What Did Bush Mean by "Revisionist Historians"?

About two weeks ago, President Bush invoked the term "revisionist historians" twice in two days to describe critics who have attacked his original justification for war with Iraq. This phrase has been kicked around ever since in pundit circles because, although it is not a new construction, the president offered little explanation of it in this context.

"The term can be a compliment (to describe new research that challenges conventional wisdom)," wrote the New York Times on the Sunday after Bush's speeches, "or an insult (to imply that the history is distorting the record). Bush administration officials chose the latter when they dismissed as 'revisionist history' charges that intelligence data was twisted to justify an Iraq attack."

On his MSNBC weblog, Eric Alterman wrote that Bush misused "both the term 'revisionist' and 'historian,' to say nothing of making no sense whatever in any case." After citing someone else's theory that the president might be trying to associate his critics with Holocaust revisionism, Alterman concluded "[W]ho the hell knows [what he meant]? You could go crazy trying to figure it out."

In fact, one need not go crazy trying to figure out the president's meaning here. All you need to do is look closely at statements about history and history teaching by Bush and members of his administration to understand the president's perspective.

Last month, the Department of Education reintroduced a new round of funding for a grant program to improve history teaching in public schools. The Bush administration renamed the Teaching American History grant program, which predates the president's tenure in office, the Teaching Traditional American History grant program (emphasis added). Since presumably "traditional" is the opposite of "revisionist," this is a good place to start if you are trying to understand how this administration approaches history.

According to the fine print on the grant application:

The Secretary [of Education] construes traditional American history to mean the following: Traditional American history teaches the significant issues, episodes, and turning points in the history of the United States, and how the words and deeds of individual Americans have determined the course of our Nation. This history teaches how the principles of freedom and democracy, articulated in our founding documents, have shaped-and continue to shape-America's struggles and achievements, as well as its social, political, and legal institutions and relations. Traditional history puts its highest priority on making sure students have an understanding of these principles and of the historical events and people that best illustrate them.

If you think this philosophy of history is restricted to this corner of the Department of Education, just take a look at Bush's speeches devoted specifically to history and history teaching. He has pulled no punches in explaining his reasoning for why this subject is important.

On September 17, 2002, introducing two initiatives to improve history and civics education, he declared, "Ignorance of American history and civics weakens our sense of citizenship. To be an American is not just a matter of blood or birth; we are bound by ideals, and our children must know those ideals." Just recently, Bruce Cole, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, echoed Bush's reasoning, explaining, "[I]n order for a democracy to survive and to succeed, its values and principles must be passed on from one generation to the next."

So to the Bush administration, learning history is a way to learn American values. But what are these American values? Here the administration offers few details, probably so that its rhetoric can appeal to multiple constituencies. If they offer any explanation of these values, officials use terms like "freedom" and "democracy" because listeners can project upon them almost anything they want.
Certainly, Bush's politics and religious beliefs suggest a great deal about the American values he might deem to be most important. Yet one need not engage in idle speculation about one issue that Bush intends knowledge of American history to reinforce.

Bush believes that the values American history teaches support his war in Iraq. In a late-April declaration proclaiming last May 1st, Loyalty Day, he wrote:

Today, America's men and women in uniform are protecting our Nation, defending the peace of the world, and advancing the cause of liberty. . . . Their service and sacrifice are a testament to their love for America, and our soldiers' honor on and off the battlefield reaffirms our Nation's most deeply held beliefs: that every life counts, and that all humans have an unalienable right to live as free people.

These values must be imparted to each new generation. Our children need to know that our Nation is a force for good in the world, extending hope and freedom to others. By learning about America's history, achievements, ideas, and heroes, our young citizens will come to understand even more why freedom is worth protecting.

This takes us back to the term revisionist historians. If American history teaches us values that justify the war in Iraq, anyone who questions the reasons that the war occurred is not supporting American values and is, therefore, a revisionist historian.

In the lead-up to the recent war and in its aftermath, President Bush has politicized history and history education by tying both to support for a war that historians are just beginning to consider. Bush's use of the term revisionist historian was one of a long line of political maneuvers intended to make his opponents seem un-American.

If you think leading the country into war on a false pretext violated American values or that finding out the truth about Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq is a good idea, your values will not matter if teachers teach the next generation of students Bush's way. History education will just be another tool for getting the citizenry to unquestioningly support government policy.

If it's true that "Bush loves history," as the subject heading on a History News Network update e-mail put it last September, this explains why.