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Obama White House blew off idea of celebrating Emancipation Proclamation anniversary, says leading Lincoln scholar

David Bromwich gave me the news item below, and supplied commentary.

“We made an overture to the White House, trying to solicit their interest for something on January 1,[2013]  the 150th anniversary [of the Emancipation Proclamation]. They blew us off. They just weren’t interested. They were in reelection mode and that trumped any interest in Lincoln and the Proclamation. I thought that was really, really, weird. You would think that the first African American president would leap at the opportunity. But no. Absolutely nothing.”

–from an interview with the historian and Lincoln biographer Allen Guelzo, professor at Gettysburg College, at the World Socialist website

Bromwich adds:

Guelzo and James McPherson are probably the best-known authorities on Lincoln today. What is strange and sad is that Obama has boasted of having on the wall of his office a facsimile of the Proclamation. Unless you count the Declaration of Independence, this may mark the most significant event in American history.

Here is a recording of Obama talking to college moderates and conservatives, in March 2011, in which he speaks of of the Proclamation as he understands it. Notice that he conveys a pragmatist-centrist version of Lincoln and tells the students that Emancipation was a “compromise.” That is a distortion: Lincoln made the decision alone and some members of his cabinet were troubled by its radicalism. Frederick Douglass remembered the joy of the moment because, he said, everyone realized that this deed once done could never be taken back.

From that speech link: Obama offered the example of Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation to underline his belief in compromise. Obama:

Abraham Lincoln. Here’s a guy who didn’t believe in slavery, but his first priority was keeping the union. I’ve got a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation in my office, and if you read through it, most of the document is those states and areas where emancipation doesn’t apply because those folks are allied with the union so they can keep their slaves.

Here’s a wartime President making a compromise around the greatest moral issue that the country ever faced, because he understood that his job was to win the war and maintain the union. Can you imagine how the Huffington Post would have reported on that? It would have been blistering. “Lincoln Sells Out Slaves.” There would be protests, and we’re going to run a third party guy.

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Obama probably took a poll, got mixed results, decided it might backfire in some of the swing states, and canned the whole thing. Well known for his brave leadership style, that man.

I think it’s a very revealing character trait of Obama that the first thing he thinks about, his visceral instinct, is; “what will other people say?” (In this case Huffington Post).
Not – “is it right?” but “what will other people say?”. Truly scary that this guy is still seen as a genuine and committed liberal by some after repeated attempts to sell out the farm for fire-sale prices. We have only the extremism of the modern GOP to thank for that Obama has thus far been stopped in his tracks. Obama is only turning left for campaigns. Then he dumps his base time after time, yet people never learn.

Obama’s always had narcisssitic tendencies, something the left has chosen to overlook many times. His speech at the first Asian-American Senator from Hawaii who passed away a few months ago was really a long speech about himself. His “oceans will stop rising if you elect me” was the height of megalomania.

Krugman has it right when he says that Obama’s latest sellout on the budget is not based on compromise(even if that’s how the WH is trying to sell all the sellouts from Obama) but rather, as Krugman says, an attempt to win praise from ‘centrist media pundits’.

Obama has essentially governed as a moderate Republican, a point he himself has made many times. Even Obamacare isn’t really his own plan. It’s Romneycare. And Romneycare is based on a 1988 Hertiage Foundation draft intended for the incoming Bush administration.

I just hope the grassroots have more sense to ignore the same media pundits that Obama was never able to do(because of his inflated ego) and nominate a real liberal in the primaries, and that means no Clinton and no Sandberg. Bernie Sanders may be too old(?), but what about Keith Ellison? I’d love to see Elizabeth Warren.

But whoever it is, isn’t it time we’re done with the Clinton centrists and the moderate Republicans? People who don’t reverse the tide to the right but merely stem it somewhat.

BTW: The “compromise” in question? The legal theory behind the proclamation — the reason it was a proclamation, eg executive order — was explicitly framed around the President’s war powers, specifically his power to confiscate the property of those in rebellion against the United States. Under that theory Lincoln literally could not address the slave property in loyal states without congressional authorisation. In short, it was not a compromise, it was a measure as radical as Lincoln’s legal authority permitted.

I’d say constitutional law scholar Obama actually understands this privately, but sometimes I think he genuinely appears to have very little understanding of his own alleged area of expertise.

Any good bankster politician knows full well that racism is so so yesterday.

Obama stands on the shoulders of slaves and those who fought and died for their freedom and dignity. He’s unworthy of that kind of courage. Every move he makes is tainted with political interest and self-promotion. He’s nothing more than a political opportunist who used liberal values and Bush war fatigue to con his way to a position of power and privilege only to deliver a right of center agenda.

Simply put; he’s a narcissist with ambiguous moral conviction and little to no backbone.