manunderstress.com

Fred Kaplan on recent remarks from the Bush administration:

4. “George Washington’s long struggle for freedom has also inspired generations of Americans to stand for freedom in their own time. Today, we’re fighting a new war to defend our liberty and our people and our way of life.”

On Feb. 19, to celebrate George Washington’s birthday, President Bush gave a speech at Mount Vernon comparing himself to the father of our country and the Iraqi war to the Revolutionary War.

In the past, George W. Bush has likened himself to Harry Truman, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy.

I just adore the megalomania with which certain politicians liken themselves to vastly superior historical leaders. Dubya sitting around thinking he is like George Washington is like my 5 year old nephew sitting around thinking he is like Batman. Of course this is simply propaganda to battle with free-falling popularity ratings by glossing over the particulars of reality with fuzzy patriot-nostalgia of yore. Who could argue with Pearl Harbor? With WW2?

Kaplan continues:

Sound familiar? It’s obviously meant to, but it shouldn’t. Here’s an awkward question: By Bush’s own description, which side in the Iraq war most resembles the “ragged Continental Army” and which side the “mighty empire”? I don’t mean to draw moral (or any other sort of) equivalences, because there is nothing at all equivalent about those two wars, or these two presidents, and it degrades the serious study of history to pretend there is.