Politicians Don't Qualify as Historians

There was a time when I naively assumed politicians were historically informed … then I realized that politicians (of any party affiliation) are not interested in historical understanding as much as making use of history for their partisan agendas. You might call this “plundering history.” Many times, however, politicians (often speaking off the cuff) either get it wrong or just plain oversimplify things. Such was case recently when Rick Santorum commented on JFK’s statements on the separation of church and state. Its no surprise that a GOP candidate would say that JFK made him want to “throw up,” but check out this post on HNN for a discussion of Santorum’s oversimplification of JFK.