Weigel

Liberal blogs have pitched a fit over this list of the "25 Worst Figures in American History" selected by a group of conservative bloggers. The spark for the outrage, I think, was conservative reporter/blogger Jim Geraghty's post criticizing the contributors to the list.

No Al Capone? No Machine Gun Kelly or the Lindbergh baby kidnappers?

Actually, I agree with Ed Morrissey. The implication of John Hawkins, who compiled the list, was that it was going to be about political figures. It's neither bold nor interesting to point out that criminals are bad figures in American history. If someone asked a bunch of liberals this question and instead of listing George W. Bush, Henry Kissinger and Karl Rove they listed, say, Charles Manson, I'd say they botched the list.

So if this small list and small sample size reveal anything, it's not that politics are "broken." It's that these bloggers have a sort of cartoonish view of history. Jimmy Carter's number one ranking , I'd guess, is a function of his post-presidential image as a critic of American power and Israel. Jane Fonda's presence on the list is a legacy of the tedious fight we had in 2004 over who did what during the Vietnam era; no one who seriously understands the war thinks she was crucial to America's defeat. Al Sharpton's presence suggests, I guess, that conservatives wanted a "race hustler" on the list, because the body count from his reign of terror is comparable to that of a Wal-Mart manager who lets people stampede and kill each other on Black Friday.

It's a real mystery why no Supreme Court justices make it on here, or why people who made it tougher for America to win wars -- Lynndie England, William Calley -- are absent. I suppose it's just an obsession with electoral politics, and an information flow heavy on Fox News. (What's Saul Alinsky doing on here?)