It's becoming a cliche to liken Obama to Lincoln. I do it myself. Today on the Brian Lehrer show on public radio in New York, Adam Gopnik did it. Well I've been reading Lincoln, and also reading Yale scholar David Bromwich's piece in Raritan, 2001, on "Lincoln's Constitutional Necessity," about how Lincoln broke the slave-power. The piece is not online, but in it Bromwich states that Lincoln was a relative newcomer–like Obama– and "a man of ostensibly moderate political complexion" whose personal "humiliations" gave him the ability to build a political majority in ways that fanatical abolitionists, who had an "incapacity for common feeling," could never do. The conclusion: "He is a member of a party of resistance but so humanized, so general in his sympathies at last, that he can serve as the animating power for a triumph of charity over the human obstacles in its path." Wow. Stirring.
A party of resistance. I feel myself a member of it today. And my president-elect has experienced humiliation, that vital element of Lincoln's efficacy. I emailed Bromwich about the comparison. He wrote:
We are all trying to figure out what his center-right cabinet choices amount to. Lincoln's team of rivals after all was a team in clear accord with the political positions he took in 1859 and 1860. Obama is up to something different–appeasing the political establishment to the top of his bent, but with choices who, if they stay what they were and he stays what he was, he must either fire or bend himself to accommodate. The complete absence of persons who
opposed the Iraq war from the start is really mystifying; as if Lincoln had decided that the public declaration of abolitionist views was a disqualification for service in his cabinet.
I find this very clarifying. Mr. Obama, please respond.
Related posts:
- Bromwich: Obama can learn from Lincoln, party and principle go hand in hand
- Obama, Lincoln, and Frost on the Right of Employment
- Lincoln to Obama: ‘The tug has to come, & better now than later’
- David Bromwich: Further Comment on Walzer
- Lincoln would have accepted the idea of a shadowy, powerful Israel lobby
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On its current trajectory, the US is doomed, and sadly, Obama just signaled that the US will continue along its current trajectory.
Abraham Lincoln 'was a racist who wanted to deport blacks'
By David Wastell, in Washington
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, the American president revered as "The Great Emancipator" for leading the war to abolish slavery, was really a racist who used offensive language to describe black people and wanted all Afro-Americans deported, according to newly published research which has prompted controversy in the United States.
Far from being the willing forefather of today's multicultural America, President Lincoln advocated reserving the west of the country for whites, supported a law forbidding black people to settle in his home state of Illinois and was fond of racist jokes. He used two State of the Union addresses to call for the deportation of black people and shortly before his assassination in 1865 said of the thousands of slaves to be freed at the end of the Civil War: "I believe it would be better to export them all to some fertile country with a good climate which they could have to themselves."
He also habitually used the word "nigger" to describe black people, something which would have shocked and dismayed the hundreds of thousands of civil rights activists in the Sixties who made the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC the focus of some of the biggest demonstrations the city has seen.
The assault on President Lincoln's character and record in a book called Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream, was produced over seven years by Lerone Bennett Jr, the executive editor of Ebony, a magazine aimed at black Americans. Mr Bennett regards what he calls the "Massa Lincoln myth" as a 135-year-old problem, "one of the most extraordinary efforts I know to hide a whole man and a whole history, particularly when that man is one of the most celebrated men in American history".
The evidence of Lincoln's true racial beliefs is easily found, he says, in his writing and speeches. Lincoln blamed black people for the Civil War, declaring: "But for your race among us there could not be a war, although many men on either side do not care for you one way or another."
Although in popular history he is given the credit for the Emancipation Proclamation – which itself did not directly call for the elimination of slavery – he only issued it under pressure from other Republicans in Congress, Mr Bennett said. However, Lincoln was seized upon by progressive Americans following his assassination, which came soon after the Confederate surrender. There was "an explosion of emotion" in the North and Lincoln was "appropriated, he was used", Mr Bennett said.
By the late Sixties Lincoln's death was put in the same bracket by civil rights campaigners as the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the black Church leader. The book has prompted controversy among academics with one black professor calling it "a compelling critique" of the revered president's life. But Lincoln's defenders are infuriated by the attack…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/2000/06/04/wlin04.html
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Let's not pretend Lincoln was a saint. And let's also not rewrite his opinions on the importance and difficulty of assimilation into Western civilization by incorporating his persona into socialist, multi-culturalist propaganda. If he wanted to deport blacks (who were dragged here in slave ships) then, there is absolutely no question he would demand the deportation of Zionists today, who voluntarily immigrated, but chose to betray.
