than it sounds."
--Anonymous

Is George W. Bush's Presidency more successful than most Americans (80%) think right now? Will history vindicate Bush, like it did Harry Truman?

I doubt it.

Harry Truman didn't leave office with a PR blitz of interviews arguing that history would redeem his shredded reputation. When you have the courage of your convictions -- and a clue how anxious and angry everyday Americans are right now -- you know when to shut up. If we, contemporary Americans, aren't qualified to judge Bush, why is he spending so much energy trying to persuade us?

Asking people to suspend their (very) critical judgment is more than a bit self-serving, not to mention arrogant and insulting.

Imagine calling the restaurant where you just contracted food poisoning and being told that "it's premature to judge the meal a failure" -- only your great-great grandchildren are qualified to do that.

Sometimes -- no, 99% of the time -- what seems to be a failure, is.

It's certainly possible that history will be kinder to George Bush II than contemporary America. However, it's equally conceivable that history's judgment will be even harsher. Time did nothing to burnish the reputations of Buchanan, Pierce, Fillmore, Harding, Hoover and a host of other Presidential mediocrities. Even luminaries aren't immune from retroactive revisionism: anyone still think Alan Greenspan belongs on an economists' Mount Rushmore?

When Mao Tse Tung was asked, in 1950, what he thought of the French Revolution, he reportedly replied, "it's too soon to tell."

History is not going to wait nearly that long to render its verdict on George W. Bush (no matter how much he hopes otherwise).