Just watched "Lincoln" on the History Channel and thought of Bush

[Ignacio Upton]

I was just watching this documentry on Lincoln and how he conducted himself during the Civil War. Besides the fact that his meetings with our troops were not just cynical ploys, he actually gave a damn about our troops, lost several close friends fighting in the war (and also lost one of his sons to typhoid fever during the war) and even visited freed slaves. Unfortunately, when they read excerpts of some of the stuff he said, in rhetoric, with partiotic and religious overtones, his comments sounded like Bush's in justifying the war in Iraq. I respect Lincoln as one of America's greatest Presidents (he's on my avatar for a reason) but for the last few years, I've been feeling a vague chill of disdain even for genuine "war Presidents" because I feel like I'm being reminded of the present with the past. For example, Lincoln took some actions that were considered draconian during the war that many of us would cry over today (like suspending habeus corpus.) However, msot of what Lincoln did was either legal (the Constitution gives the President the right to suspend habeus corpus during a time of war with the permission of Congress. However, Congress was not in session in the Spring of 1861 and would not be so for months, and when they finally did convene, he told them that it was up to them to decide whether or not it should stay suspended, whereas Bush would have trotted out Gonzo to say that Congress repealing it would be an unconsitutional breach of wartime authority against the executive) or done within a different context than the War on Terrorism or the War in Iraq. We don't have 50,000 jihadists in northern Virginia ready to march on Washington and take the White House. We don't have large segments of people actively abetting Al Qaida like we did with copperheads in border states. We are not fighting a war that is for our territorial integrity and sovereignty. We are also fighting a war that WE started, whereas the Confederacy started it with Fort Sumter.

However, every time I heard about Lincoln, or FDR, or some other President during wartime claim the fight is for a just, democratic, and patriotic cause, I have been making a knee-jerk connection to the bullshit that our Idiot in Chief has been spewing out, which really sucks. I hope that when we have a Democrat in office, he or she will be able to say that the American public wants to spread freedom and liberty to he downtrodden, WITHOUT FEELING CYNICAL AND ANGRY ABOUT THE CONNOTATION BEHIND THE WORDS.

[fla nocount]

1. Oh the ego! Both just our fellow astronauts on this tiny blue marble......

speeding thru space who thought that what was best for themselves and their cronies was what was, well...........BEST....not necessarily best for all, but BEST none the least.

Moonies, both of them.

[OnyxCollie]

2. Lincoln was also very thoughtful, empathetic, and compassionate.

He had great concern for his fellow Americans. Bush is a narcissistic sociopath.

[Ignacio Upton]

3. Exactly

But no, whenever I observe past war Presidents who genuinely did do good things for this country and fought just wars, I get this shiver from reading or hearing their speeches, because I find myself putting everything in a 2006 context, which sucks, because I know that the War on Terrorism and War in Iraq are not the Civil War or World War II.

[Gabi Hayes]

4. Read vidal's Lincoln

you will CRY like a baby

especially when you compare the first republican to the first american nazi president

I don't think I could take readind it again

you really will cry

[Ignacio Upton]

5. Vidal was on this documentry

He did a nice job of defending Lincoln and showing how Lincoln's actions that are often lambasted by progressives, were legal and consitutional, and how the Civil War was not the War on Terrorism or the War in Iraq.