No insult taken. You are hard to please, that's all ;-)

I have had the flu for a couple of days and fell way behind on the messages. Probably just as well. I think I'm going to skip them and start reading sometime this week. There's a C# project due and that's my focus.

>No insult intended to you - just a cranky old historian being cynical about comparisons that have that Sorensen feel to them.
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>And I agree about pulling for Obama to be a success. I said right after the election that my fervent hope is that 2012 will find me enthusiastically campaigning for his reelection. (and that Acorn and MoveOn will have declared him a traitor, Uncle Tom and tool of the right-wing hate machine <s> )
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>>You notice I didn't reply to this before ;-) You are an old pal so the insult is forgiven.
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>>No, of course Obama is no Lincoln -- yet -- other than the superficial parallels. IMO Lincoln and Washington stand alone among American presidents.
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>>I do believe, though, he has more potential than anyone elected in my lifetime. (Technically that would include Kennedy, but I was in first grade when he was shot). I am behind him all the way. We all should be -- these are terrible times.
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>>>I understand the point you are making is emotional rather than academic or intellectual, but for history's sake - comparisons of Obama and Lincoln - other than that they are lawyers elected from Illinois, good at making speeches - is rather silly. Unless, of course, you find comparisons of John Kennedy to King Arthur to be sound, in which case I guess it makes perfect sense <s>
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>>>>Yesterday was the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. Sometimes it feels like he's still here, doesn't it? The parallels between him and Barack Obama have been drawn enough times to probably be excessive. (My favorite: a New Yorker cover with Abe sitting in his memorial, a glow lighting the scene). But they do have a certain kinship. We will see if Obama lives up to the standard. I think he can if he gets over the need to be liked.
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>>>>One of the places I used to live was Cincinnati. I did a lot of traveling at the time so spent a lot of time at the airport. There was a framed copy of the Gettysburg Address on the wall and I stopped to read it every time. It's still powerful enough to give you a shiver. The ironic thing is it was no big deal at the time. He didn't think much of it himself, just another public appearance. According to historians there was little if any applause. It consisted of barely 300 words and was delivered in two minutes.
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>>>>Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
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>>>>Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
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>>>>But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.