In Lincoln's day, I'd say, he was aware of the problems; he did his best simply to hold the Union together. I think Obama is of similar nature. Lincoln was personally bothered by injustice, so is Obama–especially by such by virtue of mere birth.
That Lincoln was superficially as Ed says, is as Obama sat in that
pew for a score. Not hard to see why in either case, given the reality of that time, and this time.
Let us pray Obama can reach the higher angels in his decisions, and that his current cabinet picks are viewed by him as the most
practical means,
Criticizing him for not appointing another anti-Iraq War person to his national security team may be premature, and misses the point that he doesn't need an anti-war advisor to tell him which are the wrong wars. He has a nose for that. And who would he have appointed? Brent Scowcroft? It's hard to think of another with the gravitas to stand on the stage with Obama as part of the inner circle. And Scowcroft appears to have the President-elect's ear. The big challenge he faces is to turn the Israelis and AIPAC away from the Settler Kool-Aid table. To move forward despite the threat that the Israelis will just "descend into their bunker," with their Kool-Aid, if Secretary Clinton tries to pressure them, but do so in a way that constructively changes the subject, and addresses the fear that underlies the intransigence. Carter, Scowcroft, Powell, are not the messengers for this message. Only Nixon could go to China. It will take some fierce Zionists, or those respected and deferred to by fierce Zionists, to deliver the message that now is the time to make a deal, cash our winnings before we poison ourselves with this stuff. And no strong power center available to the hold-outs with which to resist that message.
I hope Obama does better than Lincoln, because it was in large part Lincoln's victory and his strength that led to secession, and over 500,000 American deaths. We do not want Obama's election to precipitate any modern analogue.
Bromwich writes: "if they stay what they were and he stays what he was, he must either fire or bend himself to accommodate."
In other words if Obama stays what he is then he must change. This doesn't make any sense.
It also assumes that Obama is differs from the people around him are–imperialists. I think the guy has got alot of credit for the tan.
"Mr. Obama, please respond."
Um, he already did. In an interview with Joe Klein, he made his preferences rather clear:
"Obama said he'd be particularly interested in having high-ranking Republicans advising him on defense and national security. 'I really admire the way the elder Bush negotiated the end of the Cold War — with discipline, tough diplomacy and restraint … and I'd be very interested in having those sorts of Republicans in my Administration, especially people who can expedite a responsible and orderly conclusion to the Iraq war — and who know how to keep the hammer down on al-Qaeda.'"
And yet, Philip bewails the fact that Obama doesn't include opponents of the Iraq War in his cabinet. Hmmm…Does this mean the Left's brief, torrid affair with foreign policy Realists is coming to an end? No more love for Walt, Mearsheimer & company?
What does it mean?
It means that Obama has NO set ideas or convictions of his own and will make decisions based on his appointees opinions. He is so unsure of himself on national security and foreign policy he has raided the republican and Clinton crypt to fall back on.
Obama is gonna be a another f****** disaster.
The only hope we have is that Gen. Jones is a realist.
I am going to quit watching. It's too depressing.
In 1993, Clinton threw everyone because he was coming off Bush's Gulf War and his own orchestrated handshake. Now we occupy Iraq, and understand that Oslo was a ruse for 15-year peace process that has gone nowhere. But we're still making up reasons to believe that Obama has a higher mind. I'm far from convinvced that Lincoln had a higher mind. If folks are waking up about I/P, why aren't they waking up about Clinton redux?
Come to think of it, freeing the slaves was a shrewd move on the Republicans' part. Somebody had to work in the factories of the North, short-staffed since the recent great slaughter.
I was one of those that thought Obama was the long-awaited messiah. I have had a rude awakening. The first guy he chooses, Rahm Emanuel, is the son of an Israeli terrorist Benjamin Emanuel whose page BTW has magically disappeared on Wikipedia. Next he keeps Robert Gates while crticizing Bush throughout for his war policies. Change, yeah right. Next he says that the tax increases for people earning over 250k may be delayed. That doesn't bother me personally other than the fact that this guy has big potential to break promises. Then he appoints Hillary Clinton whose foreign policy experience he has mocked throughout. The woman he appoints for Homeland Security is a lesbian pro-abortion Zionist. I don't know about Lincoln, I am kinda young, but Obama doesn't seem to be in the same league. The guy didn't even attend his beloved Toot's funeral although his tear shedding picture a day before elections might have earned him the undecided voters' votes. I am extremely scared of Obama now. I think that when Hillary accused him of all the 133 or something "present" votes in the Illinois senate, she was on to something.
