George W. Bush is Abraham Lincoln?

I am afraid I owe President Bush an apology. All this time I thought he was Herbert Hoover and now come to find out he is really Abraham Lincoln according to Vice-President Cheney. Here is what I don’t understand, you have Dick Cheney and his ilk making preposterous claims like this unchallenged but when a black man, even a respected minister calls America on its hypocrisy they are lambasted. I am in no way condoning the statements of Pastor Wright, but I have to point out the inconsistency being displayed. The fact that Dick Cheney made this statement should enrage all men of conscious and it dishonors the memory of Abraham Lincoln as well as the men who died in one of our nations darkest hours. President Lincoln must have just rolled over in his grave at this one.

Cheney compared the administration's task now to Abraham Lincoln's during the Civil War. ''He never would have succeeded if he hadn't had a clear objective, a vision for where he wanted to go, and he was willing to withstand the slings and arrows of the political wars in order to get there,'' Cheney said of Lincoln in an interview broadcast Wednesday on ABC's ''Good Morning America.''[1]

Having dispatched my crack research staff to review the comparison in the event I may have overlooked some hidden similarities, they returned with the following results. George Bush and Abraham Lincoln share these two common traits both are white males and Republican Presidents. So following that logic every white male Republican President could be Abraham Lincoln, this is how low the bar is to clear to be compared with who many consider to be one of our greatest Presidents. So Richard Nixon is also Abraham Lincoln. According to Dick Cheney because Lincoln presided over an unpopular war and Bush is also presiding over an unpopular war they are comparable. I personally find the comparison of the Civil War with the Iraq War a travesty. How could anyone in their right mind draw any similarities between the two, unless Mr. Cheney is finally conceding that what we have in Iraq is a civil war. In which case his acknowledgment of this fact would be the closet thing we have had to date of honesty on his behalf.

No Mr. Cheney the are a few distinctions between the war that was thrust upon Lincoln and the war created by you and Bush. Lincoln did not invade a sovereign nation on the pretense of WMD’s or support for 9/11 terrorists. Claims which were later to be proved false. To compare ousting Saddam Hussein with ending slavery is ludicrous and once again displays how far from reality Dick Cheney has gone. So, it is ok for the Vice-President of the US to make these types of statements but we are going to fall apart as a nation because of the comments of a black pastor that before this incident few people even knew? Give me a break. If we as a nation were able to survive the divisiveness of Bush and Cheney, we can certainly survive a little dose of black reality television. Of course in America war and death are easier subjects to broach than race. We don’t mind the carnage and the mortgaging of our futures for a little death and mayhem, but God forbid if we open a discussion about race. Who put the turd in the swimming pool?

''The surge ... has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror,'' the president said. ''We are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his terror network. And the significance of this development cannot be overstated.''

Bush appeared to be referring to recent cooperation by local Iraqis with the U.S. military against the group known as al-Qaida in Iraq, a mostly homegrown, though foreign-led, Sunni-based insurgency. Experts question how closely -- or even whether -- the group is connected to the international al-Qaida network. As for bin Laden, he is rarely heard from and is believed to be hiding in Pakistan.[2]

And finally it is good to know that we are finally defeating an enemy that didn’t exist before we invaded Iraq. Of course what Bush, Cheney, or McCain have failed to mention is that we are having to pay these people not to attack our troops. Is democracy the best? Well, I am glad to see that while we may be unable to export democracy, we sure don’t have a problem exporting capitalism. If you can’t beat ‘em, pay ‘em. Of course this begs the eventual question of what happens when the money runs out? I would be really interested to hear John McCain answer to that question, especially since he could be the next Abraham Lincoln.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-Iraq.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-Iraq.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin