Letters to the Editor
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argument by analogy
there are a number of problems with this analogy, as others have already intimated, but for me the key issues are culbability and competence. Hoover may well have had ideological blinkers which made difficult for him to address pressing problems, but these problems were not (as the author accepts) largely of this own making, but a long-term product of broader trends. Bush is not a bystander caught up in forces beyond his control, but someone who is directly responsible for his own downfall, and its attendent impact upon the world more generally. Ideology is an important issue, no doubt, but there is also the more basic question of competence. This may be an open question when it comes to Hoover, but with Bush there is really only one answer.