On CBS’ Face the Nation this morning, host Bob Schieffer had as guests three historians to “look at the President.”

Robert Dallek, author, “An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963″; David Maraniss, author, “They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace Vietnam and America, October 1967″; Garry Wills, author, “Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power.”

The show was really awful, and it was not related to history. These three leftist historians were on the show to berate a current President and his ongoing Administration, as if they could provide some special insight which a standard journalist could not. Journalists at least cover the present.

Schieffer declared that the “country is more divided than ever,” and he blamed President Bush: you either love him or you hate him. Wasn’t this the case with Clinton?

Marannis said that the President’s trip to Baghdad was something he needed, because the visit to the deck of the U.S.S. Lincoln “blew up in his face.” The speech, however, was not a success only to that same small segment of the population who did not want him to land on the aircraft carrier and tell the troops that they had accomplished their mission, liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein. These people seethed from the time the visit was announced.

Schieffer interjected of the Baghdad Thanksgiving Day visit: “I think it was a very important thing.”

Gary Wills opined that the President blew a tremendous opportunity, after 9-11, to unite the world in the struggle against terrorism, to make it a global effort instead of a unilateral one. The truth is that it has been a global effort since day one, with President Bush uniting the world in the fight against terrorism. Countries throughout the world, from France to the Yemen, are actively involved in this.

Wills complained that the President could have made the world see that the war on terror was not one between the terrorists and the United States, but rather the terrorists against the entire world. Mr. Wills, I fear, has been living in a cave. The civilized world knows that the terrorists are at war with the civilized world. The terrorists are attacking everywhere, they are being rounded up everywhere, they are being investigated everywhere, they are being tried everywhere — and they are being stopped everywhere.

Dallek agreed with Wills’ statement: “It’s wise. It’s on the mark.”

These buffoons obviously pay no attention to the world around them, and Schieffer did not do his job and at least question Wills’ venomous and boneheaded statement. (I’d call it an outright lie, but I am giving Wills the benefit of the doubt of being clueless.)

Schieffer asked: “Is this Vietnam?”

All historians agreed: only in that “the government is manipulating the truth.” The only thing I see the government doing, however, is reporting the actual progress which is being made in Iraq. Not dwelling solely on the negative is not a form of manipulation of the truth.

These people, including the host, live in their self-made box.

Example. Schieffer talked about Bush’s poll numbers then said: “yet nobody seems that happy… well, many people don’t seem that happy with the Bush Administration.” He said nobody seemed happy, and that is what he meant to say. And he was correct. Nobody in their box is happy with the Bush Administration. Outside the box, he’s doing fine.

Gary Wills was not finished. He advertises himself as an objective historian, but he the Left’s prime Historian of Propaganda and Enlightenment. (I am not in any way equating the American Left with the German National Socialists. I am comparing only the use of lies to make a case.)

Wills accused the Bush Administration of “ravaging the environment” and of “giving in to the pharmaceutical companies” and to the oil companies. Dallek agreed that the President this Administration set a new historical standard for being “in the pocket of business.”

Finally, Wills blames Ralph Nader. You see, he asserted, had Nader stayed out of the race in 2000, Al Gore would have won even more convincingly and we would not have a Bush Administration. (He disregards the electoral college. Not sure where that ranks him amongst the best-selling historians.) He stammered that we have “the Nader War, the Nader Justice Department, and the Nader Patriot Act.”

This was really amateur, name-calling stuff, led by Wills and backed with the “me-toos” of Dallek. Marranis stayed out of it.

I’ve been covering the Sunday Morning shows in the Rightsided Newsletter for five years, and this is much a cross between the banal and the vicious as I can recall. It’s difficult even to laugh.

At least those inside the box agree with each other, independent of any semblance of an honest answer.