THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 16, January 14, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
BARACK LINCOLN
By Alan Caruba
PUBLIC IMAGERY, PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS, & BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA: THE ATTEMPTED "BRANDING" OF
BARACK OBAMA AS THE NEXT ABRAHAM LINCOLN -- THE DELIBERATE EFFORT TO CREATE A PUBLIC IMAGE OF
PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA AS BEING INTELLECTUALLY, SPIRITUALLY, & MORALLY ON A PAR WITH PRESIDENT LINCOLN --
OBAMA'S "LINCOLN" PAGEANT AS A COAT-TAILS EFFECT THAT CANNOT SUSTAIN ITSELF
FULL STORY:
What is with all this positioning of Barack Hussein Obama as the next Abraham Lincoln?
Obama began his campaign in Springfield, Illinois, famed home of Lincoln. He returns there periodically for other
announcements, but he still vacations in Hawaii.
We’re told Obama read a book about how Lincoln put together his Cabinet, including “rivals” which one must
presume means Hillary Clinton. The rest of Obama's Cabinet is mostly Clinton retreads and, predictably, some have
already run into confirmation problems.
Now we learn he will take a train ride into Washington, D.C., to emulate the way Abe arrived.
No doubt his inauguration speech will be cribbed from any number of eloquent Lincoln speeches.
What we have here is “branding.” One establishes a brand in order to sell a product or selection of products with
which the consumer associates good things.
What most people associate Lincoln with is the Civil War, a conflict he pursued to the tune of more American dead
on both sides of the conflict than Americans killed in any other war. Neither party to the Civil War, Union or
Confederate, really believed it would ever erupt into such a bloody slaughter of soldier and civilian alike. Both
dithered about in hope of achieving a compromise before the fighting began in earnest.
Lincoln wasn’t big on compromise, and, as history records, he wasn’t big on the U.S. Constitution, if it got in the way
of winning the war. And Lincoln was a lawyer. Not just any country bumpkin lawyer, but a very successful corporate
lawyer.
To his credit, Lincoln hated slavery, but he was willing to nibble at the edges, if it meant keeping the Union intact.
When it became clear that wouldn’t work, he freed the slaves, but only in the Confederate States where his
Emancipation Proclamation had no force of law, while he permitted slavery to continue in border States such as
Maryland, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania.
Whole libraries could be filled with books about Lincoln at this point in time, but it would be indelicate to point out he
was an extraordinarily devious politician. Few would fault his decision to preserve the Union, but it was done at
considerable cost. Few, also, realize that the real issue at hand was "states' rights," i.e., the scope of the rights and
powers of the states under the U.S. Constitution. The states lost.
I suspect President-elect Obama knows this. I suspect that, like everything else involving his nearly two-year
campaign to become President, this Lincoln-Obama alignment is no accident and is, in fact, a deliberate effort to create
a public image of the incoming President as being intellectually, spiritually, and morally on a par with the revered
sixteenth President.
Obama is all about imagery. The problem with that is that, after a while, people begin to demand results that will
improve their lives. He won’t have to wait long to hear that. By then, the campaign promises will be long forgotten,
along with “hope” and “change.” Real solutions to real problems are not created by imagery.
All men who aspired the put their mark on history understood the power of imagery, from the pharaohs of Egypt to the
monarchs of Europe and, today, the Sultans of the oil-rich Middle East who cannot build huge skyscrapers fast
enough. Obama’s “Lincoln” pageant has a faintly unpleasant quality to it; a coat-tails effect that cannot sustain itself.
Obama is no Lincoln. He only wants to drape himself in Lincoln’s aura, to appear Lincolnesque.
It’s what lies below that scares me.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
American Government & the U.S. Presidency:
Presidential Politics & National Leadership
The American Political System:
Politics & Government in the U.S.A.
Alan Caruba is a veteran business, science and political writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National
Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary,
"Warning Signs," posted on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Caruba has a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.
Caruba’s most recent book, Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy, has been published by Merril Press. Books
previously authored by Caruba include A Pocket Guide to Militant Islam, The United Nations Versus the United States: The
UN's Plan to Control Planet Earth, and America: A Nation Without Borders -- A Pocket Guide to Immigration Issues.
© Alan Caruba 2009
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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