print“[W]hile small-time functionaries like Scott McClellan can be big enough to express remorse, self-reproach is rare in the leaders they serve. A breast-beating Bush: now that would provide a truly teachable moment.
Although never belabored, it is believed that Abraham Lincoln may have suffered misgivings for his role in ‘the butchering business’—J. R. Pole’s turn-of-phrase. Pole is Rhodes Professor Emeritus of American History and Institutions at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford.
Before Pole, a number of prominent historians had floated the idea that Lincoln might have wrestled with remorse for shedding the blood of brothers in great quantities. …”
Read more about the literary “clues to Lincoln’s possible contrition” in “Honest Abe’s Anguish,” my new WorldNetDaily.com column.
Update (June 22): TIME magazine reports that “Scott McClellan … said President Bush has lost the public’s trust by failing to open up about his Administration’s mistakes and backtracking on a promise be up front about the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.”
The man does have a knack for stating the obvious.
Or as I wrote in this column, McClellan has “hindsight rather than insight on his side; what he [is] imparting [is] neither new nor even newsworthy.”
But in America the simple are celebrated.
The harms of Lincoln’s war
were many then and are many now.
And will they ever end?
Not till we suspend
the worship of that sacred cow.
“That modern-day minor figure McClellan apologized for his role in the Iraq depravity.”
That’s the problem. There’s a difference between apologizing and being sorry. Sen. Tom Lantos knew this and reminded Craig Livingstone of the difference. That difference is apparently lost on McClellan….oh wait, that’s right he has a book to sell.
It’s easy to apologize. It takes courage to show the world how sorry you are. [I believe he has.–IM]
I read somewhere on the internet that Scott McClellan is the son of Barr McClellan. The senior McClellan is a Texas lawyer who wrote a book a few years ago about Lyndon Baines Johnson’s part in the Kennedy assassination conspiracy, a Coup d’Etat, his book based upon inside information from his law partners, who were Johnson’s lawyers. Establishment media silence. Lincoln’s assassination was also a conspiracy. His war intent was originally to preserve the Union, not to free the slaves, whom Lincoln reportedly would have preferred to send back to Africa.
The least this man should do is to express remorse and to donate to veterans’ causes. It’s clear that he wasn’t duped during his time as Bush spokesman. He knew he was part of the deception, with the result being a ravaged country, thousands dead, and our civil liberties under assault.
I think it’s high time that some administration officials do serious jail time. Until there is real accountability for immoral decisions, we will continue to suffer from the hubris of future leaders and their minions.
Let the impeachment proceedings begin!
Some men, if they are truly humble, feel guilt for things or circumstances for which they are not responsible. Decisions are often forced upon them, and when they see the results, they wish it could have been otherwise. When asked what else they could have done, they don’t know. They only wish they had not done what they had to do. I think Lincoln was such a man; not perfect, but good; a man who honestly tried to do right in preserving the Union. This is no indirect defense of Bush. He’s alive and can defend himself. Whether he feels the weight of decisions as Lincoln did is unknown to us. But, Lincoln’s war was a family affair, and every drop of blood was our own. And the carnage was unbelievable. A man would have to be hard hearted indeed not to feel the weight of that, even though it was forced upon him.
[A different perspective is here.IM–]
It occurs to me that I should add something to my first comments. Lincoln felt the losses of Americans on both sides. It is harder to feel the losses of a foreign enemy, the suffering and damage done. It is especially hard when that enemy has shown himself to be barbaric in the extreme, and proven by his actions that death and defeat are the only means of dealing with him. I mean, if you have to deal with him at all. Our system requires that we deal with enemies through a Constitutional process wherein the President and Congress share in the decision, the declaration, to take up arms. And the people share in it through their representatives. Perhaps at the heart of our uneasiness or ambivalence about current events is that we no longer share in the decision or have the chance to accept the onus that goes with it. So that sinking feeling is always there that things are being done the wrong way for the wrong reasons, and because of that, we are not and cannot be united. The President was wrong, the Congress was wrong, and we are wrong for allowing them to do wrong. Thus, there is no unity of effort and no respect for our supreme law, and everyone is dissatisfied. And we want somebody to blame. The un-constitutional approach has made rather a balls-up of things. This is a bit adrift of the subject of Presidential conscience, but you know, one thing leads to another.
[Let each person speak and account for himself. This here column was right from day one about the war, and kept it up throughout. For that, I have suffered. Let’s take individual responsibility for our actions and beliefs. The royal “We” will not do!—IM]
40 days before he died, Lincoln gave one of the greatest (and shortest!) American speeches in history:
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres32.html
– his second inaugural address. He seemed to view himself as an Agent Of Fate “…the war came”. He then views the war as a judgement of God for the offense of slavery. Certainly the most eloquent “apology” for slavery ever written. I guess I stand with Mencken on some the judgement of Lincoln – a magnificent poet – but that the “victory” of the “Union”, rather than PRESERVING the ante-bellum confederation of States with its limitations on the federal government, CREATED an ominpresent and uncheked power. It took several more generations for the beast to grow into the Socialistic Hegemonic Monster – but Abe Lincoln was the obstetrictian/midwife at the birth of unlimited federal power.
My guess is that the Second Inaugural was Abe’s way of working out his personal anguish by putting the hatred, slavery, and the carnage into some “divine plan” with him as just a player in God’s scheme.
“I guess I stand with Mencken on some the judgement of Lincoln – a magnificent poet – … ” Myron Pauli
I take exception to this. Unless one is dealing with fantasy or some subjective, inconsequential topic then a poet should be concerned with truth above all else. In this regard, Lincoln seems a master propagandist not a poet. Perhaps as a lawyer, he became corrupted by the short term profitability of distorting the truth.
The truth is a very sharp tool,
but dull it just a bit,
and by it you’ll be bit.
Repentance is great, even cathartic, but wouldn’t it have been great had Scotty had resigned rather that be a conduit for lies in the first place?
Regarding Steve – I fail to see any relationship between poetry and truth. In fact, the more the B.S., the more the fancy wrapping needed.
B. Hussein Obama is America’s latest entry in the Messianic Politician class (in distinction to Mc Cain, a straight-talking but uninspired warmonger).
Myron,
I think Obama is sincere, he is just sincerely inadequate. I reckon he will win though, since the poor have to be bought off once again with the money the banking system looted from them via fractional reserve banking.
McCain is a warmonger, there will be more dead Abel (sic) bodies if he is elected.
I will write in Ron Paul’s name, vote against EVERY incumbent and wait till 2012.