Word: lincolnisms
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...Including Barack Obama in a composite picture with Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt and fellow candidate John McCain implies that Obama is of the same stature as the others. He doesn't come close. McCain at least has a career of genuine accomplishments behind him. Specifically what has Obama accomplished that qualifies him to be President? William G. Meyer, Las Vegas, Nevada...
...about big problems than to tackle them. Even the strongest, wiliest, most effective Presidents must change shape and shift direction to accommodate these and other forces. An ability to alter course without losing one's way is essential to presidential success. "I claim not to have controlled events," Abraham Lincoln wrote, "but confess plainly that events have controlled me." As the sailor President Franklin D. Roosevelt understood, only rarely does a fair wind blow squarely at the President's back. More typical is the gale blowing from dead ahead or the deceptively strong crosswind. Sometimes the best that...
...bodyguards. He routinely donned a diamond-studded earring and wore flashy suits, even as the city's budget crisis deepened and its population dwindled - threatening its rank as the nation's 11th-largest city. In 2005, a local TV reporter revealed that Kilpatrick had leased a $25,000 Lincoln Navigator for his wife, Carlita, with whom he has three sons, through the city's police department. He also charged more than $200,000 worth of spa treatments, Las Vegas hotel bills and restaurant tabs on a city-issued credit card. Such revelations were especially damning given his decision...
...compliment generally conferred in retrospect. We have lucked out several times in our history when implausible characters showed unexpected greatness when it was needed: a country lawyer from Illinois, a spoiled patrician in a wheelchair, to name two obvious examples. Even more miraculous (though troublesome for democracy), both Lincoln and F.D.R. were elected by promising more or less the opposite of what they did in office. Lincoln said he'd preserve the institution of slavery. F.D.R. said he'd balance the federal budget...
...anecdote has fostered a mix-and-match parlor game. Nixon: first-rate mind, second-class temperament. Reagan: second-rate mind, first-class temperament. Perhaps only Lincoln tops the class in both categories. But as we go down the homestretch in this presidential election, voters seem to be making up their minds as much by evaluating the dispositions of the candidates as their position papers. Voting for President is the most intimate vote we ever make; we're deciding whom we want in our living room for the next four years...