After watching Meet the Press this morning, I’m stuck with the same thought I have every time I watch Doris Kearns Goodwin speak on an interactive panel: Why is she valued by the mainstream media? Leaving aside her plagarism problems, her analysis is superficial (“If we don’t increase government revenue for causes like protecting the environment, who is going to protect the air that we all breathe??”). In addition, she typically strains to draw a historical analogy to current events. Her performance today included (a) reminding the viewers that Churchill lost an election shortly following the end of WWII and thus Bush was highly vulnerable in 2004 and (b) in criticizing proponents of a tax cut, relaying that tired anecdote about the man who offers an attractive female a large sum of money for sex and then, after she agrees, offering her one dollar claiming that he has already established the type of woman she is. Commentary like this can be provided by a moderately-accomplished college student, not a historian that certain people hold in esteem.
2 thoughts on “The Irrelevence of Doris Kearns Goodwin”
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When your historical bonafides consist of having sucked LBJ’s crank, what do you do next? I also saw that fat cocksucker Monica on the ed channel today lecturing undergrads at UCSD. What the fuck, they may as well put me on the payroll.
I actually like Doris Kearns Goodwin. I’ve seen her speak in person and she’s engaging, interesting, a big baseball fan and seems like a nice person.
However, I agree that she’s a bit of a lightweight and she tends to repeat the same themes over and over again: how great LBJ & FDR were, how Americans need to be asked to sacrifice more, etc… She’s worth listening to but should not be treated as the authoritative voice of history.
Then again, who should?