Let’s all sing “the Worried Man Blues” on President’s Day 2015

Carter Family: "It takes a worried man to sing a worried song,"

With the Twin Cities (my neighborhood) awash in ads for celebratory sales, I’m thinking about President’s Day to be celebrated across the US tomorrow, the third Monday of February, and I only vaguely recall the origin of this holiday. Never fear. I refreshed my memory by reading an article by Lauren Himlak at USParks.about.com. Lauren reminds us the holiday originally commemorated the birthdays of Lincoln, Feb. 12, and Washington, Feb. 22, and was only later designated as President’s Day, which falls on Feb. 16 this year.

Himlak explains:

Today, President’s Day is well accepted and celebrated. Some communities still observe the original holidays of Washington and Lincoln, and many parks actually stage reenactments and pageants in their honor. The National Park Service also features a number of historic sites and memorials to honor the lives of these two presidents, as well as other important leaders.

Continuing to follow up my Google search regarding President's Day, I came across a recently updated essay by Bill Moyers that movingly connects us with Abraham Lincoln:

I had a history professor at the University of Texas - Robert Cotter - who believed the most remarkable quality of Abraham Lincoln was his empathy for people he didn't personally know. The working man. The soldier in battle. His widow and orphans.

Ordinary folks caught in the undertow of events. We could use that kind of empathy today. As Washington obsessed all week over the fate of one nominee to the cabinet, and as we watched hearings about the failure of watchdog agencies going to sleep on the job, we heard almost nothing of the people across the country suffocating in the wreckage of their lives. Some of us born in the Depression still remember the song made famous by the Carter Family singers, called the "Worried Man Blues".

"I went across that river and I lay down to sleep. When I woke up there were shackles on my feet."

Read more:

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.

Lincoln’s Impersonators: Musharraf, Bush, Nixon, et al

In light of Pervez Musharraf’s reference to Abe Lincoln to justify imposing emergency law on Pakistan Saturday, Daily Kos’s Devilstower traces a similar distortion of Lincoln’s acts as president by Bush ’43 and other conservative leaders going back to Richard Nixon.

History books will tell you that Abraham Lincoln was a champion wrestler in his youth. But for the last forty years, it's been Lincoln who has taken the fall. Again and again, Republicans have seized the first man to become president under their banner and dragged him to the ground, determined that he should be thoroughly coated in their own muddy morals.

Examples of the above include:

They've pressed the idea of a Lincoln who shredded the Constitution at will. Did Bush ignore habeas corpus? No matter, look at Lincoln. He suspended those rights entirely. Did Bush institute military tribunals? Why... so did Abe!
Did Bush, Cheney, Nixon, and Reagan adopt extraordinary levels of executive privilege and secrecy? Toss 'em a stovepipe hat, they're only following the model set by our greatest president. Bush wiretapped phone lines without judicial oversight. Well Lincoln did to, and he did it before phones had even been invented. You can even hear the words of this Lincoln absolution expressed in the testimony of Michael Mukasey, when he says that the president's role as commander in chief can exempt him from the bonds of petty law.

Devilstower concludes that Lincoln “-- unlike Musharraf, unlike Bush, unlike Nixon -- never mistook expansion of his own power for preservation of the union.”