Ben Rhodes
Historians so inclined will have a blast when their turn comes to dissect the Obama administration and its people. I do not mean the old-line “presidential historians,” story-telling hagiographers such as Stephen Ambrose or the insufferable David McCullough. Obama will have to wait a while for somebody of this set to embalm him to take what place he might among our mythologized tenants of the White House.
Nor do I think we will get much of interest out of those writing of the more immediate past, the journalists who purport to cross over into history. Lou Cannon, Jon Meacham—no. These guys are into painting impastoed pictures of Reagan and George H.W. respectively to make them look as if they were actually as large as the job. This is not what we want.
We want educated judgment—admittedly hard to find when our commanders-in-chief are tucked in between hard covers. We are finishing up eight years of a very complex presidency—a truth one can sign on for regardless of one’s judgment of the man and his two […]
