Trump goes unmentioned but not ignored as Clinton, Bush and Obama pen essays on US presidents
WASHINGTON (AP) — When George W.Bush wrote an essay this year about another president named George, he avoided mentioning the one named Donald.So did Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
The three ex-presidents joined a roster of historians and authors in contributing to the In Pursuit project, a 250th-anniversary series that had each writer produce an essay about a president or first lady.Though the project was explicitly designed to transcend today’s politics, some of its essays nevertheless reflect anxieties that are flaring in the era of President Donald Trump over the use of power, the health of the democracy and the integrity of the presidency.The project is being curated by Colleen Shogan, the US archivist who was fired without explanation by Trump last year.She instructed contributors not to be partisan or ideological.
“Everybody took those instructions and that guidance very seriously,” she told The Associated Press.The goal was for all Americans to “feel welcome to be able to read these lessons and essays and learn something from them.”The mission, Shogan said, “is to surface the lessons from the past 250 years of American history, so that we can learn from those lessons, from both our successes and our failures, so we can plan for the present and the future.
It’s what has been described as debriefing the American story.”The essays cover 43 presidents — all but Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Trump — and 30 first ladies.They are being published chronologically and weekly into December.Trump and Biden were judged too fresh to be appraised by history, a call that may have also set aside passions of the moment.Without naming Trump, Bush’s essay is difficult to read without thinking of Trump’s reluctance to cede power after his 2020 election defeat and his musings about a third term in defiance of the Constitution’s two-term limit.Bush’s essay celebrates George Washington, the original “No Kings” guy.
Bush, a Republican...