I heard Bush’s West point speech and agree with Joe that it was stirring. I am glad that he has brough Truman into focus so clearly. For more on how Truman was specifically American (rather than Wilsonian) see Elizabeth Edwards Spalding’s very fine book, The First Cold Warrior: Harry Truman, Containment, And the Remaking of Liberal Internationalism, just published. She also, by the way, has an article called "True Believers," in the current issue of The Wilson Quarterly. She examines religion in the White House by comparing the presidential faiths of George W. Bush, Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman. (Not yet on line) The best bigraphy of Truman is by Alonzo Hamby.
Mr. Truman’s religious faith didn’t stop him from smearing Republicans as fascists in 1948, less than four years after Republican as well as Democratic boys died by the hundreds of thousands in World War II. It’s fine to praise him, but not unreservedly, and conservatives have been known to fall into this trap.
Peter - any relation to Matt Spalding? Just curious.
She’s his wife. And Lee Edwards’s daughter.
I have been rereading Acheson’s memoirs, which I found at a library sale -- perhaps unwelcome to many Republicans, but a fine angle on HST and American foreign policy.