11:27pm C-SPAN - Mario Cuomo "Why Lincoln Matters" 1/2 left.

[LittleApple81]

He was interviewed about the book some time ago (Russert). he was excellent in that interview, relating Lincoln to our present situation. I don't know if Lamb will allow him to be as good, but it might be worth a watch.

[LittleApple81]

1. If they repeat it, he is very eloquent. Did you know he was nominated

to be a Supreme Court Justice? He explained why he had not accepted it.

[Yupster]

2. Lincoln matters to us as a warning

he suspended habeus corpus, arrested elected officials, unconstitutionally called out the militia, shut down newspapers and exiled at least one former governor of Ohio from ever returning to America.

I don't think we should be encouraging people to be reading about Lincoln and giving Bush any ideas.

[LittleApple81]

3. Actually, Cuomo is using it against Bush*'s arguments. Very eloquent. n/t

[Zomby Woof]

5. and yet

He preserved the union you celebrate with your avatar, the very union which you live in today.

Half the nation committed sedition... and his actions, which you so flippantly condemn 140 years out, preserved the union and ultimately freed millions of enslaved Americans.

And I am the great-great-grandson of two Confederate soldiers, so I come by my poo-pooing of your treasonous apologia honestly. ;-)

[Yupster]

7. You're right

The ends always justifies the means.

[DivinBreuvage]

8. Considering he was handling the worst crisis America has ever had...

he dealt with a remarkably light hand. You know the history well enough to know that Lincoln allowed a whole hell of a lot anti-administration talk and activity to occur -- in fact he put up with a great deal more criticism and outright abuse during that crisis than the Bush administration ever has -- and that the measures you refer to were implemented in limited areas where the danger was particularly acute. I'm sure you're also aware that Lincoln at times reversed the attempts of subordinates such as John Fremont and Ambrose Burnside to impose a heavy hand on the regions under their control.

Furthermore, the Ohioan you refer to (Clement Vallandigham) was never governor, only an unsuccessful candidate for that office. One of the most virulent anti-war conservatives, he was arrested by Ambrose Burnside and sentenced to imprisonment by a military tribunal. Lincoln had nothing to do with it and was in fact embarrassed by the incident. But, faced with a choice between undermining Burnside's authority and imprisoning Vallandigham for speaking his mind, he decided that if Vallandigham loved the Southern cause so much he should go spend some time there. Vallandigham actually returned to the US less than two months after being "exiled from ever returning", as you put it, and Lincoln let him alone.

And, be honest, name me any issue, including the suspension of habeas corpus, on which you'd rather have Bush in charge than Abraham Lincoln.

[Yupster]

9. Should have said

former congressman and unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio.

Anyway, Vallandigham was convicted of "treasonable utterances" and sentenced to prison. Lincoln commuted the sentence to bannishment to the Confederacy. He went to Canada.

Also, Lincoln didn't arrest all the legislators, just some.

He didn't suspend habeus corpus everywhere, just some places.

He didn't shut all the newspapers either just some of them.

And the fact that I don't like the way Lincoln tore up the Constitution during wartime, doesn't mean I think Bush would be any better.

I have considered Lincoln our most overrated president long before I ever knew Bush was in politics.

[DivinBreuvage]

10. I understand your point, but you're still failing to take into account

the situation he was dealing with. The hard fact of human affairs is that sometimes extraordinary situations do require extraordinary measures, and that at such times a rigid insistence on "business as usual" is not only a less effective way to handle the crisis but can in fact be downright counterproductive and harmful, like a member of a fundamentalist cult refusing to allow medical treatment to a child dying of a treatable disease. You have only to look at the activities of men such as Governor Joseph Brown of Georgia to see how the extreme adherence to theoretical principles palpably undermined the Confederate war effort. The ivory-tower belief that a cherished theoretical principle can and must be applicable under all times and conditions in the real world, is a pernicious fantasy.

Having granted these points, the danger of course is always that men will demand extraordinary measures when none are called for, or that their implementation of those measures will be harsher or more pervasive than it needs to be. This can certainly be said of the men behind the Patriot Act and especially Patriot Act II, but I don't think it can be said of Lincoln in the situation he was forced to deal with. That is why the degree and extent to which he enforced these measures really does matter, and why the fact that he only did it in limited circumstances is more important than you seem to think it is.

[LittleApple81]

4. He has a statement about *: The three rationales he used for the war were

wrong but he says it is still justified and he would do it again? That is unconscionable. And giving us a 3 billion tax cut for the rich which hurt the rest of the population is just inadmissible.

(Lamb said: from this book we can assume YOU DISLIKE BUSH) Cuomo says he does not even know Bush and people tell him he is "very pleasant." But he does not like his policies, the way he uses religion, and the way he took the nation.
He had a very eloquent analysis.

[Gloria]

6. I saw both his speech and the Russert interview.....

He was brilliant in both.....