According to wikipedia:
Historical revisionism is either the legitimate scholastic re-examination of existing knowledge about an historical event, or the illegitimate distortion of the historical record such that certain events appear in a more or less favourable light.
Distorting the historical record by putting things in a more, or less, favorable light. Most at dailykos will probably disagree with me, but that's what I thought of when I read this article in NYT by David Leonhardt.
Here is one example of what I see as historical revisionism in the article:
The bill that President Obama signed on Tuesday is the federal government’s biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago.
Over most of that period, government policy and market forces have been moving in the same direction, both increasing inequality. The pretax incomes of the wealthy have soared since the late 1970s, while their tax rates have fallen more than rates for the middle class and poor.
I would call that historical revisionism. First, it completely ignores the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. This bill raised taxes on the rich and lowered them on the poor. Many would argue (link, link, link, link) that it lifted many people out of poverty. The article I am criticizing specifically mentions income and taxes, two things addressed by by this Clinton legislation, but completely ignores that it happened. That seems like a textbook case of negating a good thing to make it less important historically.
Another aspect of historical revisionism in the article is that it seems to create out of whole cloth some secret intent by the Obama administration that even they don't claim. Some analysts are even saying that health care is the last progressive victory and that there aren't more "big ticket items" left to do. (link)
Here is what the article said:
Over most of that period, government policy and market forces have been moving in the same direction, both increasing inequality. The pretax incomes of the wealthy have soared since the late 1970s, while their tax rates have fallen more than rates for the middle class and poor.
Nearly every major aspect of the health bill pushes in the other direction. This fact helps explain why Mr. Obama was willing to spend so much political capital on the issue, even though it did not appear to be his top priority as a presidential candidate. Beyond the health reform’s effect on the medical system, it is the centerpiece of his deliberate effort to end what historians have called the age of Reagan.
Ending the age of Reagan? President Obama pushed for health care because he secretly believed it was a way of pushing against the income gap between the haves and the have-nots? The only clue as to where the author discerns the secret agenda is that he mentions that he is a friend of Larry Summers.
I would love to believe that HCR ends up as a big wealth transfer, but I think that remains to be seen. So much so that some commentators have complained about the celebration of HCR because it does not address income inequality. (link) Rather than celebrating this as the greatest victory since medicare, my thoughts are similar to McJoan's:
That's the dilemma plenty of progressives, myself included, face--seeing the serious problems with this bill--the mandate in absence of a public option, the very real rollback of reproductive rights for women, the lack of effective cost controls on pharmaceuticals and device makers and hospitals, the fact that it doesn't provide universal care--it provides access to insurance to citizens, leaving out millions of undocumented workers who won't even be able to spend their own money on insurance, should they care to.
In short, there are a tremendous number of trade-offs for a bill that doesn't reach system healthcare reform, that settles for insurance reform that is lacking the most effective element--significant competition.
Is this a great start to reform? Yes. Does it, by itself, end the Age of Reagan? I don't think so. Two questions remain for me. Why do I have to ignore certain parts of history in my effort to praise President Obama? And why do I have to make his accomplishments greater than they actually seem to others who are on the same side as me?