I was busy working on non-blogging stuff yesterday. I wish I had had time to write about the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. I’m not sure exactly why, although the credit belongs to my parents, but MLK was my greatest political hero growing up. I didn’t really think about FDR, JFK, RFK, or any other political leaders. I looked up to Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and King. It’s funny because after going off and getting a college education and studying history, I haven’t changed my initial estimation much at all. I think more of FDR, less of JFK, but my heroes remain Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and King. The only thing that really changed was that I came to believe the hype about Abraham Lincoln and I decided Eisenhower was one of our greatest presidents.
In the late 1990’s historians started a mass rehabilitation of Truman’s legacy. I just don’t buy it. I appreciate all the solid scholarship, but Truman remains, for me, pretty much the butthead most people thought he was. That’s not to dismiss everything he did, because he made some excellent decisions that were largely unappreciated at the time.
But I think every president since FDR, save Eisenhower, was ultimately a dunderhead. And even Ike made some pitiful decisions.
