To take another example, quantum physics is said to have shattered the concept of causality, but we still hold people responsible for their actions. What works in a physics lab doesn’t necessarily tell us anything about how human society works.

Finally, the idea that ‘everyone has an agenda’ is often used to imply that it’s pointless to attempt objectivity. However, if objectivity itself becomes the agenda (as it should be in journalism, and writing history) then it produces a much better product. Not necessarily completely objective, but pretty much all attempts to carry out an agenda fail somewhere. That doesn’t mean trying is worthless.

I wonder if history will explain why we didn’t take to the streets in the first place. Was is MTV, hip-hop, marijuana, our over-stuffed arm chairs….what? What made us sit through all this? Was it because I could get up off the couch, bitch about the news all the way to the coffee maker and all the way back to the couch again? I just can’t explain my lethargy. Maybe history will for the next generation.

I think you’re on to something there, if maybe not precisely on target. I lurk on journalist blogs. For the most part, they’re the least bloggy people imaginable. There’s something missing.

First is something big happened, Bush Jr. at least should pass that test . Despite arguments about how history will see them, people like Clinton and Bush Sr. never had anything big enough for people to care. Bush Sr. will most likely get a side note over having the first fully “modern” war (or whatever our level of tactics/technology is called once it is no longer “modern”) and Clinton will get a foot note over getting impeached over having an affair with an intern and lying about it.

The next important thing is that it is far enough along that people do note care about the politics of the time. As of now much of what you think about the president depends on your politics, but at some time the war in Iraq is just going to be words in a book. Do we care that the US thought that the confederacy would be destroyed in less than a year with minimal casualties and now is 3 years into it with absolutely massive casualties? Nope, not one bit – in fact while that was a VERY major thing and made the war extremely unpopular it barely even gets a paragraph now.

And, lastly and maybe most importantly, how it all turns out. Had the union not won, or the south succeeded again in a few years then Lincoln would be vilified now. As is he was a visionary that stuck to his guns and pushed to do the right thing. If we *do* happen to talk about the people who opposed the war it isn’t very nice.

Iraq will do the same. If we succeed (and it very much appears as if that is now occurring) then he should be remembered well. If it does lead to the collapse of the dictatorships in the region then 100 years from now Bush will be one of the greatest world leaders to have ever lived. In this respect similar to Churchill (though I seriously doubt he will get the same personal respect simply due to Churchill’s personality lending to very memorable quotes) – if the Nazi’s had not done as Churchill predicted, if his tenacity and “vision” had been wrong he would have went down as an idiot of the ages. As is someone who accurately projected how the world works and actively sought to change it for the better and then *succeeds* in spite of the detractors and, well, you get Churchills and Lincolns.

That would be about as easy as getting terrorists to stop killing folks.

Possible, but rather demanding.

although journalists would often like to think otherwise.

I am not even sure that all “journalists” are self-aware, even if they are capable of thought.

It may be the only draft you have, but that doesn’t apply to us.

As to levels of partisanship unparalleled … both the early days of the Republic and the period of the War Between The States saw partisanship that makes this look timid and polite.

Probably because we were allowed to kill each other back then, instead of simply argue back and forth.

Let’s see if he’s anything like Carter or Clinton…

So long as there are people like Donald sabotaging the leadership of the President, the possibility will eventually become a probability.

They will always try and make you fail and then blame your failure on you, rather than on the actions that they undertook to make you fail.

Donald doesn’t need to know what the root cause of Bush’s problems are, since he has no interest in repairing those problems. He can always add more problems to the country, after all, and that requires nothing concerning understanding the root cause.

The past can’t be changed, thus that is why events ongoing in the present aren’t history. Things are still undecided because the players are still deciding them, one way or the other. As time passes, recent historical events become grist for present time problems. Such as Vietnam becoming the backdrop and propaganda channel from which Iraq will be influenced by. The legacy of Vietnam cannot be changed since it is history, but it can be used. The more ancient an event becomes, the less useful and distorted it is. People that lived those times would die, removing any bias or interest in those events. It is a slow process, and it never does end.

So long as a person is alive during a time when events are occuring, that person has a choice of sides to choose. He can choose positions and policies and words to say that can influence other individuals or even part of the event itself. Because of this option, there is no point in trying to find out what the “definitive” version of history is, since it is far more effective to simply make Iraq turn out the way you would want it to turn out in historical annals.

It may be favorable to recast Vietnam in a different light because you can no longer change those events, but Iraq is still ongoing. So it seems very logical that those who say that Iraq will turn out one way or another, are personally invested one way or another in that outcome. Either that, or they are part of the Inshallah club.