Greatness and Treachery in Power. The Oil and Glory Interview: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Presidential Historian Joseph Ellis

Original: Greatness and Treachery in Power. The Oil and Glory Interview: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Presidential Historian Joseph Ellis

At O&G, we are using the occasion of Obama's 100th day in office as an undisguised pretext to interview one of my favorite historians. In 2000, Joseph Ellis won the Pulitzer Prize for his slender Founding Brothers, a masterful collection of portraits of seven of America's revolutionary leaders. We visited in his office at Mt. Holyoke College.

Ellis proved to be a lot of fun. Among the takeaways: He much likes Obama, thinks that George Washington's treasury secretary,

A – We're experiencing something akin to the Great Depression. Therefore to what extent is FDR or references to the greatest challenges that presidents faced coming into office? Lincoln had the greatest, and Roosevelt right after him. This doesn't rate in quite that category. Those were nuclear explosions. This is still only a conventional explosion.

Q – Are his fans trying to put him up on a pedestal?

A - I think there are more people who are pro-Obama engaged in that enterprise. But once it starts, Fox News will do it too as a way of developing a critical perspective on Obama.

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