"The Joys of History"
By I’ll probably have more to say tomorrow about this WSJ article by historian Edward Larson, but one passage strikes me mildly amusing for various reasons:
[A] historian at Yale, the president’s alma mater . . . told me that Mr. Bush regularly reads history and has invited historians from Yale and elsewhere to the White House for informal discussions. Apparently, Karl Rove introduced the president to the joys of history.
Which is kind of odd — or maybe not — given the fact that Bush actually majored in history. (I can’t say for sure who taught at Yale at the time, so maybe this says more about their history department than it does about The Cheerleader.)
What’s especially puzzling, though, is the bit about Rove, who strikes me as one of the most joyless creatures ever to wear human skin. I could imagine him introducing someone to, say, “the joys of ratfucking,” or “the joys of disclosing classified information to reporters.” But the joys of history? Not so much.