Conrad Black reviewed:
I did not read the book, nor do I intend to. I do want to play off of Black’s review and offer a few comments about Woodrow Wilson. The criticisms in the first paragraph do not come close to my low opinion of Wilson:
I believe that Wilson was the first president who consciously worked at becoming a spiritual leader as well as a political leader. For all of Wilson’s highly-touted intellect he failed to see that a combination spiritual-political leader inevitably ends in theocracy. One can only surmise that Wilson thought every president who came after him would also be spiritual leaders.
I’m certain that Wilson would not have been thrilled about a Roman Catholic theocracy in America or anywhere else. In fact, his hyper-righteous, puritanical Presbyterianism had a lot to do with taking America to war against Germany (the Holy Roman Empire) on the side of non-Catholic Great Britain. I can only guess what he thought about Muslim theocracies (our current spiritual leader cum president loves them).
America’s earliest presidents were men of strong moral character while they never tried to mix governing with spirituality or organized religion. To put Wilson ahead of Thomas Jefferson at any time is beyond the pale even for liberals:
Since liberals wail the loudest every time they smell the slightest breach of Jefferson’s separation of church and state it’s difficult understanding their thinking when they put Wilson’s flirtation with theocracy ahead of T.J.
On the other hand Abraham Lincoln was the exact opposite of Wilson. Lincoln was pure politician who adopted moral positions for political expediency. Both men were responsible for sending Americans into the bloodiest slaughterhouses the world had ever seen.
Wilson should be remembered as a prophet of war! He abandoned America’s strict neutrality by taking America to war in Europe. Aside from that little detail the world has been at war almost continually since he took office in 1913, not to mention totalitarian governments making war on their own people to the tune of tens of millions dead.
Giving Wilson credit for International law has to be tongue in cheek. Nobody can define International law, or even cite one such law when it is supposedly violated. I’d hardly call that a positive for Wilson.
This next one is a definite negative for Wilson:
This next one laid the foundation for every environmental scam originated by Wilson’s inheritor; the United Nations:
Parenthetically, I’ll wager that much of the funding for the movie Noah can be traced to the United Nations. Darren Aronofsky must think that Noah was one smart dude because their was no manmade global warming at the time of the flood:
To my way of thinking Wilson gets no credit for vetoing:
Had Wilson been more politician and less spiritual leader he would have stopped Prohibition in its tracks.
Wilson does deserve credit for today’s Democrat party:
Naturally, the myth would flourish in a book extolling Wilson’s virtues:
US membership in the League of Nations would not have prevented WWII. At the very least membership in the League would have given Nazi Germany and Japan more time to develop weapons that would have tilted the war in their favor.
The myth is kept alive for one reason: Justification for the United Nations which succeeded the League of Nations.
Finally, the gap between Wilson’s detractors and his admirers is widening as his policies, his image, his worldview slowly fall apart. It took a century to be sure but his detractors are growing in number while his admirers are fighting a rear guard action in a desperate attempt to save the failed progressive ideas of the early 20th century. Wilson himself was not a great leader, nor was his worldview very profound. Although Wilson was not a Socialist he rode in on the coattails of a powerful movement known as Socialism. The tenacity of that movement keeps his name and policies alive.
I did not read the book, nor do I intend to. I do want to play off of Black’s review and offer a few comments about Woodrow Wilson. The criticisms in the first paragraph do not come close to my low opinion of Wilson:
I believe that Wilson was the first president who consciously worked at becoming a spiritual leader as well as a political leader. For all of Wilson’s highly-touted intellect he failed to see that a combination spiritual-political leader inevitably ends in theocracy. One can only surmise that Wilson thought every president who came after him would also be spiritual leaders.
I’m certain that Wilson would not have been thrilled about a Roman Catholic theocracy in America or anywhere else. In fact, his hyper-righteous, puritanical Presbyterianism had a lot to do with taking America to war against Germany (the Holy Roman Empire) on the side of non-Catholic Great Britain. I can only guess what he thought about Muslim theocracies (our current spiritual leader cum president loves them).
America’s earliest presidents were men of strong moral character while they never tried to mix governing with spirituality or organized religion. To put Wilson ahead of Thomas Jefferson at any time is beyond the pale even for liberals:
Since liberals wail the loudest every time they smell the slightest breach of Jefferson’s separation of church and state it’s difficult understanding their thinking when they put Wilson’s flirtation with theocracy ahead of T.J.
On the other hand Abraham Lincoln was the exact opposite of Wilson. Lincoln was pure politician who adopted moral positions for political expediency. Both men were responsible for sending Americans into the bloodiest slaughterhouses the world had ever seen.
Wilson should be remembered as a prophet of war! He abandoned America’s strict neutrality by taking America to war in Europe. Aside from that little detail the world has been at war almost continually since he took office in 1913, not to mention totalitarian governments making war on their own people to the tune of tens of millions dead.
Giving Wilson credit for International law has to be tongue in cheek. Nobody can define International law, or even cite one such law when it is supposedly violated. I’d hardly call that a positive for Wilson.
This next one is a definite negative for Wilson:
This next one laid the foundation for every environmental scam originated by Wilson’s inheritor; the United Nations:
Parenthetically, I’ll wager that much of the funding for the movie Noah can be traced to the United Nations. Darren Aronofsky must think that Noah was one smart dude because their was no manmade global warming at the time of the flood:
To my way of thinking Wilson gets no credit for vetoing:
Had Wilson been more politician and less spiritual leader he would have stopped Prohibition in its tracks.
Wilson does deserve credit for today’s Democrat party:
Naturally, the myth would flourish in a book extolling Wilson’s virtues:
US membership in the League of Nations would not have prevented WWII. At the very least membership in the League would have given Nazi Germany and Japan more time to develop weapons that would have tilted the war in their favor.
The myth is kept alive for one reason: Justification for the United Nations which succeeded the League of Nations.
Finally, the gap between Wilson’s detractors and his admirers is widening as his policies, his image, his worldview slowly fall apart. It took a century to be sure but his detractors are growing in number while his admirers are fighting a rear guard action in a desperate attempt to save the failed progressive ideas of the early 20th century. Wilson himself was not a great leader, nor was his worldview very profound. Although Wilson was not a Socialist he rode in on the coattails of a powerful movement known as Socialism. The tenacity of that movement keeps his name and policies alive.
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