Obama VS Lincoln

The Obama Camp has made a great many attempts to frame their greenhorn candidate in the mold of Abraham Lincoln. For example Obama announced his candidacy outside the old Illinois state capital building, while sounding rhetoric evoking of Abraham Lincoln. Moreover, the media is seldom yielding in comparing Obama and Lincoln, touting that Lincoln served roughly the same amount of time in the state senate and had not real executive experience before becoming president. Their ultimate goal is to have you believe that Obama “mirrors” Republican Abraham Lincoln, while Lincoln successfully steered our nation through a volatile civil war and whose legacy aided us through reconciliation. So Obama will do just fine with 3AM phone calls from hotspots like the Middle East and the remerging Soviet Union . Right? I am not so sure.

Now for arguments sake, let us stick with what the Obama camp quips, that it is judgment that most matters with the presidency. Therefore let us compare the judgment of Lincoln and Obama on the greatest moral issue of their time: slavery and abortion respectably, after all, the democrats already compare the two men . During an 1858 debates at Galesburg, Illinois Lincoln had this to say regarding slavery “Now I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate slavery as a moral, social and political evil…”Now, during Pasture Warren’s faith Forum recently Obama muttered this about Abortion, “Well, you know, I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.”

Lincoln was early on vexed on what to do about the peculiar institution of slavery which had existed for hundreds of years he often did bash that institution seeing it as evil but difficult to end, over 700,000 Americans  perished in the civil war, he feared not, calling evil by its name. In an Letter to Henry Pierce in April of 1859 (notice the civil war did not come to be until April of 1861) he opined his famous line “Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.” Lincoln became deeply pained by the Civil War in which cost so many lives. Even though the War did not at first ensue just to end slavery, with Lincoln’s pushing that soon became a battle cry for Union Soldiers who marched into war to the tune “As Christ died to make me holy, let us die to make men free”.

Obama’s Judgment on abortion may be more radical than any democrat in office. He stood with the few opposed to restrains on partial birth abortion, a violent procedure, in which a fetus has their skull cracked and brains sucked out while still in the womb. He then stood virtually alone in voting against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act while in the State Senate. The born Alive Infant Protection Act required that in an abortion in which the baby is born alive, that is a procedure in which the abortionist fails to fully destroy the fetus while it is still in the womb, a doctor must treat it and attempt to save its life. When this bill developed in to a federal law in 2002 it was unanimously passed by the US house and Senate (Obama was still in Chicago at this time) and signed into law by President Bush.

So does  Obama’s judgment compare with one of our nation’s most revered martyrs? I find that harder to believe then Obama’s insistence you can tax people to prosperity.

Newt Gingrich, God in America

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/12/18/ken_burns_compares_obama_to_li.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rutten19mar19,0,5754610.column