Michael Medved in Townhall refutes arguments that find resemblances between the career of President Lincoln the Republican and Candidate Obama the Democrat.  (Read the whole thing here.)

 Aside from the vast differences in the scope of their political involvement, Lincoln and Obama followed sharply divergent paths in pursuit of their private sector careers. Obama chose to devote himself principally to the non-profit world: spending years as a community organizer, lecturer at the University of Chicago, and civil rights lawyer. Lincoln, taking a break from full-time politics in 1849, aggressively built up his reputation and personal wealth as a business lawyer, particularly for railroads. He handled more than 5,000 cases, and became known as one of the top corporate attorneys in the state, if not the nation.

  Lincoln also compiled another experience that Obama never approached. In 1832, he responded to the governor’s call for volunteers and enlisted in the militia to battle a bloody Indian threat in the Black Hawk War. He quickly won election as captain of a company of volunteers, and years later said he “cherished that honor…more than nomination for the presidency.” Though he never experienced a major battle in his ninety days of service, Captain Lincoln learned the responsibilities of command and the need for quick decisions and adaptability in dangerous situations.

  Finally, Lincoln displayed admirable consistency in his approach to the issues of the day throughout his political and business career. He remained a proud American nationalist determined to strengthen the union, as well as a dedicated foe of the extension of slavery. He pursued these goals relentlessly on the state and national level and the same commitments, obviously, animated his eventful presidency.

  Obama’s career, on the other hand, shows no evidence of long-term engagement with particular issues or even broad aims. Hillary Clinton could boast of her leadership for more than sixteen years in efforts to reform the health insurance system but Obama (beyond eloquent backing for a deliberately vague concept of “racial justice”) can point to no lodestars that guided him in his wanderings and adventures, no national controversies that consistently engaged his attention. The backtracking, revisions and gauzy evasions characterizing the nineteen months of his presidential campaign look anything but Lincolnian in terms of predictability.  

  In short, the dramatic contrasts with Lincoln reveal far more about Obama than do the strained efforts to recast him in the sixteenth president’s image. At the time he announced his presidential candidacy, Obama remained so little known, so novel and exotic and unprecedented, that his campaign itself claimed to deliver some sort of radical change. Lincoln, on the other hand, had become such a familiar fixture (and fixer) in American politics by the time he ran for president that his campaign took on a reassuring, well-worn aura: they called him “Old Abe” despite his relatively youthful age of 51. No contemporaries questioned Lincoln’s candidacy on the basis of lack of experience while all impartial observers of the contemporary season note Obama’s absence of preparation for the world’s most challenging job.

  Today, of course, Old Abe’s immortal words and deeds remain so compelling and fresh that even 143 years after his death, they seem perpetually young. For Obama, on the other, the gimmicks and platitudes (“We are the ones we have been waiting for!”) that seemed so fresh and vital a year ago have already begun to wear out their welcome and seem increasingly stale, tarnished, tired – and old. 

 David Horowitz, champion of freedom, publishes the news that the son of a Hamas leader has defected and confirms what we know about the implacable hatred of  Palestinians and devout Muslims in general for the Jews and the Jewish state:

The son of the most popular Hamas leader on the West Bank has defected. In an interview he describes Palestinian society as one that sanctifies terror, that has genocide as its goal and derives its inspiration from the prophet Mohammed. 

Here is this defector’s warning: 

"You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Mohammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death." 

Interviewer: Is that the justification for the suicide attacks? 

"More than that. An entire society sanctifies death and the suicide terrorists. In Palestinian culture a suicide terrorist becomes a hero, a martyr. Sheikhs tell their students about the ‘heroism of the shaheeds[suicide bombers].’" 

Note that it is not a state but an entire society, and entire people that sanctifies exterminating Jews, and that the inspiration comes from their God. Find me the Muslim state or leader or organization who condemns Hamas or Hizabullah and their genocidal agendas or repudiates the saying of the prophet Mohammed that Muslims should kill Jews. Find me the progressive leftist who is uncomfortable supporting this call to the murder the Jews. We are facing an evil greater than Nazism and we are still referring to their religion as one "of peace" and describing their allies as "liberals" and "progressives." 

 

 Environmentalists are our second-worst enemy (militant Islam being the worst).

Walter Williams writes in Townhall:

For several decades, environmentalists have managed to get Congress to keep most of our oil resources off-limits to exploration and drilling. They’ve managed to have the Congress enact onerous regulations that have made refinery construction impossible. Similarly, they’ve used the courts and Congress to completely stymie the construction of nuclear power plants. As a result, energy prices are at historical highs and threaten our economy and national security.

Read how they are likely to make things worse for us all here. 

