Bush does history the Ann Coulter way

So says Jacob Heilbrunn: Once Again, the Big Yalta Lie Los Angeles Times 05/10/05.  He's referring, of course, to Bush's Roosevelt-sold-out-eastern-Europe-to-the-commies speech in Latvia this past weekend (my emphasis):

The claim that Roosevelt betrayed Eastern Europe at Yalta, and that he set the stage for 40 years of Soviet domination, is an old right-wing canard. By repeating it, and by publicly charging that the Yalta agreement was in the "unjust tradition" of Hitler's deal with Stalin, Bush was simply engaging in cheap historical revisionism. His glib comments belong to the Ann Coulter school of history.

Yes, it's sloppy thinking.  But it obviously has a high-level fan or two.  "The Ann Coulter school of history."  A scary thought.

Theoretically, Churchill and Roosevelt could have refused to cut any deal with Stalin at Yalta. But that could have started the Cold War on the spot. It would have seriously jeopardized the common battle against Germany (at a moment when Roosevelt was concerned with winning Soviet assent to help fight the Japanese, which he received).

Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower was happy to let the Soviets bear the brunt of the fighting as they marched toward Berlin, and he was unwilling to expend American troops on storming the German capital. The only one who was eager to do that was Gen. George Patton, who hoped to take on the Russians as well. Given the domestic pressure to "bring the boys back home," Roosevelt would have been taking a politically suicidal course had he broken with our allies, the Soviets.

Roosevelt was hardly perfect at Yalta. He was naive about Stalin's intentions and believed he could cajole the dictator into following more moderate policies. But FDR's approach was not particularly different from that of Churchill (who had declared that he would "sup with the devil" to win the war, which is what he and Roosevelt, in effect, did).

This particular strand of rightwing goofiness should have been mothballed long ago.  But old fanaticism doesn't die, it just keeps being reincarnated in new versions of the Republican Party.  Or something like that.

Heilbrunn is right: "Roosevelt's record is no cause for shame, but Bush's comments are."  But I'm sure Bush would say, fool me once, shame on you; fool me - you can't get fooled again!