Like so many before him, Barak Obama is trying to wrap the mantle of Lincoln around him, more so as a "gangly" Illinois legislator.
The Barak-Lincoln comparison is facile at best. Both served in the Illinois legislature, although Lincoln was a Representative and Obama was a Senator. Lincoln lost his race for the U.S. Senate, the seat Obama now holds. And Lincoln only served two years as a federal Representative, which Obama has surpassed.
Obasma was born to a well educated family of means, Lincoln was born to abject poverty, hardship and loss, losing both his mother and his sister before the age of 12. Obama received higher education from two of our nation's most prestigious schools, Columbia University and Harvard, Lincoln had little to no formal education and was a self-taught man.
But the most important difference is this: Obama is leading the left wing of his party, while Lincoln strove to unite radical and conservative wings of the nascent GOP, and his success in doing so propelled him to the White House and is what kept the North together. Then, as now, the country was divided by extremists on both sides. Lincoln governed from the center.
And that does not appear to be in Obama's playbook.
In short...I knew Abraham Lincoln, Abe Lincoln was a friend of mine...
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