Distorting Lincoln’s Record for Political Gain

Shortly after Pervez Musharraf used Abe Lincoln to justify imposing emergency law on Pakistan, I cited in a post dated Nov. 6, a piece by Daily Kos’s Devilstower that traced a similar distortion of President Lincoln’s acts by Bush ’43 and other conservative leaders going back to Richard Nixon.

Just today I received an astute comment to my Nov. 6th post from Geoff Elliott who maintains an informative, well-written blog on Abraham Lincoln.

In his comment, Geoff said: "It never ceases to amaze me how our political "leaders" continue to distort Abraham Lincoln's record. Bush claims that the events of 9/11 made it necessary to violate our civil rights, permit warrantless searches and so on. He and his supporters even claim that the dangers posed by terrorists make this situation as dangerous as was the Civil War.

"Hardly. During the Civil War, a rival government had been established less than 200 miles from Washington. Rebel armies were marching towards Washington.

"Lincoln was trying to preserve the Union. Bush is trying to preserve himself. Big difference."

A warm thank you to Geoff and please note I’ve added his Lincoln blog to my list of links.