Lincoln, Bush’s very favoritist President ever
I will be the first one to tell you I know very little about our nations history, especially when it comes to the Emanicipation Proclamation. So I read, I don’t read 60 books in a year like Bush does, but I read a few dozen give or take 3. I was watching GMA yesterday and Laura and Chuckles Bush were in front of the monument with the black lady that has breast cancer…awww….
It was great, Bush said that He admired Lincoln and said that the “all men are created equal” mantra that Lincoln set forth was what made him his bestest ever President. Never short of awesome reporting the dying woman jumped in and said, but Mr. Bush, “What about the ‘enemy combatants’, homosexuals and terrorists?”
I’m kidding, she didn’t…but wouldn’t that have been funny? To you know, challenge a moronic statement by a man that suspended the constitution and has tried to use weasel words to get around the geneva conventions to torture another human being?
Well, what was even more ironic here was that on Sunday I picked up the book
Big Enough to Be Inconsistent
Abraham Lincoln Confronts Slavery and Race
George M. Fredrickson
It really was a stroke of luck that I had picked up this book. I had never read anything on Lincoln and figured it was about time to learn about him. The book is short and I think is meant to be the type of book that highlights the biggest points of discussion regarding Lincoln and his all mean created equal. What is more amazing is that I wonder if Bush really knows anything about the guy. I wonder if he even knows that more than a few people believe Lincoln wanted a seperate colony for blacks. That the real reason the slaves were freed is because so many went North and joined the military there was little choice. That several prominent people, (no not prominent Delawareans) prominent Blacks like Du Bois and Lerone Bennet considere Lincoln a raging racists.
But I haven’t finished the book and while I’m not saying Lincoln wasn’t a great President that faced challenges. I am saying, my guess is, Bush doesn’t know jack shit about the guy.
Oh and read the book it is only about 120 pages and for a novice it is good high level read of the more controversial opinions that surround Lincolns Presidency.
dv
The Frederickson book is also quite dated and contains a number of serious errors about why Lincoln moved toward freeing the slaves.
I suggest instead David Donald’s biography of Lincoln, or that of Stephen Oates
DonVD, the really ironic thing to me is how you question Bush’s intelligence in a post filled with grammatical errors! This post appears to have been written by a fourth grader. I wonder if Bush knows less about Lincoln than you do about the English language?
OOOHHH – A grammatical/syntax SLAPDOWN!!!!
Guess you couldn’t come up with a substantive argument….
I think Steve is right it is also important to note that our own Senator from Delaware had written a deal to free the slaves by buying out their contracts BEFORE the war. The thing that finally got us to the point where they could be freed was the war and once the South started it, Lincoln found it a useful political tool to appease parts of the abolitionist movement and try to get them onboard with the war. Lincoln also imprisoned the Amish and many Quakers so there are essentially two schools of historians one group who glorify his stature and another group who revise it, and if take them both swirl their thousands of works in the blender you get a representative picture of the guy. Donald and Oates’ work in this respect is particularly helpful.
I think Bush has already proven his legacy is not one of Lincoln. More like Warren G. Harding with all the administrative scandals. Just look up Ohio Gang and teapot dome and you get a clear idea of how closely the two leaders are related.