Friday, August 24, 2007

President Bush versus reality

Nov. 2002 - An award winning historian writes an op-ed saying that it is unlikely that the United States will be able to do in Iraq what it was able to do in post-war Japan while listing ten key differences between Iraq and Japan.

Aug. 2007 - President Bush cites said historian as evidence that we can build a democracy in Iraq.

Historian responds (via Think Progress).

They [war supporters] keep on doing this. They keep on hitting it and hitting it and hitting it and it’s always more and more implausible, strange and in a fantasy world. They’re desperately groping for a historical analogy, and their uses of history are really perverse. … I have always said as a historian that the use of Japan [in arguing for the likelihood of successfully bringing democracy to Iraq] is a misuse of history.
I'd certainly say this qualifies for the designation wooden-headedness ... the intellectual bankruptcy of our President could not be on fuller display.

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