Posted by
Mugged on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 4:58:25 PM
Last weekend I enjoyed , for the umpteenth time, Ken Burn's The Civil War on PBS. Fine television, that. But what was most striking was the similarity between Bush's position of today and that of Lincoln in 1864. I've heard mention of this before in some article or blog post, but Burn's actual text was so "spot on" in relation to today's circumstances that I'm kind of surprised that PBS didn't edit it.
With an election upcoming later in the year, Lincoln was the standard bearer of an increasingly unpopular war. As a result his approval rating (such a modern term, no?) was near to bottoming out. From his most belligerent critics he earned the derisive epithet "The Original Ape" (kinda like Chimpy Mcbushitler, eh?). He faced a Democrat congress who "wanted out of the war at any cost" and hostility within his own party. Bogged down on two fronts (Atlanta and Petersburg), the war seemed a hopeless waste of lives and resources after four long years. His Democrat opponent in the election would be none other than George McClellan, the petulant, young general who Lincoln had had to fire twice as commander of the Army of the Potomac when he proved unequal to the task. Lincoln's prospects, and those of "the last best hope for mankind" were bleak indeed. Kind of eerie. But, when Sherman took Atlanta that summer Lincoln's reelection was assured. The Union would be preserved.
The lesson here, I suppose, is for conservatives not to lose heart in the face of a Democrat majority hellbent of defeat, an electorate impatient with the progress of the war, and the fate, perhaps, of the "last, best hope for mankind" again hanging in the balance. You never know when Sherman might take Atlanta.