House of Eratosthenes

Next month I’ll be forty. If you are my age or if you have some years on me, you may be able to appreciate the irony of the following. If you’re younger, you probably can’t.

I don’t need to go reaching ’round for lots of stuff, the irony is all contained in one single, two-line headline:

Poll: Bush Worst President Since 1945
Ronald Reagan Picked As Best President In Nationwide Survey

(CBS) President Bush has been named as the worst president since the end of the World War II in a new national poll.

Mr. Bush was chosen by 34 percent of the voters who participated in the the Quinnipiac Unversity survey. Richard Nixon finished second with 17 percent — just ahead of Bill Clinton with 16 percent.

Ronald Reagan was the top choice as best president, with 28 percent. Finishing second was Mr. Clinton with 25 percent.

The poll reflected deep partisan divisions. Mr. Bush was ranked worst by 56 percent of Democrats and 35 percent of independent voters but only 7 percent of Republicans.

Reagan, on thew other hand, was named as the No. 1 president by 56 percent of Republicans and 25 percent of independent voters but only 7 percent of Democrats.

“Kennedy and Truman get big Democratic votes, especially among baby boomers (45 – 64 years old) and seniors (over 65), but recent memory counts,” said Maurice Carroll, director of Quinnipiac’s Polling Institute.

“Democrats say Clinton’s the best and Republicans say he’s the worst. Republicans don’t think much of Jimmy Carter either. There’s no contest for the GOP favorite: It’s the Gipper,” Carroll added.

The Quinnipiac University poll was carried out from From May 23-30 and surveyed 1,534 registered voters nationwide. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points.

I do not know how old the 1,534 registered voters were. The reason I think it is an important question, is that it wasn’t so long ago that Reagan was the “worst president” in recent memory.

Will Bush pull out of this slump the way Reagan did? In my opinion, it borders on the pre-ordained. When one looks for a broadly-encompassing, consensus-based justification for the current president’s unpopularity and what endangers his legacy, one emerges with a notion that President Bush is apathetic to the warm reception, or lack thereof, toward the decisions he is in the process of making. In other words, it isn’t that people abhore his decisions, it’s his lack of sensitivity to the prospect that people might abhore those decisions.

And yet…of all the figures from the past upon whom history has smiled, this is the trait they all have in common.

Including Reagan.

Now, this is a far cry from saying if you want to emblazon your name into the history books, the best way to go about it is to go ’round pissing everybody off. That is a different thing. It’s also quite different to take a “whatever” attitude; a “here’s a quarter, call someone who cares” attitude. History is a little more stingy in picking out characters like that, to admire (although it has done so on occasion).

President Bush, like the figures remembered favorably by history — including Reagan — simply responds to a higher ideal. He responds to primitive notions of good versus evil. And he is excoriated for doing so; interestingly, by people who have no passion at all in debating what’s good and what’s evil, and confine their angsty reservations to the simple recognition that there are such things.

Well, I know of no reason to denounce the current president for such notions, and spare Reagan from similar besmirchment. I know of no justification for doing this, and I strongly doubt any among the 1,534 have such a justification in mind. In short, there is no conceptual, sustainable difference between these two figures. The only real difference is the two decades that separates their dates of service.

Like I said, President Bush’s vindication is pre-ordained. Reagan once said so, about himself, in so many words: “History will vindicate me.” This was my tip-off that the old man had really lost it. He turned out to be right. I’ve learned my lesson.

Is there any one figure who must everlastingly wrestle with his condemnation, and must forevermore earn a hard, jaundiced staring-down from history, for the infraction of caring too much about good-and-evil and not enough about what people around him thought? I can’t think of a single example. Not one. Nobody’s offering such an example, but plenty are trying to assert that President Bush will be the first. I find that more than a little extravagant.

Thing I Know #64. You know you have courage when you see the flimsiest spoiler of fortune decides if history will focus on your breathtaking stupidity, or your enormous balls.

Wow, Morgan! Just “wow!” I hadn’t dropped by for about a week, and looking at my watch just now I see I’ve spent the best part of an hour reading your stuff. I particularly enjoyed your “We are seen” post, and this post on Reagan/Bush is excellent, as well.

Keep it up!
- Buck Pennington | 06/02/2006 @ 11:33

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IronyFriday, June 2nd, 2006

Irony
Friday, June 2nd, 2006