With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Historians measuring Bush's scandals against past presidents

It's been a collection of scandals and problems without handy monikers. But the Bush administration has had enough of them to begin nudging the needle on the presidential scandal-o-meter.

Historians are measuring them against the brand-name scandals — Watergate, Iran-Contra, Whitewater, Monica - that have plagued previous presidents.

"There is something that is different about the current administration and more worrisome about this," said presidential historian William Leuchtenburg, a University of North Carolina professor emeritus. "The kinds of problems that administrations have had in the past have usually involved bad behavior by an individual on his own."

"What's different about this administration is that the behavior involves important matters of policy of breach of security," Leuchtenburg said. "From what we actually know, it hasn't yet reached the dimensions of the Nixon White House. But it certainly goes beyond the sort of petty personal scandals that one associates with Truman and Eisenhower or with Carter."
Read entire article at Cox