Michael Kazin explains why Woodrow Wilson, who took office 100 years ago, isn’t celebrated like FDR or even LBJ:
Despite his academic background and cerebral image, Wilson, like Obama now, was a masterful orator. Unlike nearly all his predecessors, he thought the public deserved to hear their elected
leader explain, in a variety of venues, what he was doing and why. … He bet that a massive army and compelling ideals would cleanse the world of autocracy, empire, and, with the new League of Nations, perhaps even war itself. Yet Wilson famously lost that bet—as the other victorious Allies retained their colonies, the Senate voted against the U.S. joining the League, and the lethal movements of fascism and Communism emerged from the ashes.
That great failure was the last public act of Wilson’s life. It tarnished his reputation for years to come and is still the primary reason why he gets no love from liberals today. More than his dour demeanor, his excessive moralism, or his paternalistic racism, it demonstrates the peril of thinking that a war made by Americans can magically turn the world from the darkness of oppression toward the light of tolerance and democracy. Having gained the presidency as a critic of the disaster in Iraq, Barack Obama, another former academic, seems to grasp that truth.
(Photo: A monument of Woodrow Wilson in Poznań, Poland, via Wikimedia Commons)
The Dish 