 Jeff Jacoby writes in The Boston Globe on Obama’s ‘Sermon to the Germans ‘:

It would take nearly a year and more than 277,000 flights. But in the end it was the Soviets who backed down. On May 12, 1949, the blockade ended – a triumph of American prowess and perseverance, and a momentous vindication for Truman.

But not once in his Berlin speech did Obama acknowledge Truman’s fortitude, or even mention his name. Nor did he mention the US Air Force, or the 31 American pilots who died during the airlift.

Indeed, Obama seemed to go out of his way not to say plainly that what saved Berlin in that dark time was America’s military might. Save for a solitary reference to "the first American plane," he never described one of the greatest American operations of the postwar period as an American operation at all. He spoke only of "the airlift," "the planes," "those pilots." Perhaps their American identity wasn’t something he cared to stress amid all his "people of the world" salutations and talk of "global citizenship."

"People of the world," Obama declaimed, "look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one." But the world didn’t stand as one during the Cold War; it was riven by an Iron Curtain. For more than four decades, America and the West confronted an implacable enemy on the other side of that divide. What finally defeated that enemy and ended the Cold War was not harmony and goodwill, but American strength and resolve.

 From Little Green Footballs, this example of Obama’s abysmal incomprehension of terrorism:

Eight days after the atrocities of September 11, 2001, Barack Obama wrote a piece for the Hyde Park Herald—and blamed the attacks on “a failure of empathy.”

Even as I hope for some measure of peace and comfort to the bereaved families, I must also hope that we as a nation draw some measure of wisdom from this tragedy. Certain immediate lessons are clear, and we must act upon those lessons decisively. We need to step up security at our airports. We must reexamine the effectiveness of our intelligence networks. And we must be resolute in identifying the perpetrators of these heinous acts and dismantling their organizations of destruction.

We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.

We will have to make sure, despite our rage, that any U.S. military action takes into account the lives of innocent civilians abroad. We will have to be unwavering in opposing bigotry or discrimination directed against neighbors and friends of Middle Eastern descent. Finally, we will have to devote far more attention to the monumental task of raising the hopes and prospects of embittered children across the globe—children not just in the Middle East, but also in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and within our own shores.

Obama’s comments display an appalling disconnect from reality.

Osama bin Laden came from one of the richest families in the world. None of the 9/11 attackers were poor; if anything, they could be considered “middle class.” Ringleader Mohammed Atta was educated as an architect in the West.

Almost everything Obama wrote in this article was proven wrong. And he gave absolutely no consideration at all to the ideology of radical Islam, which is much more to blame than any imaginary “poverty” or “lack of empathy.”

And now he’s within reach of the presidency.

 The President appoints the people he works with, who may be very bad for the country, but the President himself is not to be held responsible for any harm they do?

So thinks Bill Steigerwald, interviewed in Townhall:

Q: If he [Barack Obama] became president, would you lose any sleep at night?

A: I wouldn’t over him. I would worry about the people he would surround himself with. I have a very high opinion of him in most respects. I don’t think he’d do anything consciously to put the country in peril. But I would worry about who his secretary of state was, I’d worry about who his secretary of interior was, I’d worry that he’d be hostile to private enterprise and the appointments he’d make. But he himself doesn’t really bother me at all. 

An outstanding example of stupidity! 

Tony Blair, erstwhile Prime Minister of Britain, toils away like Sisyphus trying to get the Palestinians to build a viable economy.  He finds how they defeat all efforts and sabotage themselves. 

"It is important to emphasize to the outside world that we are trying to urge Israel to get fuel into Gaza, and then the extremists come and kill the people bringing the fuel in."  (Jerusalem Post, May 15, 2008)

He calls it "a crazy situation". 

The "extremists" he speaks of are, needless to say, Palestinians. He seems reluctant to  blame them directly so he blames an abstraction, a "situation".

Is there any precedent in all human history for a people under continual attack by an implacable enemy supplying  that enemy with fuel, food, and medical treatment at their own expense and at risk of their own lives;  being fiercely berated by other nations, who would never consider doing anything of the sort themselves, if they even pause in supplying them; and getting no credit whatsoever for their generosity and heroism? In fact, the Israelis get the opposite – recrimination, blame, threats to their very existence, and even from their "best friends" endless insistence that they  make ever more concessions while their enemies never make any at all. 

Blair, as the representative of the interfering "Quartet", is not "trying to urge Israel", he is nagging it without any difficulty, because the Israelis are doing what he is urging them to do anyway, of their own accord. The present Israeli leadership, the Olmert-Livni-Barak government,  is to be blamed, not for refraining from keeping their vicious enemy alive and well, but for doing so.  

The "Quartet" knows that it is pointless to urge the Palestinian leadership to do anything at all because they just will not do it. So they nag the all-too-pliant Israelis to concede and concede. 

May Israel, as soon as possible, have new leaders who understand that the first duty of a government is to protect the nation!