Commenting on yesterday’s daily, Jeffrey Tucker wrote, ‘This article hurls a dead cat into the temple of the civic religion — and does so in way that only Rothbard can.’
That line came back to me last night when I started listening to a great new History of Rome podcast. 
After telling the legend of the founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus, followed by the the rule of King Romulus, podcast host and author Mike Duncan adds these comments:
It seems comically naive of the Romans to believe that so much could be owed to a single man, but when we look at our own almost religious veneration of George Washington, it begins to make sense. In 500 years, will historians be reporting that George Washington was born of a cherry tree — and had wooden teeth to prove it? That he flew over the Delaware River, defeated the British army, and designed the Constitution all by himself? It seems crazy, but as time goes by, the subtleties of actual events are compressed into small, digestible units. Horatio Gates has already been pushed from the collective consciousness and is known only to historians, but it was his victory at Saratoga, not Washington’s, that led the French to support the Revolution, and thus ensure its success. That story, however, is too complicated. Most Americans don’t know how critical French involvement was, let alone that Washington had little to do with securing it. Washington beat the British. That is the story of the American Revolution. As the years pass, will the name of Madison be lost? Hamilton? Even the great Thomas Jefferson, whose fame is second to none, may yet fall under the juggernaut that is this mythical Washington, as he, like Romulus, becomes the answer to all questions about the founding of America.
By the way, that’s the same Horatio Gates about whom Rothbard writes, ‘During the campaigns of 1777 a suspicion began to well up among many Americans that Gates was an excellent general and Washington a miserable one, and that maybe something should be done about it.’
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You make a good point. However, does the internet change anything? People looking back will have (and this is just an assumption) access to today’s commentary and not all of it, as you point out, will be bad and corrupted.
About the mythic George Washington check
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ8BCNj2oao
Both Gates and Washington were mediocre commanders, but Washington had the advantage of keeping his army together. Gates, it should be remembered, suffered a devastating and humiliating defeat at the hands of Cornwallis in the south after Saratoga, fleeing farther than anyone.
The two best generals in the Revolution were probably Artemus Ward (who kept the British holed up in Boston until the fleet arrived) and Benedict Arnold. You could also make the case for Daniel Morgan.
An interesting thesis; but I think you picked the wrong object. In time Washington too will be written out of American historiography. Look at how every reference to Washington or Jefferson or anyone from the revoloutionary period must always be accompanied by a slavery disclaimer nowadays. The one and only untouchable supreme god of the civic religion is Lincoln.
You’re fighting a straw man of your own creation. Nobody idolizes Washington. No one who knows history thinks he was a military genius. We simply care about the truth. Rothbard was grossly unfair to apply modern anarchist ideals in his analysis of Washington, and sadly anti-historical in claiming that a rag-tag militia could have defeated the British Military.
B.K., I`m curious why you`ve linked not to Rothbard`s quote, but to a Wiki article that is singularly critical of Gates.
Now I am sure what I will do with some of the funny money that will be printed out of thin air and sent to me as a tax rebate.
I will buy Conceived in Liberty (http://mises.org/store/Conceived-in-Liberty–P96C0.aspx) .
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