Not only does the passage of time produce knowledge, it also produces ignorance... As the passage of time removes people with first-hand knowledge of an earlier era, they are replaced by people ignorant of those times and therefore easy targets for demagogues.
history
What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure of the human race?
One undeniable accomplishment of Bill Clinton's presidency was that it kept Jimmy Carter from being the worst U.S. president in history.