History is Comedy

Maggie Koerth 12:14 pm Fri Oct 16, 2009

I was traveling this week, which, in these days of the abomination that is HLN*, means I spend my hotel mornings watching random non-news cable networks. This time, the choice was HBO Comedy, which is how I ended up watching a great classroom-themed, comedic retelling of American history featuring Robert Wuhl.

I caught a couple of incorrect details here and there, but in general Wuhl was on track and worth watching…if only for his take on the ascendancy of Franklin Pierce and his (in my opinion) pretty insightful overarching lessons:

1) Our understanding of history is "based on a true story"

and

2) "We'll get through it" makes a pretty good philosophy from which to approach American politics.

UPDATE: I should note that there's swearing in these videos. So, play audio with caution in respect to bosses, small children and your own proclivities.

*CNN's "Talk Soup"-ish replacement for the Headline News channel is so horrible, I'm not even going to link to it.

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