Is Obama Lincolnesque?

During the 2008 presidential campaign, beginning in the primaries, Candidate Obama's electoral staff encouraged public comparisons between Obama and Lincoln. Garry Wills, the respected historian and critic, published an article (see: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21290 ) favorably comparing Obama with Lincoln. I also thought at the time such comparisons might prove worthwhile. Now I am not so sure.

There's more on Obama's ostensible Linolnesque qualities -- note this from the far right's Peggy Noonan http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704254604574614400275474962.html in the Wall Street Journal. It seemed as if the whole world of US politics was conspiring to puff that magic dragon "Obama is Lincoln ReIncarnate" until it came to life and roared of its own accord. It is to Garry Wills's credit that he somewhat toned down his comparison between Obama and Lincoln with post-election articles like this one: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23110 in which he suggests Obama is more a mere mortal ensnared in his own tangling activities. However, it seems safe to say that with or without encouragement from Obama own selected officialdom, the comparisons with Lincoln will continue into the foreseeable future.

This suggests it is time to turn that discussion into more of a dialogue and cease allowing the talking heads to keep relentlessly puffing up the dragon. Where is all that Lincoln character, besides in some faint whiffs of rhetoric or rhetorical style Obama sometimes achieves?

One can no longer suggest Obama's speeches are comparable to Lincoln's. Lincoln knew how to be brief and to the point. Obama seems to daily drift farther and farther from whatever point his presidency was presumed to have been aimed toward. Lincoln knew how to remind the nation of our most salient national inheritance. Obama appears fixated on two stars: his own re-election prospects which means predominantly his popular image, and (recent rhetoric notwithstanding) keeping Wall Street's corporate powers happy. Lincoln never doubted his presidential priorities; Obama seemed to have Health Care Reform as a priority until it fell on hard times in the polls. Lincoln had no difficulty preventing the nation from doubting his presidential priorities; Obama seems daily to have little or no clear sense of his priorities.

It should be clear enough that Obama's character and integrity is a far cry from Lincoln's. Without disparaging Obama, the why and wherefore of this should not be neglected. It should also have been clear to me and all others who had earlier been tempted to compare Obama to Lincoln favorably that lacking a major war (major wars are, among other things, declared wars; we have none at this time) it would hardly be fair in any case to make such comparisons. That could change, of course. But it hasn't. Yet.

Let those comparisons rest for now, and, if appropriate, die a natural death. Obama is no Lincoln; he has no mandate to save the nation from a civil or any other war. He has demonstrated no capacity, perhaps primarily because it has not been called upon, to save the nation from itself or from anything else. If compare him we must, why shouldn't we content ourselves comparing him with FDR, a more recent and more reasonable comparison, given the recession. Of course, here, the obvious challenge is getting the US Government to begin telling the whole truth about unemployment and our other economic "indicators" and challenges. Obama could possibly lead us here, but to date he has shown no interest beyond rhetorical in doing so.

It seems that if Obama wants to be compared favorably with Lincoln or FDR, he might consider the nation's current economic condition as comparable to the nation's civil condition when Lincoln became president. (Perhaps FDR did something like this, but we may never know.) Lincoln found himself facing a war with almost all the command competence in the enemy's camp. Obama found himself facing economic meltdown with all his chief allies in the least competent position; they were the architects of the economic arrangements that led to meltdown. How could they guide the nation out of economic disarray? Lincoln schooled himself on military strategy. It is unclear if Obama is doing anything to prepare himself to preside over the re-invention of a national economic strategy. How does Obama see us dealing with the economic disorder enveloping us? It appears he does nothing other than grasping at straws, the most glaring straws being the economists he appointed to his administration.

Obama's possible comparisons with FDR also suggest glaring weaknesses on Obama's part. But thinkers left and right have inadvertently foisted a pastiche of a dialogue that has pasted those details all over; they need no repeating. We hope. It is not at all clear Obama or anyone in his administration is interested in what their critics, friendly or unfriendly, have to say.