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Monday, September 3, 2012

History And Other Lies

Last week while on vacation I managed to catch a bit of the Republican Convention. Whenever I tuned in, a speaker was describing the virtues of the greatest man in the history of our country. They weren’t talking about their nominee; they were invoking the memory of Ronald Reagan. As I listened I wondered, Who are you talking about? The Reagan being deified didn’t resemble the president I voted for back in the ‘80s. Reagan’s record was being completely distorted to make the late president more palatable to today’s über conservative Republicans. Gone were the Great Communicator’s brilliance at compromise and his pragmatic tax increases. I scarcely knew the man they were extolling. Where did the Republicans learn to fashion a towering demigod from mortal man, a secular messiah destined to reign for all time in the Pantheon of American greatness? Maybe they learned this from Parson Weems.

Never heard of Weems? Well, you know his work. He built on that fable of a youthful Washington throwing a silver dollar across the Potomac. What a brawny specimen of manliness Washington must have been to accomplish such a feat. It’s easy to forget that there were no silver dollars minted at the time and the Potomac, where this event was said to take place, was nearly a mile across. If true, Washington would have displayed physical prowess that would have made any major league baseball team sign him up in a heartbeat.


Washington’s step-children claimed he threw something across a river, probably a coin-shaped piece of slate across the narrow Rappahannock River near Washington’s boyhood home in Fredericksburg. But Parson Weems didn’t need even a kernel of truth to inspire his fiction.


Remember that story of George Washington and the cherry tree? When given a new hatchet, little George couldn’t resist chopping down his dad’s prized cherry tree. When asked about it, George (the greatest man to ever live, according to Weems) exhibited the integrity that would brand itself into history books by declaring, “I can’t tell a lie, Pa; you know I can’t tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.” The fictional Washington might not have been able to tell a lie, but Parson Weems was very good at it. This fable was total hogwash.


Parson Weems (1759-1825) was an American book agent. He wasn’t particularly good at selling books and decided to write one of his own. His most famous achievement was The Life of Washington written in 1800. This nineteenth-century bestseller depicted Washington’s virtues and provided an entertaining and morally instructive tale for the youth of the young nation—a polite way of saying Weems lied his ass off.


Weems saw Washington as the friend and benefactor of mankind, the conservator of the country and later the Savior of the World, similar to how Republicans today view Reagan, but Washington was great in spite of (or perhaps because of) his struggle with vanity, pettiness and fear. He was quite capable of lying and might have lost the Revolutionary War if he hadn’t been an expert at spreading misinformation.


This painting by Grant Wood, best known for American Gothic—that famous painting of a farm couple standing with a pitchfork between them—shows a puckish artist at work. Parson Weems is depicted drawing a curtain to reveal the story of young George pointing to his hatchet and revealing his crime. Wood reveals his lack of conviction at the “truthiness” of this tale by showing Washington’s face not as a young boy but straight from the one dollar bill. Wood is painting this fable as a joke in order to knock Washington from the pedestal where well-meaning men like Parson Weems have enshrined him. Our founding fathers were made of flesh and blood; they were just as susceptible to human foibles as we are today, perhaps more so if entries in their diaries are taken into consideration.


Washington and Reagan were both remarkable human beings. They experienced a variety of careers before settling on public service, and both had extraordinary visions for America. Today the tendency to over-sentimentalize Washington has diminished and historians are reexamining the factual nature of his greatness. But if certain people have their way, in fifty years we might no longer recognize the factual Ronald Reagan. The man many of us loved and respected is in danger of being reduced to an icon, wrapped in fallacies, myths and legends.


Like Washington, Ronald Reagan deserves better.


33 comments:

  1. If nothing else we should always be grateful Washington set a number of good precedents. It would have been easy enough for him to pull a Julius Caesar and refuse to give up power once elected.

    The Republicans really should have used a Reagan hologram. It would have been better than that Eastwood schtick.

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  2. Well said, as usual. If you hold your breath waiting for honesty (actual honesty, not its sound-bite facsimile) in politics, well... we'll miss you when you're gone. ;)

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  3. Very true my Chatterbox friend we tend to deify all our great athletes, entertainers and politicians. I do take exception to one fact, the Reagan "Pragmatic Tax increases?" Reagan cut taxes; in some cases drastically. Before his cuts if you had an income of $100,000 the next dollar you earned, you kept 10 cents and government got 90 cents. Perhaps the pragmatic tax increases you speak of was the ellimination of many "Tax loop holes" which made the 90% income tax palitable. Poeple used to claim their home, vacation house, boats and virtually every meal as a business expense. These and other loop holes were redefined.

    During the Reagan years interest rates fell from 14% to 6%,inflation and unemployment followed suit. Was this a result of his economic policies? Maybe. Was it just the economic pendulum swinging back? Maybe.

    What the F do I know, if i did I would be running for President....well no I woudn't, I'm not sure why anyone wants that job, especially in the media environment and general hate and venum towards politicians of the last 40 years.

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  4. Everyone deserves better, to be remembered warts and all.

    When i used to teach history at home school co-op, i tried to get them to see both sides of historical figures, the good and the bad things that these people did. After a couple of lessons on Columbus, one of them summed it up with, "He may have been a great man who accomplished great things, but he wasn't necessarily a good man."

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  5. Omg, next you're going to tell me Honest Abe told some fibs, and JFK was a ... oops, never mind that one! Anyway, very interesting and original analysis. You should go on MSNBC!

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  6. excellent Stephen- it's amazing how history can be re-written to suit others so called "needs"

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  7. Very well said. I always learn when I come here-

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  8. I just sent you an email--hope you like it!!

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  9. your header says this site displays the art of pure bull but i think the spin doctors are the true artists there. you illuminate something more accurate.

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  10. We agree on this. Yes we do.

    Have a terrific day and labor day. :)

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  11. Yes, sadly, history tends to make people much more evil or angel than they ever were in life. And the evilness or angelness depends on what the needs are at the time. Spin doctors seem to be a breed that will never go extinct...

    Cat

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  12. Now what about those wooden teeth?

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  13. Excellent post, Steve. Yes, we need more Republicans like Reagan and more Democrats like Clinton. Both could recognize the fact they needed to sit down and work together with the opposition to get things done. They understood "give and take". Maybe grudgingly, but they understood it. Today both parties have their extremists who are like spoiled little kids, who only know how to fold their arms across their chest, make little pouty faces, and say "No!"

    S

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  14. Even people who were not famous in life are at risk of being misrepresented historically. I always tell my kids that it's not really fair to look back at history and judge people by our modern standards. We owe it to them to try to learn about their lives as they really were.

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  15. Well said! And I LOVE the painting (I like that style anyway) - the little Washington dollar head :)

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  16. I, too, tire of the rearrangement of Reagan's record. But as for Weems, I think I might follow his example and write a book that will be remembered forever and a day. Can today be the last day?

    Love,
    Janie

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  17. Truth is just that. It should be told, regardless of party. Your post is a great way to commence the post labor day election "season."

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  18. It's really sad that politicians have taken to rewriting history to make it fit their agenda.

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  19. I do show restraint of tongue and pen when it comes to politics and religion but I truly enjoy reading your views.

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  20. You hit the nail on the head with this post. Our politicians of today have no limit to twisting things for their advantage. It's a shameless performance.

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  21. when i listen to the news each side says, "lairs!" probably the only truth that comes form both sides.

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  22. Ah, I always try to stay out of political conversation, seeing as how I am in the minority- you know, the crazy, right-winged Conservative nut job looney bird. However, this post was a wonderful read and very informative. Aces.

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  23. Love history. Hate lies therefore I stay pretty clear of all things politics (and still trying to decipher your recent comment about lies on one of my posts...) but yep - you're right-we have a tendency to wax poetic about famous people long gone, and forget they were real humans with flaws and fallacies.

    Great post.

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  24. Damn! You mean George didn't chop down that cherry tree? Who the hell did it, then, huh?

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  25. I had quite a laugh at the story about the coin! Well, I'm not a political person, but feel certain I can impersonate just about anyone in a game of Charades!

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  26. I think you mentioned in a comment on one of my posts a few weeks ago, about history and truth not always matching up. Of course politicians are a breed a part and I guess they are the same in all continents, they have spin doctors and spin historians.....

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  27. St Reagan .. that's what he's become .. but then lets not look back all the way to Reagan to find hyperbole from the convention .. Paul Ryan's use of half truths hidden inside exaggeration were fascinating .. GenX man even fudged his own marathon time ..

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  28. I miss the Republicans that could compromise with Democrats like me. You know, I understand some issues that Republicans have. I could agree on some debt compromises and meet Republicans halfway on some needed entitlement reforms. However, their draconian insistence on eliminating all tax increases on the wealthy, the war on the poor (not poverty), and the disgusting use of religion to justify every little thing they do to put women on the defensive, has got me convinced that it has become a party that represents nothing but out of touch plutocrats who are angry they aren't calling the shots.

    I feel that Republicans are out of touch with civil rights, I feel that they have their finger on the Armageddon (Rapture) button and thus, don't feel that they need to conserve resources because if the world ends, then they are all "saved". I feel that they are warring against SCIENCE and trying to push creationism into schools. I feel that they don't represent minorities. There's only one group in the world that has more white people in it and that's the Winter Olympics!

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  29. I love the picture. Weems obviously had the gift of creating a good story- not a bad one, but rather a pity when applied to historical fact.

    I hadn't realised Reagan's memory was being distorted by Republicans. That's sad - you expect to see Democrats demonized and all that silly stuff, but to have Reagan distorted to make him sound like a fanatic by his own side, is a great shame. Anyway he had charm, something which appears to be in very short supply if my rather cursory look at the Republican Convention is anything to go by.

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  30. I wonder if the old rumours about Ronnie and Maggie were true - they certainly spent a lot of time together and the UK/USA "Special Relationship" probably stemmed from the Reagan/Thatcher era

    Did you know that Reagan was an early option for Cassablanca? Hard to imagine it achieving its current classic status

    But history is a funny thing - written by winners and often nostalgiasiced. Even what we saw at the time was mostly what we were shown, so the full story is probably never really captured at all

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  31. History is always written from someone's point of view hence, is never really that objective. This is why I love listening or hearing stories from people who actually lived then. Unlike historians, they just have a story to tell, not a name or reputation to uphold.

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  32. Amen Stephen, We need a man like the factual Ronald Reagan, but the media and historians have a way of transforming our leaders into whatever form they see fit rather than showing the real person as they are.

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