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"Few stop to appreciate that 50 million are now liberated with the first chance of real democracy in the history of the Middle East. We almost take for granted that the Taliban and Saddam Hussein are gone and that 90 percent of Iraq is functioning under local democratic councils — in an irreversible process that is taking on a culture and logic of its own."

These analogies of the doomsayers that Lincoln faced to those oozing out of the gutter against Dubya are fascinating - and quite accurate.

In just two months, Lincoln went from the bottom of the barrel to being reelected.

The Dimraps are doing the best they can to paint Dubya into the same box they managed (along with the help of the entire media and press) to get George Sr. into in 1991.

Lincoln was a great president. His successor, Grant was plagued with political infighting.

Let's hope Bush can rally the troops.

These analogies of the doomsayers that Lincoln faced to those oozing out of the gutter against Dubya are fascinating - and quite accurate.

I have to disagree with you there. Hanson's article is a brilliant piece of political sophistry and it conveys a rhetorically appealing analogy. But as I was telling another in a discussion of this article, it lacks strength as a sound logical argument. It only works as long as one accepts Hanson's own severely oversimplified, selectively presented, and, in parts, imprecise and inaccurate account of civil war history. Subject it to a fuller accounting of historical events and Hanson's argument is exposed as a carefully constructed rhetorical device rather than an intellectually meritous analysis of events.

All of that in a word: Hanson presented a storybook version of Abe Lincoln that was intentionally crafted to parallel what he sees as Bush's current situation in the closest way possible thereby permitting him to take advantage of the recollective abilities of his readers.