George W Bush - the new Abraham Lincoln?

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everyone thought Abraham Lincoln was a bit of a joke when he got elected, but after the successful prosecution of a war he became one of America's best loved presidents.

Could the same thing happen to George W Bush?

― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Bullshit

― Charles McCain (Charles McCain), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Abe could prob'ly pronouce words correctly at the very least.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:26 (twenty-two years ago)

no mole

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:27 (twenty-two years ago)

The comparison is superficial at best.

― hstencil, Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:27 (twenty-two years ago)

1) Abe was better looking. Beard and all.

2) The slaves actually *wanted* to be "freed".

― kate, Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:27 (twenty-two years ago)

also, they were both party guys when they were young, sowing their wild oats and suchlike. Lincoln shared a bed with a man for many years, while Bush did various non-specific naughty things.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Thatcher is probably a better analogy. Widely hated leader-> cynical Imperialist war adventure -> ten years in power.

:-(

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Without being TOO disengenuous, Kate, I don't think Hussein is deeply loved over there at all. They just don't like/trust the Americans either (and who can blame them?).

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Bush isn't the new Lincoln, he's the new Bush. Duh.

(NOTE: I don't just mean this in a jokey sense; his actions & apparent motivations & directives and whatnot bare such similarity to his father's that it's really uncanny.)

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:32 (twenty-two years ago)

that's because it's all his daddy's buddies who are calling the shots. duh.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Dubya couldn't be FARTHER from his father, who was a career politician, diplomat, internationalist and (originally) anti-supply-sider.

― hstencil, Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:38 (twenty-two years ago)

also, both Lincoln and Bush were/are surrounded by ambitious politicians who thought the President was theirs to control.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:41 (twenty-two years ago)

also, his daddy doesn't think we should be attacking iraq. dubya needs a good spankin.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Is his daddy in the Dixie Chicks?

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:43 (twenty-two years ago)

YOU EVIL DOERS.

― , Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Prove it, jess.

― Stuart (Stuart), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Good point hstencil. I somehow completely forgot Dubya's daddy's history, from how he actually served in the military to his time as head of the CIA and all that...as opposed to Dubya's pre-political days of starting-and-driving-into-the-ground a variety of business ventures that he started with family-friends' money (some of which had the surname "Bin Laden").

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:54 (twenty-two years ago)

you want me to spank him?

― jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:54 (twenty-two years ago)

...that he started with family-friends' money (some of which had the surname "Bin Laden").

I was with you up until the parentheses.

― hstencil, Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Osama Bin Laden owns the Texas Rangers! Does Rueben Sierra know about this?

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:59 (twenty-two years ago)

the bin laden's are a fine texas family

― jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:00 (twenty-two years ago)

The bin Ladens of Plano or the bin Ladens of Midland-Odessa?

― hstencil, Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Amarillo bin Ladens

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I was with you up until the parentheses.

http://www.americanfreedomnews.com/afn_articles/bushsecrets.htm

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 3 April 2003 16:18 (twenty-two years ago)

"Salem bin Laden, Osama’s older brother, was an investor in Arbusto Energy. – the Texas oil company started by George W. Bush. Arbusto means “Bush” in Spanish."

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 3 April 2003 16:20 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.stbernard.org/Webmasters/wp22/king%20of%20the%20hill.jpg

osama bin hill

― jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 3 April 2003 16:25 (twenty-two years ago)

just wondering about the credibility of the source, that's all. I know about ArBUSTo and other various Dubya biz failures.

― hstencil, Thursday, 3 April 2003 16:26 (twenty-two years ago)

The thing is, the Saudi Bin Laden Construction Co. (started by Mohammed Bin Laden, father of Osama + 49 other children) has had rather close ties with a variety of Bush business projects (from Arbusto to the Carlyle Group and such) for many many years. However, they did supposedly sever all their business ties to SBLC in October of last year.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 3 April 2003 16:31 (twenty-two years ago)

And the bin Laden family severed ties with Osama back in like 1995 or something?

― hstencil, Thursday, 3 April 2003 16:42 (twenty-two years ago)

The slaves actually *wanted* to be "freed".

Now Kate, I'm anti-Bush, anti-Blair, anti-war and consider myself to hold socialist views, but I don't swallow this statement at all. I'm pretty sure that the Iraqi people don't want to live under a regime that tortures them for arguing with it, or which spends millions on luxury boats and palaces whilst they starve. Saddam is a nutter and no one (I reckon, except this nutty anti-semetic 60 year old that I met on a peace march) is arguing with that. Iraq probably wants a free society more than anyone - they are educated, intelligent people. The question is how do you win them over to your cause? Surely not be dropping bombs on their country and forcing some American led government into power and saying: 'Hey guys the oil is yours but don't mind if we steal some of it in order to pay for re-building your country which we've just spent the last few weeks destroying?"

As for Abe being similar to Bush. Erm... no. Bush is best compared to Reagan, but maybe dumber, I'm not sure.

― Calum, Thursday, 3 April 2003 16:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Nevertheless I find DV's analogy - as a student of analogies and tortured metaphors - very interesting. And actually Kate, an awful lot of the slaves didn't "want" to be freed (in as much as freedom in a still racist society equalled lack of any kind of employment security. Let's not forget that an awful lot of slave owners were relatively good to their slaves from a standard of living point of view, it was just in that nitty gritty acceptance of their basic humang rights that they fell down. Better the devil you know etc etc).

After all isn't Bush's stated aim to liberate without any real idea of what this liberation entails. Were are all a bit suspicious that said liberation will be a bit crap. Well for the slaves said liberation was a bit crap economically. And indeed had to wait almost another hundred years before it was sorted out officialy. And even then we still have the shimmery spectre of racism permeating many aspects of US life. So to be the nu-Lincoln he merely has to be mediocre AND GET ASSASINATED.

(Bush = cheap electronic product manufacturer
Lincoln = Resoundingly plain biscuit).

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 3 April 2003 16:45 (twenty-two years ago)

The question is how do you win them over to your cause?

By arming them for revolt! What's wrong with a little DIY, Dubya?

― hstencil, Thursday, 3 April 2003 16:46 (twenty-two years ago)

And the bin Laden family severed ties with Osama back in like 1995 or something?

yessireebob...at the same time the Saudi royal family exiled him

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 3 April 2003 16:48 (twenty-two years ago)

one thing to remember is that bush's approval rating is still quite high... higher than when he began his term.

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 3 April 2003 16:49 (twenty-two years ago)

What is an approval ratio?

"Do you approve of him?
Well, he says some words wrong, but he doesn't deserve to die for that.
No I mean do you approve of his policies?

Well the Iraq thing is a bit shitty but that bit when he choke don the pretzel was mad keen. He should have a prime time sitcom."

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 3 April 2003 16:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Lincoln is such an icon here in Illinois, and I can't imagine people in Texas being so dumb that they would put his picture all over the damn place. Bush has no mythology around him, really. He's such a cipher. And having wit never hurts. Lincoln was no moron - he was an extremely well-read man. Plus, there's nothing romantic about being the dumb son of a former president, as opposed to the intelligent son of a nobody.

― Kerry (dymaxia), Thursday, 3 April 2003 16:55 (twenty-two years ago)

"his picture" = "Bush's picture"

― Kerry (dymaxia), Thursday, 3 April 2003 16:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Bush has no mythology around him, really. He's such a cipher.

These seem contradictory. Also, there's the mythology of whether Dubya did coke, that mysterious missing month in the National Guard, etc.

― hstencil, Thursday, 3 April 2003 16:56 (twenty-two years ago)

That's not exactly positive mythology, though. It's also not something most people can identify with, as opposed to some guy who worked his way up.

― Kerry (dymaxia), Thursday, 3 April 2003 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, motherfucker lived in a log cabin.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 3 April 2003 16:59 (twenty-two years ago)

There's a part of me that thinks "yeah that Bush is a dumb buggah", but there's another part of me that thinks "well, he went to Yale, his daddy was head of the CIA, maybe he's putting on an 'Average American' front which, for his priveleged trust-fundee ivy leaguer for-life self, means 'act dumb'". Then both parts get in a drunken brawl and beat each other to a pulp them have a pint and hug.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 3 April 2003 16:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Cokehead, alcoholic = the mythology we love these days.

You only get mythology when you're dead. You know there was a time when Lincoln din't have that stoopid beard.

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:02 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, motherfucker lived in a log cabin.

Yeah and I've been to that log cabin*!!! It's in Hodgenville, KY - where Lincoln was born.

*may only be a replica

― hstencil, Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Mythology, as in : A body of myths, esp. that relating to a particular person, or belonging to the religious literature or tradition of a country or people. As opposed to gossip.

So yeah, the log cabin and learning by candlelight schtick. And being "homely" and splitting rails and all of that.

I don't know, Bush just doesn't project any sort of personality as far as I can see. He's so blank.

― Kerry (dymaxia), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:03 (twenty-two years ago)

'best loved' / by whom?

The people who already like GWB will still like him.

The people who already hate him will still hate him.

― the pinefox, Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:03 (twenty-two years ago)

i fear to think about the amount of historical rewriting/whitewashing that will have to occur for dubya's future mythology to get a "positive" slant

― jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:03 (twenty-two years ago)

It's the Blank Generation, baby.

