Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his famous essay on
Self Reliance:
A Foolish Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Little Minds
It seems the trolls have been hobgobbling of late...including none other than that grand poobah of trolls...sir potus hisself....
Which leads me to ask, what would a "foolish consistency" be? As opposed to a "wise one"?
We could, for example, take the career of our greatest President, Abraham Lincoln, and shake it down like our good friend Forest has so kindly done for John Kerry. In doing so, we might see...
that Forest, for all his insight, perhaps, does not see the forest for the trees....
Abraham Lincoln was for the Union, right? Or was he? In 1848, the future President argued firmly for the right of Southern States to secede if they wished. Abraham Lincoln is most famous for Freeing the Slaves. That much is obvious. Except that the Emancipation Proclamation did no such thing, it only freed those African Americans living in areas of the Confederacy not yet controlled by the Union...
This quote from an 1862 letter to Horace Greely, written while Lincoln was President sums up Lincoln's "views" neatly:
If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.
Abraham Lincoln was famous for his decisiveness in choosing Generals to lead the Union Army as well...he made up his mind almost a dozen times!
Lincoln, at least, was known for his personal rectitude and courage though....regardless, he snuck into Washington before his inauguration in disguise, and wisely so, after surviving an assasination attempt.
We all remember, however, Lincoln's famous Gettysburg address...dedicating our nation to "a new birth of freedom"...of course Lincoln is also the President who unilaterally suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus.
In fact, there were alot of folks in Lincoln's own day who didn't like alot about the man...(there are aspects of his personality that lead modern scholars to think he suffered from bipolar disorder....and, yes, Drudge would've been right there, you know it...)...
and the Democratic Party ran none other than George McClellan against him in 1864. That year it seemed guaranteed that Lincoln would go down in defeat...and yet a series of battlefield victories just before election day gave the victory to him.
Of course, Lincoln is our greatest President despite these flaws. We judge him with the measure of history...and history leads us to understand the man, his times, his failures and his legacy. Lincoln's wise consistency was in standing his ground, through the political ups and downs...for the greater good...which, underneath it all, is what the Greely quote is really trying to say. We trust Lincoln, and admire him, for navigating the perils of history by the North Star of his ideals, however hypocritically and awkwardly at times.
John Kerry, of course, is no Lincoln. But the net effect of the attacks on him...and the fervent desire of George Bush I might add...is to paint the man as someone we cannot trust to lead our country.
That is not true. John Kerry, like Howard Dean or Wesley Clark or Dick Gephardt or John Edwards...or many, many others..would ably lead our nation. Just as we know that Al Gore, despite his Kerry-ness, would have served us well in place of George Bush.
That's something to keep in mind when GWB tries to spin and twist the man...
or, when that paragon of foolish consistency, Ralph Nader, tries to unfurl his hobgoblins upon us....