Sunday, April 09, 2006

Bad History or Good Muckraking?

I can't decide if this attempt to link -- genetically -- Aleister Crowley and Barbara Bush is an example of good geneaological investigation, bad historical guesswork or mere muckraking (note that "muckraking" does not mean "false or wrong"). There are a couple of logical leaps -- made with verve ("must have") rather than with traditional timidity ("logical to assume that") -- which seem to me to suggest avenues for historical investigation rather than certainties. I'm quite sure that the last bit -- comparing public statements on disasters of Crowley and Bush -- is the thinnest sort of historical evidence possible; it proves nothing (ethics are not genetic, nor is the ability to produce sound bites), though it might suggest an avenue of investigation into the views of Bush's mother which could demonstrate some kind of "heritage."

Non Sequitur: Speaking of questionable sources, Adamu has found some fascinating, troubling, but thoroughly irrelevant "secrets" about the administration.

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