This weekend former NYC Mayor Rudy Guiliani spoke to an adoring audience in the freezing cold of New Hampshire. Normally he charges a cool $100k per speech, but this time around it was on him. In otherwords he's running for President.
Throughout the 20 minute speech he didn't go more than a few sentences without bringing up Ronald Reagan's name time and time and time again. Because, you know, I'm sure when the Gipper tapped Rudy to serve in the Justice Dept. back in the 80's he thought he was appointing his political heir. I mean just think of all the times Reagan marched in gay pride parades and spoke out in favor of abortion rights and gun control. Yep, that's good old fashioned Goldwater conservatism for ya.
When it came to the Iraq War, Guiliani brought up an interesting subject: Lincoln.
He said that Honest Abe did what was right, regardless of the political ramifications. OK, I'm with you so far. Then he compared the current unpopularity with the War in Iraq with the angry NYC rioters during the Civil War in 1863. Wow. That may be the stupidest thing to come out of that man's mouth EVER. And this is a guy that said, "I do" at the alter standing next to his cousin TWICE. Rudy also did his best Dick Cheney impression by saying that the rioters were mad because they didn't have the stomach for the long fight ahead. What an ignorant, arrogant prick.
Those riots he speaks of are commonly known as the New York Draft Riots. Not only were Americans being forced to fight in a war they didn't beleive in, but the poor were being singled out. If you had money in 1863, you could literally buy your way out for a price. These made the 1992 L.A. Riots look like a tea party. The mob took out their anger on African Americans and the wealthy, to name a few. The military had to be called on to stop the violence, which lasted for days. Over 100 people were dead.
Today we have an all volunteer military and people who oppose the War in Iraq do so peacefully by exercising their constitutional rights. Come back to me when Bush institutes a draft for the poor only, people get lynched because of the color of their skin, and a major city gets burned to the ground. If he STILL goes forward with his war after all that, then we'll talk.
I see fewer parallels here than with GWB = Truman.
Now if we're talking about G.W. Bush = W.G. Harding that's a case where I think you could draw some stark comparisons.
And then the most common thing was Bush never made a mistake because he never needed to check his generals. Lincoln of course wasted no time firing them,recognizing mistakes and then finding ways not to repeat them. Which reminds me of a recent White House press breifing when Bush brought up the subject of Lincoln and a reporter held him to it. As I recall the scene was not pleasent because our fearless leader never ever makes mistakes.
"No I never ever make mistakes, never ever. Never ever.. no never not ever. No Never... Not Ever. And I as your chief sail the ocean blue."-Dubya
Sincerely,
Fmr. Sen. George Allen
Did Lincoln go to Gettysburg in 1863 to proclaim "mission accomplished?
Did Lincoln scare and lie to the American people time and time again leading up to the civil war?
Did Lincoln say that Atlanta would greet Sherman as liberators?
This "exercize" could go on and on for pages, I bet!
But amazingly enough, I heard Bush speak once and he indeed said that he sees himself following in Lincoln's footsteps. He said, basically, that Lincoln tried to accomplish "big things" and that's what being president is all about.
You can see how unbelievably simple-minded his logic is. Yes, the Iraq War is unquestionably "big" as is the neo-con fantasy of turning the whole Middle East into a peaceful community of democracies by, say, next week.
But being president is supposed to be about working realistically to solve our society's problems. If you carry out well-planned and executed approaches to problem-solving that are big and ambitious (like the New Deal and the Progressive Era under TR and Wilson), then you can claim to be a great president.
But just doing something "big" ain't going to get you onto Mount Rushmore -- particularly if it is so carelessly, thoughtlessly big that it needless kills over 100,000 people.
Great job on synopsizing the NY Draft Riots. I'd add, too, that the troops called in to put down the disturbance included a lot of Irish immigrants who had already been badly bloodied in the war and were in no big rush to stop their rioting cousins. In at least one similarity to modern times the rich and privileged who had "something better to do" than go to the war were able to evade war service. Hmmm, now that does sound rather familiar and modern.