The Greatest American President
The myth of Lincoln (1809 - )
I know – I may be a little late, but better late than never. I’m quite sure President Lincoln would not mind.
2009 is of course the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, America’s greatest president. At the time of his election, number 16 was a tall, gangly, eloquent but inexperienced lawyer from the state of Illinois. Yet when he was assassinated in 1865, he ceased being merely a man and attained mythical attributes. Lincoln was an American messiah – the great emancipator who was shot in the back of the head on Good Friday. In accordance with the prophet Isaiah’s depiction of the messiah, Lincoln had ‘no form nor comliness; and when we saw him, there was no beauty that we should desire him.’[i] Many contemporary commentators have speculated that Lincoln would never be elected during the TV era because of his unappealing appearance, but I would argue that Americans would still have recognized his brilliance and took comfort in his poetic prose during times of tremendous national crisis.
His presidency affirmed Protestant America’s belief in an aggressively assertive morality and effectively ushered in the Progressive Era of the late nineteenth century. While describing the cultural climate in which Lincoln lived, historian Orville Vernon Burton rightfully explains:
The Age of Lincoln would see democracy fused with a millennial impulse, leading many to believe in the near attainment of Christian perfection and a patriotic certainty that America was meant to witness it. While disagreeing, often dramatically, as to particulars, a majority of Americans felt compelled to convince one another, even as they spread this wonderful experiment through Manifest Destiny.[ii]
Lincoln is ironically immortalized on the U.S. penny; a nearly worthless coin that is copper-complected like the slaves Lincoln sought to free. Today, not even children or homeless people bother to pick them up of the ground. Lincoln’s legacy however is of inestimable worth. His mythic shadows continue to lengthen, and his wisdom is seemingly applicable to American calamities of every age. Pundits, poets and historians have retained the right to revisit and to reanalyze old Abe’s contributions to the American heritage and to laud him for ensuring “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom— and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”[iii]
At Lincoln’s core was his believe that the law was to provide equality of opportunity for all the citizens of the republic.[iv] This is the role of republican government – to create a climate where the masses can succeed. To that end, Lincoln realized that he had expand the umbrella of democracy to include a people who were American by circumstance only. The American civil War settled questions that the Revolutionary generation tried their best to ignore. For this reason, poet Julia Ward Howe who also authored The Battle Hymn of the Republic, acknowledged that Lincoln’s legacy was but an echo of George Washington’s.
Crown his blood-stained pillow
With a victor’s palm;
Life’s receding billow
Leaves eternal calm.
[...]
In the greenest meadow
That the prairies show,
Let his marble’s shadow
Give all men to know:
“Our First Hero, living,
Made his country free;
Heed the Second’s giving,
Death for Liberty.”[v]
[i] Based on Isaiah 53:2-3.
[ii] Orville Vernon Burton, The Age of Lincoln (New York: Hill And Wang, 2007), 4.
[iii] Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address.
[iv] Ibid., 5.
[v] Julia Ward Howe, “Crown His Blood-Stained Pillow” in The Praise of Lincoln: An Anthology (New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co, 1911), 172-3.
Just Shut Up Dick!!!!!
AAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!
For the month of May 2009, the MPP (Most Prominent Politician) Award goes to – you guessed it – Dick. Here’s why.
It’s no secret – The GOP has been looking for the new face of the Republican Party ever since the historic ‘Yes-We-Can’ beat-down that was Election Day 2008. Thanks to the ineptitude of the G.W. Bush administration, Americans gave the Democrats the White House, a majority in the House, Senate, and a chance to reshape the Supreme Court. The pendulum has undoubtedly swung far to the left, however any political pundit will tell you that such swings are cyclical and the Party of Lincoln will someday be en vogue again. However, as the Obama administration took over in January what was not yet known was who would lead the Republican revival. Who will be the future face of the GOP? Would it be a young, articulate visionary – someone who has proven the conservative formula of lower taxes and smaller government really works – someone who can rival Obama’s professorial allure and charisma?
Maybe it would be former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, a reasonably well-spoken politician who understands the business world, and gained significant name recognition as a 2008 presidential candidate. Perhaps the new face of the GOP would be Bobby Jindal, the 38-years-old governor of Louisiana who by all accounts is one of the brainiest public servants in America. Perhaps it would be Michael Steele, the African-American chairman of the Republican Party who nullifies Obama’s minority appeal and makes it harder for the Democrats to depict the GOP as the political party of rich, old white men. Or, maybe ‘Caribou Barbie’, Governor Palin of Alaska would be able to legitimize her image and fill the GOP’s leadership vacuum.
If you were leaning in any of these directions, wrong, wrong, wrong you were. The Republican anciene régime is not yet willing to ride of into the sunset quietly. So without further adieu – Introducing the not-so-new face of the Republican Party; the man who barely learned to smile by age 62; the man who is defending torture interrogation tactics at Gitmo; the man who never saw any need for energy conservation policy; the man who hooked-up Halliburton, the man who wanted his fellow heavy Scooter Libby pardoned for outing American intelligence operatives to the press; the man with the pace-maker who’s no peace-maker; the master of disaster from Casper – (drum roll please) Richard Bruce Cheney – (commonly referred to as Dick).
Suddenly it seems like the most dangerous place to be in D.C. is between Dick and a T.V. camera or microphone. In fact, I’ve seen Dick on T.V. more during this past month than I did during the 8 years he was the vice president. Dick has been constantly criticizing his cousin, (yes believe it or not Obama and Dick are distant cousins, but then again I guess we all are) saying that we are less safe than we were under G.W. Really Dick? Do you think we’d be safer if we just maybe we fought one war at a time against the people who actually attacked us on 9-11? Do you think we needed to fight an expensive war against a dictator on the other side of the globe who had no navy, no air force and an army that was still licking its wounds from the 1991 war? What have we accomplished besides leaving Iraq open to Iranian control and making your friends at Halliburton filthy rich, huh Dick?
A quick word of advice Dick – Crawl back into the bunker you were hiding in during your vice presidency. By hogging up the spotlight this spring you have only managed to drown out the voice of the next potential Republican leader. The press loves to here you defend the failed policies of the Bush era because it only helps them to further marginalize the GOP. You were the most powerful vice president in American history, but its over now. You have had your chance to dominate the national discussion, now let Jindal, Romney, Steele or even Palin be the voice of opposition. Maybe Gov. Palin will even let you tell her what to say and what to do just like your last boss – BUT PLEASE JUST SHUT UP – DICK!!!
Iran Stands Against Extremism – No Really
Ayatollah Khamenei sits Sunday during a post-summit meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
When I started this blog, I did not intend for it to be a paranoiac anti-Iranian tirade, however I can’t help but think that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has got something up his sleeve.
This week the Tehran Times reported on what it was calling successful trilateral talks between the presidents of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei joined the three leaders then issued an official statement blessing the trilateral agreements reached between the neighboring states.[i] (Ahmadinejad likely sought the Ayatollah’s blessings because in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the cleric holds more sway than the president.) According to the Iranian president, the three leaders reached “significant agreements on regional issues such as extremism, military intervention, terrorism, and drugs.”[ii] However, what truly caught my attention was the artful construction of Khamenei’s rhetoric. The Ayatollah’s blessing was propaganda of superlative quality. The Tehran Times reported:
The Supreme Leader stated that extremism has not only caused problems for the region’s people and governments but has also afflicted some powers that promoted extremism through their “money and policies”.[iii]
Here we have the most prominent religio-political authority in Iran decrying extremism. This was the same power that sponsored Hizb Allah (The Party of God), Amal and Hamas to name just a few during the last 30 years. According to foreign policy expert Illan Berman, Iran’s annual sponsorship of the Lebanese Hizb Allah alone is close to $200 million.[iv] If the words of the Ayatollah are true, and nations that have promoted extremism through their ‘money and policies’ have been afflicted, then no nation in the Middle East should be more afflicted than Iran.
Khamenei of course went on to denounce American interventionism in the region, declaring that anti-American animosity has only increased in that section of the world. However, American interventionism should be decried in the West because it has only made it easier for Iran to solidify its anti-West coalition. Iran controls southern Iraq, a Shia majority zone that includes Basra, Iraq’s only port city. This means that Iran has gained controlled of Iraq’s oil flow and in time will be able to rival the production capabilities of the Saudis.[v] Through Hizb Allah Iran also has a major presence in Lebanon, especially in the south which meets Israel’s northern border. American guns have opened up Iraq, but only time will tell what the U.S has opened up the region to.
[i] “Leadership strongly supports Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan agreements,” Tehran Times Political Desk, May 25, 2009, http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=195360 (accessed May 25, 2009).
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] ibid.
[iv] Illan Berman, Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation and Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, Hezbollah: Made in Tehran, September 28,2006.
[v] Robert Baer, The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower, (New York: Crown Publishers, 2008), 87-91.
Who’s Head Locking Who? American Diplomacy vs. Iranian Obstinance
President Obama meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - May 18, 2009.
While hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, President Barack Obama announced a soft deadline for Iran to make “serious progress” on the nuclear proliferations front.[i] “We’re not going to have talks forever. We’re not going to create a situation in which the talks become an excuse for inaction while Iran proceeds with developing … and deploying a nuclear weapon,” declared Obama. Both the United States and Israel have accused Tehran of developing a nuclear weapons program masked as a civil nuclear energy program – a claim that Iran vehemently denies.[ii]
The President shrewdly stopped short of hinting at a possible military strike against Iran, but he also stopped short of taking that possibility off the table. Washington has struggled to find the key to pressuring the Iranian government, and has been even more frustrated by its unproductive intelligence gathering efforts in Iran.[iii] The truth is that the Obama administration will find it easier to criticize the Bush administration’s failed isolation of Iran, than it will be to successfully engage the enigmatic theocratic state – a state that has everything to gain and very little to lose by continuing to play hardball with Washington. Does the new administration really believe that the threat of stiffer sanctions in 2010 will yield political benefits from Iran in 2009? The only thing that is certain is that we have come to another pivotal moment in the history of the Middle East as the diplomatic feud between Tehran and Washington has increasingly made the region politically bi-polar.
It is actually quite difficult to tell if either nation is capable of leveraging the other. On the one hand the United States controls Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran’s western and eastern neighbors respectively. Despite the fact that the United States is at war on two fronts, it still possesses the most impressive arsenal in the world. Additionally, while Iran attempts to go nuclear, the United States is the world’s most formidable nuclear power, but no one knows if Tehran can be deterred in the same way Moscow was during the Cold War.
Conversely, Bush’s invasion of Iraq may prove to be the greatest blunder in American history, because it has opened up Iraq to Iranian proxies in a way that would have never been possible under Saddam Hussein. The United States has underestimated the political pragmatism of Iran over the last thirty years. Iran has been quietly spreading its tentacles into regional affairs through its proxies such the Lebanese Hizb Allah (The Party of God), and more recently in Iraq through Da’wa (Islamic Call).[iv] Iran can of course make the stabilization of Iraq very difficult for American troops on the ground and simply outwait America’s will to continue the occupation of Iraq.
All this leads to the question of who has got whom in a regional headlock. Does the U.S. have Iran surrounded or does Iran’s new Shia Empire, which now includes spheres of influence in Iraq and Lebanon, have the upper hand? We must remember the real reason for Mr. Netanyahu’s nervous visit to Washington. He was here in the U.S. to lobby against Tehran. The Israeli prime minister talked with Rep. Pelosi, President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and anyone else who would listen because he must realize that Israel is now geographically located beneath the new Shia Arc.
I’m no prophet, but I would wager that soft deadlines and delayed sanctions will not move the Mullahs in Tehran. Iran will likely stay the course.
[i] Colvin, Ross. “Obama says he wants progress with Iran by year’s end.” Reuters 18 May 2009: accessed 19 May 2009 <http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE54H4QX20090518>
[ii] Hancocks, Paula. “Netanyahu presses Congress over threat of nuclear Iran.” CNN 19 May 2009: accessed 19 May 2009 <http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/19/mideast.netanyahu.dc/index.html#cnnSTCText>
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Robert Baer, The Devil We Know: Dealing With the New Iranian Superpower (New York: Crown Publishers, 2008), 74-6.
Hello world!
Hello one and all. Welcome to my Weblog. The purpose of this blog is to discuss my favorite passions – politics and religion. Most of us have been warned that we should never discuss politics and religion during dinner, so if you have just found my blog I hope that it is not time for your family dinner. (If it is, you shouldn’t be online anyway during family time – What wrong with you anyway?)
Since these subjects evoke the crudest passions in us all, I would simply request that my guest keep the conversation ‘family friendly’. Actually, let me revise that because I have no idea how your family members talk to each other. Let’s keep the language ‘G’ rated. If you cannot do that much please do not comment. After all, I would like for my mother to be able to read my blog. (As if my mother knows how to turn on a computer.) You are more than welcomed to vocalize opposition to any of my post, but please take the high road and I will strive to do the same.
Additionally, please keep in mind that I am a historian and therefore I tend to write as such. (Hopefully, you’re still awake.) I do not want this blog to be just a collection of unsubstantiated opinions, but I want to pursue an elevated discourse – a scholarly conversation. Therefore I am counting on you the reader to do a little digging and to make intelligent contributions to this discussion. Hopefully I will learn from you as you will learn from me.