― hstencil, Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:04 (twenty-two years ago)

jess - it seems to be working for Reagan so far (and he ain't dead yet!).

― hstencil, Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:04 (twenty-two years ago)

hey didn't EVERYBODY live in a log cabin when Lincoln was a kid?
isn't that like my grandpa saying, "when I was your age, you little piece of shit, there was no such thing as the internet. if we wanted to look at a naked lady, by gum, we had to marry her!"

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:06 (twenty-two years ago)

If anyone's gonna get that treatment, it's Reagan. If / when he dies.

― Kerry (dymaxia), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:06 (twenty-two years ago)

hey didn't EVERYBODY live in a log cabin when Lincoln was a kid?

uh, no.

― hstencil, Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:07 (twenty-two years ago)

well, anyone, y'know, RURAL, I should have said.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:08 (twenty-two years ago)

some people lived in teepees

― jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:08 (twenty-two years ago)

lean-tos

― jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:09 (twenty-two years ago)

shacks

― jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:09 (twenty-two years ago)

plantation houses

― jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:09 (twenty-two years ago)

so really, a log cabin was like the SUV of its time. only without wheels and buttwarmers.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:09 (twenty-two years ago)

And without that whole destroying the Earth thing.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:10 (twenty-two years ago)

"Everybody" doesn't have an SUV, either.

― Kerry (dymaxia), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:11 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm a fan of bivouacs, which I guess is a fancy word for lean-to.

The "log cabin*" is now in another building:

mo' info:

cabin originally accepted as the birthplace cabin was placed in the Memorial Building. Although its early history is obscure, extensive research suggests that the cabin displayed in the Memorial Building is probably not the birthplace cabin of Abraham Lincoln. New York businessman A.W. Dennett purchased the Lincoln farm in 1894 and had the cabin moved to a site near the Sinking Spring. But shortly thereafter it was again dismantled and re-erected for exhibition in many cities. About 1900, Robert Collier (Publisher of Collier's Weekly), Mark Twain, William Jennings Bryan, Samuel Gompers, and others formed the Lincoln Farm Association to preserve Lincoln's birthplace and establish a memorial to the country's 16th president. The association bought the farm in 1905 and the cabin in 1906. The group also raised over $350,000 from more than 100,000 citizens to build a memorial to house the cabin. President Theodore Roosevelt laid the cornerstone in 1909, and two years later the marble and granite memorial, designed by John Russell Pope, was dedicated by President William H. Taft. The neo-classical structure in a farm setting may seem grandiose for a man who wrote: "I was born and have ever remained in the humble walks of life." But the rough cabin within the memorial dramatizes the basic values that sustained Lincoln as he led the Nation through its darkest period..

*may or may not be a replica.

― hstencil, Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Kids play with "Lincoln Logs" (or they used to - oy, am I dating myself). Will the children of the future play with Bush Bricks?

― Kerry (dymaxia), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:14 (twenty-two years ago)

They will play with Bush Precision-Guided Bombs^TM!

― hstencil, Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:16 (twenty-two years ago)

fear to think about the amount of historical rewriting/whitewashing that will have to occur for dubya's future mythology to get a "positive" slant

Apart from leading their crusa...er, "War on Terruh", one thing Bush & Cheney have accomplished in office is to sign into action a variety of things aimed at keeping all sorts of White House documents classified for years to come; not just classified to the public, but to Congress as well. It'll be years before the non-Executive branches of the Fed. Gov. (much less the Murkin public) finds out everything that went on during their term(s).

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:17 (twenty-two years ago)

ha! secrecy = mythmaking!

― hstencil, Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:18 (twenty-two years ago)

dick nixon (but not geo. gossett) to thread

― jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:23 (twenty-two years ago)

1) The Log Cabin is a replica.
2) Log cabins were pretty standard middle-classish dwellings for period and location.
3) Lincoln's family were not rich, but not poor by the standards of the day.
4) George is supposed to be "Churchwellian"

― fletrejet, Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:29 (twenty-two years ago)

If California, say, had threatened to secede from the Union should the Supreme Court determine that Bush won the 2000 election -- and then did so, bringing other states with them -- and Bush continued to consider them part of the US, ignoring advice to wage a war in the Middle East in order to foster a sense of nationalism and win the secessionists back -- and then war finally broke out when the secessionists attacked, and lasted for the remainder of his presidency and resulted in widesweeping changes to the structure of federal and state government -- and Bush was re-elected only to be shot by Johnny Depp at the premiere of 21 Jump Street: The Movie --

-- then yes, maybe there'd be less-than-superficial bases for a Lincoln/Bush comparison.

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Best. Sentence. Evah.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Nobody said Lincoln was poor, at least I didn't.

― Kerry (dymaxia), Thursday, 3 April 2003 18:16 (twenty-two years ago)

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