Obama's Idea of "Common Purpose" and His Real Similarity To Abe Lincoln

I was struck by this graphic from the Wall Street Journal. The raw partisanship of it expresses so much.

No, I'm not surprised. Obama has been telling us that this is his modus operandi all along.

Of course, one could misinterpret Obama's candidacy announcement, and his talk of "common purpose".

In the face of a politics that's shut you out, that's told you to settle, that's divided us for too long, you believe we can be one people, reaching for what's possible, building that more perfect union....

It was here we learned to disagree without being disagreeable -- that it's possible to compromise so long as you know those principles that can never be compromised; and that so long as we're willing to listen to each other, we can assume the best in people instead of the worst....

This campaign has to be about reclaiming the meaning of citizenship, restoring our sense of common purpose, and realizing that few obstacles can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change.

By ourselves, this change will not happen. Divided, we are bound to fail.

But nobody should be fooled by these musings of togetherness and common purpose. In the same speech, Obama talked about Lincoln rallying people during the Civil War, in which the South hated "Northern aggression" enough to fight and die for it -- and Lincoln was unwavering in bringing those renegade states to heel.

In the face of tyranny, a band of patriots brought an Empire to its knees. In the face of secession, we unified a nation and set the captives free.

That's what Abraham Lincoln understood. He had his doubts. He had his defeats. He had his setbacks. But through his will and his words, he moved a nation and helped free a people....

As Lincoln organized the forces arrayed against slavery, he was heard to say: "Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought to battle through." That is our purpose here today.

That's why I'm in this race.

Not just to hold an office, but to gather with you to transform a nation.

Is it possible that he really believes his statement that this legislation "runs straight down the center of American political thought"? I don't think so. I think he can see the same graphic that I did at the top of this post, and come to the same conclusion.

This is Obama's model: He believes his purpose to be as great as Lincoln's, and he has waged a total war to impose it. That he divides his nation to do it is immaterial to him.

As long as I'm calling this fight a war, perhaps it won't seem too melodramatic to quote Lincoln against Obama.

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.

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.

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