Sima, Sima, Sima:
I think that when Hillary accused him of all the 133 or something "present" votes in the Illinois senate, she was on to something.
"Present" votes in the Illinois legislature have a particular meaning. It isn't like saying 'present' to a school roll-call. You need to google for the facts.
Then he appoints Hillary Clinton whose foreign policy experience he has mocked throughout.
And in the process puts a remote controlled taser cock ring on Bill Clinton reining in his excesses on the world scene.
The woman he appoints for Homeland Security is a lesbian pro-abortion Zionist.
She is also pro-immigration, and will be in charge of restoring some sanity to the immigration process after the caterwauling by Likudnks like Lou Dobbs spewing inaccurate info into the public airwaves.
The guy didn't even attend his beloved Toot's funeral
There was no funeral; there was a memorial service. She was cremated and Obama and his sister plan on something private to distribute her ashes the way they did with their mother. This was reported.
Next he says that the tax increases for people earning over 250k may be delayed.
For a year, is what he said. He's not in office yet. He does not have full access to all of the govt's financial info.
Next he keeps Robert Gates while crticizing Bush throughout for his war policies.
And gains the guy who knows where they hid the bodies for the past three years. A guy who now has to take instructions from Obama.
The first guy he chooses, Rahm Emanuel, is the son of an Israeli terrorist Benjamin Emanuel whose page BTW has magically disappeared on Wikipedia.
I felt the same way until I realized that Emanuel was cut off from running around Congress creating his own deals for Israel. Emanuel has to do what Obama wants. And his activities are contained within the definition of his job.
As Obama said last week when asked: "The change comes from me."
If Obama has the wisdom to realize that his team are the people who give him advice but that its his job to make the decisions, then perhaps we will all be pleasantly surprised.
A story that
Doppler: …he doesn't need an anti-war advisor to tell him which are the wrong wars.
Colin: This is a very good point. I'm still guardedly optimistic about Obama. I'm going to reserve judgment for the traditional '100 days'.
"The complete absence of persons who opposed the Iraq war from the start is really mystifying"
Maybe they don't believe anti-war tales and are counting on the return of vice-presidential Beauzo Jr&trade to tell them what is like to be there?
It occurs to me that you can look at the US election, as a whole, as an instructive spectacle staged for the benefit of Israel in particular, the message being: "Look, how easy it is, when you control the mass media, to arrange for your liberals to topple your theologicals (whether reactionary or radical). So – now, Israel, your turn."
Mark my words, he is a baby-killing Jigger!
Should've voted for Ron Paul like I did.
Lincoln favored voluntary colonization of Blacks overseas. That was something he picked up from Henry Clay and earlier supporters of compensated emancipation.
There's no evidence that Lincoln wanted to forcibly deport African-Americans overseas. When you look at all the agitation in the 1850s over sending runaway slaves back into bondage, it's not likely that he would have.
Unfortunately, it's also hard to say that Lincoln ever permanently and definitively gave up the idea of recolonization, but his interest in the idea did wane as it became clear that most freedmen weren't interested.
People of a variety of different political stripes have adopted Lincoln as one of their own. That may be because he doesn't quite fit into the conventional boxes. He wasn't a radical or quite a conventional liberal, but he certainly wasn't a typical conservative by any means. He wasn't wholly an idealist, but neither was his eye solely on short-term, practical, or materialistic concerns.
Political analogies are always inexact and get tiresome after awhile. That goes for Obama as Lincoln and Obama as FDR or JFK as it did for Bush as Truman or McCain as TR. The differences are always more important than the similarities.
Well, Obama quoted Truman saying the buck stops here. So we will take him at his word. Remember, Truman rubber-stamped the recognition of Israel with no strings attached, and we have implemented that (some hiatus with Kennedy and Ike) ever since.
I think Obama is exactly the same as Truman in another respect. He looks to his own power and political retention uber alles, including
the best interests of all Americans. Small men.
"Come to think of it, freeing the slaves was a shrewd move on the Republicans' part. Somebody had to work in the factories of the North, short-staffed since the recent great slaughter."
The ex-slaves weren't viewed as capable of working in a modern, industrial society, so the deliberate decision to import European labor was made.
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