The myth of Lincoln’s “Team of Rivals”

13 comments November 19th, 2008

 

As an inveterate Lincoln buff (I have scores of books about Honest Abe), I’ve taken great interest in all the media speculation of late concerning Barack Obama’s purported interest in emulating the manner in which Lincoln assembled his Cabinet.

The gist of all this, if you don’t know, is that Lincoln appointed a bunch of his former political rivals to Cabinet posts in an admirable gesture of bipartisanship.  Obama is said to be set on following much the same course.

The textbook for this strategy is historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s best-selling book of a few years ago, “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.”

I loved that book and took encouragement from word that Obama is bent on using Lincoln’s recipe for making a Cabinet.

But alas, historian Matthew Pinsker has a COLUMN in the Los Angeles Times in which he submits that Lincoln’s team of rivals was a failure.

Oh, well. That doesn’t mean Obama can’t make the formula work. 

Liberal media want us real Americans to think al-Qaida doesn’t like Obama

10 comments November 19th, 2008

 

As everybody who listens to talk radio knows, Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim terrorist whose election to the presidency was engineered by an evil conspiracy involving the al-Qaeda network and its stooges in the U.S. media.

But some Americans don’t listen to talk radio, and it’s those folks who are the target audience for the latest falsehood from the traitors in the media. They want us to believe that al-Qaeda has INSULTED Obama — as if he isn’t one of their own.

Don’t be fooled, patriots! Quick! Turn on Rush Limbaugh or Fox News or some other trustworthy source of news. Don’t let the MSM convince you that Obama must be OK if al-Qaeda says bad things about him.

Be strong, good people!

Conservative columnist: “Armband religion is killing the Republican Party”

2 comments November 19th, 2008

 

Kathleen Parker, the conservative scribe whose derisive column about Sarah Palin a few months ago earned her a mountain of hate mail from unhinged right-wingers, is likely to receive more such treatment for having written THIS.

But Parker’s correct (which is something I don’t often say about her stuff).

Obama smart to go easy on Lieberman

1 comment November 19th, 2008

 

The president-elect is SHOWING himself to be more of a bridge-builder than a vengeful politician — which, of course, is an easier choice for a winner than a loser.

Still, I can’t help but wonder how the Republicans would have treated one of their own who had acted with the kind of disloyalty Joe Lieberman demonstrated.