I was reading about the late historian Howard Zinn, and I found out that, among other things, he was no fan of President Woodrow Wilson. He once said:

“One of the things I want to do is to create a new set of heroes… instead of Woodrow Wilson, who was a racial segregationist and who got us into World War I, I would suggest Helen Keller. She protested against World War I.”

Now, for those of you who don’t know, Zinn was quite the left-wing radical, and proud of it. But you know who else doesn’t care for President Wilson? Popular TV host Glenn Beck, who says things like:

“Now, let’s look at one of the early 20th century progressives — I hate this guy — Woodrow Wilson, lauded by modern day scholars, ranked eighth on a U.S. news survey of our greatest presidents. Who did they survey? Your professors. Ask them why…. 

Wilson, this SOB — I hate this guy — he had different ideas. He started — he started to do all kinds of things. He imprisoned non-nationalized Germans in internment camps. Who the first people to round them up and put them into a camp? Woodrow Wilson. He had 6,000 people forced into internment camps. Wilson also made the decision to re — listen carefully — re-segregate government offices.”

It’s not a terribly big deal, in the scheme of things, but I do find it sort of amusing that both a far-left, socialist professor like Zinn and a right-wing anti-communist, anti-progressive, anti-socialist like Beck both hate the guy.