Mr. President If You Really Want to Emulate...

The Provocateur ^ | 01/22/2009 | Michael Volpe

[fiscon1]

President Obama has a keen desire to emulate Abraham Lincoln. For instance, he took the oath of office on the very same Bible that Abraham Lincoln took it on. He took a train ride that mirrored the train ride that Lincoln took in anticipation of his own inauguration. They are of course both from Illinois. No doubt, President Obama would like nothing more than to one day be revered much like Lincoln was. The comparisons between he and Lincoln are rather immense considering that President Obama has only held the office for just more than 48 hours.

[bergmeid]

What does this Lincoln bible business tell you? That he doesn’t own one, and so he came up with this ridiculous “emulate Lincoln” idea and got his nasty paws on Lincoln’s bible. THAT’s what behind this. I have this whole bible fiasco figured out.

[stylin19a]

Emulate Lincoln ? did somebody send pres.obama tickets to the play “Our American Cousin”?

[UncleDick]

President Obama should look to the example of two icons of the Presidency, two folks he clearly aspires to be, for guidance on this matter. If he really wants to emulate Lincoln and FDR, I would start with keeping the trials Al Qaeda in a military court where they belong.

It's pretty sad when neocons must appeal to the two worst presidents in American history to justify their horrible ideas. I, for one, hope that Obama fails miserably in his attempt to emulate the infamous reigns of Lincoln and FDR.

[fiscon1]

The two worst Presidents of all time?
Are you serious? Both presided over a war that our side ultimately won meaning by nature they rank among the greatest.

What sort of a troll are you?

[cmonkey]

Fun fact: Lincoln’s wife was also insane.

[UncleDick]

The two worst Presidents of all time? Are you serious? Both presided over a war that our side ultimately won meaning by nature they rank among the greatest.

What do you mean "our side," Yankee?

Putting aside all of the death and destruction that it brings, war produces massive expansion in the size and power of the Federal Government, and especially the Executive Branch. Add that to the fact that most wars this nation has fought have been totally unnecessary and you can see why Lincoln and Roosevelt should be reviled by all freedom-loving Americans.

Incidentally, have you ever noticed that almost all wars the US has fought in over the last century have been started by Democrats?

[colonel mosby]

Exactly right, Uncle Dick.

One of Obama’s acolytes should’ve read Lincoln’s first inaugural address to him, before he decided to adopt Abe as his idol. Of course, none of the press had the guts to point that out.

The Doris Kearns Goodwin version of “honest” Abe is the only one that passes muster with the new world order.

[Gaffer]

If he really wants to emulate Lincoln, he can issue an Emancipation Proclamation for REAL Taxpayers!

[colonel mosby]

Lincoln’s Treasury Secretary, Salmon P. Chase, initiated the first Internal Revenue Service, and printed the first unsecured money to pay for his invasion of the seceding states. It was a great kickstart to a long descent into the morass in which we now find ourselves.

It is indeed fitting that Barack Obama and his merry George Soros brigade have adopted Abe Lincoln as honorary master of their Constitutional inferno.

[HighlyOpinionated]

Yeah, Pres Obama the Usurper, be like Lincoln.

He participated in the Destruction of the Constitution, too.

Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus and 13,000 people were thrown into prison in Washington, DC, alone on charges never brought or made known. In his Proclamation of September 24, 1864, Lincoln by executive fiat ordered that all citizens who engaged in "disloyal practices" would be tried in military tribunals, with such practices decided at whim by Lincoln himself. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Roger B. Taney informed Lincoln that he was engaged in practices that violated the Constitution he had sworn an oath to uphold. (Harold Hyman, A More Perfect Union, pp 85-86) Lincoln issued orders to arrest the octogenarian Taney but thought better of assaulting the most respected man in the country. The governor of New York reminded people that the founding fathers during the Revolution did not destroy men’s' rights - "THEY did not say liberty was suspended, that men might be deprived of the right to trial by jury, that they might be torn from their homes by midnight intruders."

Lincoln let his generals suspend 300 newspapers. As Encyclopedia Britannica puts it "He justified this action on the ground that he had to allow some temporary sacrifice of the Constitution in order to maintain the Union..." In other words, he destroyed the Constitution in order to save it. It is little wonder that Booth considered Lincoln a tyrant and expected Lincoln to create a monarchy. Lincoln's model of assuming war powers and concentrating power in Washington was the precedent used by Wilson and FDR as a tool to remake America into a socialist state. Their intense desire and eagerness to grab and use this tool lead them to mistaken and harmful war-mongering. When the Constitution fails them they have only to say "this is time of war - and war gives all needed power."

LINCOLN - 19th CENTURY HITLER; OBAMA the Usurper - 21st CENTURY HITLER

War has always been terrible, of course, and mass extermination was a regular occurrence until the development of what may be called; without irony, the rules of "civilized warfare" late in the seventeenth century. At that time Europe's rulers, exhausted by bloody combat, came to agree on certain conventions: combat should be confined to soldiers in uniform; civilians and their property should be left alone; prisoners should be treated humanely; and defeated powers should be spared total devastation and indignity. These rules held until Lincoln violated them in the War Between the States, replacing them with the logic of annihilation that governed primitive or "primary warfare" -- the unrestricted slaughter common between warring societies with no civilized principles in common.

For more than two centuries after the age of Louis XIV, European civilians were so unmolested that they often barely realized that their rulers were at war, and ordinary travel and commerce between countries usually continued during hostilities. There was courtliness between rulers and officers of opposing armies, like the jovial fraternization between common soldiers as soon as peace was restored. A sort of golden rule prevailed; each victor realized that he might be tomorrow's loser, so everyone tried to avoid leaving a legacy of bitterness by treating the vanquished reasonably and often generously. Peace treaties politely avoided any tone of blame or recrimination.

Lincoln's policy of waging war on civilian areas shocked European observers. Lincoln justified this on grounds that he was dealing not with a traditional war, but with a rebellion, in which the entire enemy population might be treated as criminals and traitors. The idealizers of Lincoln have blamed his policy on the generals who merely carried it out, especially Sherman and Sheridan. Of course even Lincoln was unable to apply this view consistently; to do so would have meant executing nearly every Southerner, soldier or civilian.
More found here!

[OneWingedShark]

>Peace treaties politely avoided any tone of blame or recrimination.

This is [one reason] why the Treaty of Versailles was a big contributor to the strifes prior to WWII - and helped with the rise of Hitler - because it assigned blame, and the responsibilities of reparations squarely on Germany.

[fiscon1]

You’re right, ending slavery and confronting Hitler are two things that should be reviled.

[srmorton]

Thanks for posting this. It was a fascinating read. I went to public school in the 50’s and 60’s. I thought that was before the age of indoctrination, but I realize now that I had gotten an impression of Lincoln that is much different from the truth.