Peggy Noonan skewers a surprisingly narcissistic Barack Obama: (Hat tip Hugh Hewitt)
This week comes the previously careful Sen. Barack Obama, flapping his wings in Time magazine and explaining that he's a lot like Abraham Lincoln, only sort of better. "In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat--in all this he reminded me not just of my own struggles."Oh. So that's what Lincoln's for. Actually Lincoln's life is a lot like Mr. Obama's. Lincoln came from a lean-to in the backwoods. His mother died when he was 9. The Lincolns had no money, no standing. Lincoln educated himself, reading law on his own, working as a field hand, a store clerk and a raft hand on the Mississippi. He also split some rails. He entered politics, knew more defeat than victory, and went on to lead the nation through its greatest trauma, the Civil War, and past its greatest sin, slavery.
Barack Obama, the son of two University of Hawaii students, went to Columbia and Harvard Law after attending a private academy that taught the children of the Hawaiian royal family. He made his name in politics as an aggressive Chicago vote hustler in Bill Clinton's first campaign for the presidency.
You see the similarities.
Later Noonan continues ...
Mr. Obama said he keeps a photographic portrait of Lincoln on the wall of his office, and that "it asks me questions."I'm sure it does. I'm sure it says, "Barack, why are you such an egomaniac?"
Christopher Cross cites the most offensive portion of Obama’s Times quote:
"I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator," Obama said. "As a law professor and civil rights lawyer and as an African-American, I am fully aware of his limited views on race. Anyone who actually reads the Emancipation Proclamation knows it was more a military document than a clarion call for justice."
After having misappropriated Lincoln's legacy in a deeply flawed attempt at self exaltation, Obama can't pass the chance to spit on America's perhaps most-beloved statesman. All this from a pol who had heretofore mounted a brilliant PR campaign, passing himself off as a thoughtful, serious public servant; the darling of the 2004 Democratic National Convention; a U.S. Senator; a rising star destined perhaps for higher office. His latest comments, however, have unmasked himself as a fool such as no one would have previously suspected.
I couldn't care less what Obama the “law professor,” Obama the “civil rights lawyer,” Obama the moonbat-in-training, thinks about Lincoln as relates to Emancipation. At this point don't care too much for Obama period, as a politician or as a man. It is my great hope, however, that Obama's statements are often quoted as a reminder to his penchant for idiocy when—as seems likely—he seeks higher political office at some future time.