Rush Rants On Lincoln And Obama

From President Obama Attaches Himself to the Mythical "Bipartisan" Lincoln:

RUSH: Right, so Barack Obama is bringing Abraham Lincoln to a whole generation that's never been taught about Abraham Lincoln, and they're learning he might have been gay, that his wife was nuts, that he suffered from depression, that he was a racist. Thank you, President Obama. Thank you, CNN. You are doing the job that everybody expects of you: taking every tradition and institution that defined this country's greatness and trying to rip it to shreds.

RUSH: There's one more point I gotta make, I have to make about Abraham Lincoln. Sometimes my patience wears thin when I see these frauds, these pretenders like Obama try to attach themselves to the greatness of Abraham Lincoln. (doing Obama impression) "They would want us to behave in a bipartisan way, in the same way that he saved America." Abraham Lincoln put his opponents in jail, and I'm about in favor of us doing the same thing pretty soon. During the Civil War, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. That meant you could be thrown in jail without being told why. All they had to do was suspect that you were subverting the Union effort to win the war, and they could jail you!

Has Barack Obama ever actually used the word “bipartisan” to describe Lincoln? Haven’t Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush already taken “every tradition and institution that defined this country's greatness” and already ripped them to shreds? If Mr. Limbaugh thinks that a whole generation has never been taught anything about Abraham Lincoln perhaps the lack of government funding for public education under Republican leadership has something to do with it.

Speaking of education, perhaps Rush could stand to have some himself. One is not supposed to use a singular pronoun when referring to something plural in the same sentence. Do you only criticize others Mr. Limbaugh? Perhaps you need to turn some of that criticism towards yourself.

Mr. Limbaugh, you are behind the times. The stigmas against gays and people suffering from depression continue to fade into oblivion. Only ignorant people like you are hanging on to them for dear life. Lincoln was a racist in a time when perhaps the majority of Americans were racist. Lincoln used his intellect to change his mind and become less racist. Lincoln used his eloquence to convince other Americans to change their minds and become less racist. For someone who admires Lincoln you certainly don’t seem to want to try to emulate him. Try to use your intellect, Mr. Limbaugh, change your mind and try to embrace reality for a change.

Rush Limbaugh thinks that Abraham Lincoln didn’t try to unite the North and the South after the Civil War because he suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War? Is that what he is saying? How absurd can one get? It was Ulysses S. Grant who suspended habeas corpus during the 1870’s, not Lincoln. Has Rush even read the Gettysburg Address? Does he have any idea of its meaning? Lincoln was trying to unify the country, like Obama is trying to do now. Rush thinks Lincoln is great. Why? He has no sense of the historical facts of Lincoln.

I do not understand the Limbaugh mindset. He appears to like the fact that Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and that he put his opponents in jail (actually the country’s opponents.) This is not exactly what most people think of as Lincoln's crowning achievment, but not good old Rush. Rush admits that he would like be able to put his opponents in jail as well. Somehow, in Limbaugh’s mind, this turns Obama into a fraud. By using a strange form of twisted logic Rush chooses one of the things that Lincoln did that appears on the surface (but perhaps not in reality) to be against uniting the country. Rush says, because of this, Obama is not like Lincoln. Rush ignores (or lies about) the things that Lincoln actually did do towards unifying the country. These are the things that Lincoln and Obama share, of course, the things that prove that Obama is not a fraud in this instance.

Rush is Rush, and truth is truth; and never the twain shall meet.

Abe And Charlie

Happy 200th birthday to Abraham Lincoln and to Charles Darwin.

“…government of the people, by the people, for the people…” Abraham Lincoln

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge…” Charles Darwin

Bush Was No Lincoln

From Lincoln was a virtuoso with a pen by Fred Kaplan:

Our most recent previous president obviously had inferior speechwriters. George W. Bush had little facility as an editor, and his command of language often veered into ungrammatical at best and incoherent at worst. Not even his political partisans would make a case for him as a role model for teaching young students respect for our language. Sometimes the problem was what he said; it was always how he said it.

As a Republican, his model should have been Abraham Lincoln, the most gifted writer of all American presidents, who wrote every word published over his name. Ironically, the modern president who has fully embraced Lincoln as his role model is a Democrat, Barack Obama.

Why that difference? Part of it is temperament. Stubborn and opinionated, Bush limited his counsel to those who agreed with him. He had little regard for rational and deliberate formulation of public policy, the very opposite of Lincoln. One reason for this is that Bush as president had no talent for, and little respect for, language.

Quote Of Note - Abraham Lincoln

These capitalists generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people. Abraham Lincoln