History, or a Time Line?

For this assignment, I first read the article posted on Star Tribune about Obama speaking at the rally, then I proceeded to read a number of blogs posted on star trib and I found one that was much different than the rest. It is short, so here it is to read before I begin to analyze how it represents history…or not…

OBAMA ADDRESSING RALLY AT U of M

Posted by Bob von Sternberg

Air Force One wheels down at 2:41 p.m.

President Obama, wearing a sport coat, slacks and open collar shirt, bounded down the stairs at 2:54.

He bear-hugged former Sen. Mark Dayton, whose gubernatorial campaign he came to boost. He also greeted Reps. Keith Ellison and Betty McCollum, House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher and about a dozen other Minnesotans.

Press secretary Robert Gibbs, wearing an Auburn University T-shirt, kibitzed with the traveling press about Saturday’s football games.

Obama jogged over to a fenced-in pen where about 100 Minnesotans with connections to the DFL, Obama or the federal government had gathered. “Hi guys,” he called out to cheers and popping flashbulbs, shaking dozens of hands, while autographing a handmade sign three teenaged girls had made, saying “Minnesota (hearts) Obama.”

Motorcade rolling at 3:02 p.m.

In the drizzle that started when Obama had arrived, the crowd behind the fence cheered again.

Massive traffic jams on Crosstown Hwy. 62, Cedar Avenue and Interstate 35W, with hundreds of people lining parts of the motorcade route.

Sidewalks at the University of Minnesota were jammed.

A supporter of GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer parked a sign-festoone pickup truck on the route at the edge of campus, flying a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag.

As the president's large motorcade, with lights flashing, sped away from campus after his speech, Mikey Weitekamp and his friends got to their feet on University Avenue and cheered.

"That was so worth it -- so worth it," he said.

I would argue that this blog fails at an attempt to represent history. In class this week, we talked about history always being told from a specific perspective—that you cannot tell history without telling it from a certain point of view. We talked about this with Maus. If Speigelman had simply published all the notes and recordings of his talks with his father, that would not be history; it would just be recorded information, instead of a story that represents or tells a history. I think the author of this blog post attempts to write an account of the rally without a bias, but because all history must come from a point of view, it fails to become a representation of history at all. There is no point of view in this blog, it is simply facts and notes about what happened at certain times. I can see that the author was most likely trying to display the little details that are often left out but make the event what it is, but the events mentioned are random and do not have any analysis or information connected to them. A list of times and events is not history, this is more of a time line than a history. Even though I argue that this blog is a failed attempt at representing history, I thought it was important to write about for the assignment because it is not often that you see a failed attempt. Most accounts of events these days are so clearly biased, that we don’t have a problem figuring out the point of view it is coming from. Before reading this blog, I didn’t understand how a representation of history must have a bias, but now after reading this, I realize that a time table of events may not have a bias, but it is also definitely not a representation of history.