Sen. Shelby Tries To Play Revisionist Historian, Fails

Senator Shelby went on Fox News to talk about bank bailouts yesterday, but he mysteriously forgets that last fall when the President approved of bank bailouts, it was Bush, not Obama who started doling out hundreds of billions to the banks.

Congressman Austria Clearly Never Took An American History Class

Sadly, Steve Austria of Ohio sets the bar awfully low in order to get into Congress. You would hope that a person sent to represent hundreds of thousands of Americans might know something about the country's history, but not in Mr. Austria's case. You see, the Republican spin campaign against the stimulus has been in overdrive and that means bursts of revisionist history are bound to be seen all over the place. In this instance, the Congressman from Ohio tries to move the date of the Great Depression ahead by four years.

From The Columbus Dispatch:

U.S. Rep. Steve Austria said he supports a scaled-down federal economic-stimulus proposal, but the Beavercreek Republican told The Dispatch editorial board that the huge influx of money into the economy could have a negative effect.

"When (President Franklin) Roosevelt did this, he put our country into a Great Depression," Austria said. "He tried to borrow and spend, he tried to use the Keynesian approach, and our country ended up in a Great Depression. That's just history."

Um, no, that isn't history, that's your own deluded version of it. After a decade of Republican encouragement (see Presidents Coolidge, Harding and Hoover) of unregulated financial greed and land speculation, the stock market collapsed on October 29, 1929. The nation's GDP plummeted for the next four years, and only began to rebound when FDR started to spend money on the nation's (gasp) infrastructure to get it going again. This isn't fiction Mr. Austria, it is historical fact. Now I know you want to say that FDR failed to get us out of the Great Depression and that only WWII saved us, but that is pure myth.

The facts of the 1920s through the 40s are what they are and here in the first decade of the new millenium, they may not be the same but the similarities are apparent. Unregulated financial markets created unmitigated greed, blowing up a bubble in the housing market (among other sectors, such as the somewhat newly created Credit Default Swap market) and it was only a matter of time before it blew up in our faces. Now we have a giant Republican (and some Democrats who tried to emulate them) mess that Obama has to clean up. And trust me Mr. Austria, it won't be by trying to blow that bubble up again.

George Bush Channels Rod Blagojevich For His Last Primetime Address

The worst President ever is five days away from letting the nation exhale their long-held collective breath so that we can start anew. Barack Obama is going to start out big, signing the new S-CHIP law into place and repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell before going on to put out a stimulus that works for middle class Americans. But first, Americans will be figuratively bombed by George Bush on their television screens during primetime so that he can say goodbye one last time.

As if all those half-ass revisionist history interviews weren't enough, the 43rd President will annoy us yet again by breaking into the networks and putting his face on display to a populace that just wants it gone. Though there is going to be a twist in addition to whatever speech he makes and I just can't help thinking about Rod Blagojevich.

From The Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — President George W. Bush will give a farewell address to the nation Thursday night, billed by the administration as a chance to reflect on his tenure and welcome Barack Obama without fighting old battles one last time.

Bush will deliver the speech, expected to run 10 to 15 minutes, from the ornate East Room of the White House. He will have a small audience of people in the room, chosen for their stories of personal courage.

Now Gail Collins in the NY Times has a very good take on this use of a heroic audience but I'd like to go further. Of course, whatever great things the people on stage with him have done for their community or country, they will be reduced to stage props for a President that is trying hard to remake his image so that he leaves not looking like the tyrant that he is.

So why Blagojevich? Well if you caught his "press conference" post-impeachment charade on Monday you know why. Blagojevich used disabled persons to show he signed bills into law that helped people, asking if that those good things were impeachable offenses. Of course, it was an easy ploy to see through but when you have an ego like Blagojevich's but when you are the man it is a different story.

