Bush’s shameless misrepresentation of George Washington

At Mount Vernon yesterday President Bush said this:

George Washington’s long struggle for freedom has also inspired generations of Americans to stand for freedom in their own time. Today, we’re fighting a new war to defend our liberty and our people and our way of life. And as we work to advance the cause of freedom around the world, we remember that the father of our country believed that the freedoms we secured in our revolution were not meant for Americans alone. He once wrote, “My best wishes are irresistibly excited whensoever in any country I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banners of freedom.”

I can’t find the quote at the moment, but Washington, as is well known, believed the exact opposite of what Bush is attributing to him. Yes, Washington said that he wished for other countries to be free. But he also said, as clearly as could possibly be said, that we cannot gain for other countries their freedom, that they must gain their own freedom. For Bush to suggest that Washington would have supported Bush’s project of planting American armies in the Muslim world in order to spread democracy there is nothing less than a Big Lie.

- end of initial entry -

The below, sent by a reader, is by Patrick J. Garrity, “Warnings of a parting friend: U.S. foreign policy envisioned by George Washington in his Farewell Address,” National Interest, Fall 1996:

… Washington, like virtually all Americans, strongly approved of the early moves toward self-government in France. But Washington, like those who became identified as Federalists, grew increasingly concerned at the radical and violent turn of events in that country. And he certainly resisted those who argued for joining a world-wide revolution under French auspices for liberty, fraternity, and equality. Washington rejected the close connection that Jefferson made at the time between the fate of the French and American causes, and believed that allegiance to the French transnational cause would divide, not unite, the American political community.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 20, 2007 10:22 AM | Send