Now Bush isn't trying to save himself from prosecution (hopefully that is merely a "yet") but his advisers were probably looking for something positive that Americans could most easily latch onto. Back when he had approval ratings above 90%, people thought he was hero for getting tough with terrorists and showing the world that we were resilient (before the disastrous policies took effect that is). So maybe this is an attempt to paint Bush as a hero. It's a longshot but when you are tasked with PR for George Bush (or Blago), there really isn't much to work with.

Bush: Anything Bad Wasn't My Fault!

Candy Crowley takes on this latest legacy interview with President Bush and surprise, surprise, the blame (according to him) doesn't fall anywhere near the White House. Make sure you hear the last line of this clip, Bush lays out another drinking analogy to the economic crisis!

NSA Tries To Rewrite Pearl Harbor History With Traditional Media's Help

The Bush Administration has been busy from almost day one when it comes to rewriting history to suit their needs. With nearly everyone being kicked out next month, the White House has been on overdrive, working scurrilously to do as much damage as they possibly can. This applies to the NSA as well and their "historians" used the 67th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor to make the U.S. seem more innocent than it was in the history books. And of course, mainstream outlets like the NY Times and UPI are more than happy to go along with it.

From UPI:

NEW YORK, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- Historians say they have concluded the United States had no advance notice Japan intended to attack Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941, settling a long-debated issue.

The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) reported on its Web site Saturday that historians for the National Security Agency concluded in a history released last week that decoded messages buried in Japanese-language weather reports, meant to alert Japanese diplomats to destroy codes, did not reach U.S. officials prior to the attack.

Under Japan's "winds execute" plan, "East wind rain" meant the United States, "north wind cloudy" was Soviet Union and "west wind clear" was Britain in the event diplomatic relations had reached a flash point.

The history's authors, Robert J. Hanyok and the late David Mowry, concluded that the weight of the evidence "indicates that one coded phrase, 'west wind clear,' was broadcast according to previous instructions some six or seven hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor."

Almost as soon as it was reposted on UPI, the comments came streaming in on the site, wondering how the author could just post what the NSA says without a grain (or a ton) of salt. The government has lied to us plenty of times before to make history look better for our own country than it actually was. As a result, our textbooks in grade schools deny many truths about our past and use rose colored glasses instead of just the straight truth.

While the historians at the NSA may have been able to twist the story about that particular radio message, the burden of proof out there is that we did have advanced warning of the attack and did nothing about it. Not too many people know about that unless they actively investigate it and seek the truth out there. Unfortunately, as the old adage of history repeating itself (technically it is more of an imitation) the government did the same exact thing in August of 2001. Perhaps UPI and the NY Times should consult multiple sources before acting simply as a government mouthpiece of revisionist history.

McCain Rewrites History Again

And Katie Couric, the expert journalist that she is, doesn't bother calling him on his lie.

Rove Subjects Him And His Iraq War Lie Again, This Time In Person

Despite the fact that many people have debunked Karl Rove's statements about the run-up to the war in Iraq, he continues to assert his falsehood. Even Ari Fleischer and Andrew Card took him to task this week about the matter. Today Rove appeared on his hometurf (a.k.a. Fox News) to debate his revisionist history with Congressman Chris Van Hollen (D-MD). It wasn't even close.

From The Huffington Post:

"Clearly things have not gone right in Iraq and you've tried to revise history," Van Hollen told Rove, demanding he "retract the outrageous statements you made."

Rove refused to back down, instead reading off a series of quotes by then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) that Rove claimed backed up his point. But as ThinkProgress documents, "None of the quotes that Rove used suggested Daschle was desperately trying to force a war authorization vote."

Van Hollen then laid down his trump card: a quote by former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer in today's Washington Post: "It was definitely the Bush administration that set it in motion and determined the timing, not the Congress. I think Karl in this instance just has his facts wrong."

Rove won't back down, his ego is too inflated for that type of humility. He will shamelessly try to deflect blame for the catastrophe in Iraq from Bush and himself without regard for the truth. That power he enjoyed inside the White House has certainly corrupted his head absolutely. If he said that the sun was green, no number of experts or regular people with eyes would make him change his position.