A connection of Biblical proportions and a few presidential pet projects

A connection of Biblical proportions and a few presidential pet projects

EAGLE ARCHIVE By Kevin Dayhoff Posted on www.explorecarroll.com 1/09/09

I'm excited about the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. It is quite a testimony to our great country to have overcome the yoke of history to see an African-American take a turn in the Oval Office.

I'm particularly curious about the Bible that Mr. Obama has decided to use for his swearing-in ceremony.

According to the New York Times politics blog, The Caucus, Obama "will be sworn into office with the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used for his first inauguration in 1861."

The "move further extends the parallels that Mr. Obama has drawn with Lincoln since he announced his candidacy for president in February 2007 in Springfield, Ill."

I've been curious ever since I first became aware of Obama's preoccupation with President Abraham Lincoln. Of course, who would not want history to reflect upon one's term of office as well as that of President Lincoln?

However, students of presidential history are aware that of all presidents, Lincoln may have had some of the most difficult years in the White House.

His entire tenure was marked with incredible national challenge and personal tragedy. While Lincoln was in office, he may have had one of the worst approval ratings in history.

In David Elton Trueblood's masterful 1973 portrait of Lincoln, "Abraham Lincoln: Theologian of American Anguish," the low esteem in which he was judged was driven home immediately in chapter one:

"In an editorial The Baltimore Sun said, 'Had we any respect for Mr. Lincoln, official or personal, as a man, or as President-elect of the United States, his career and speeches on his way to the seat of government would have cruelly impaired it.'"

Carl Sandburg's encyclopedic history of President Lincoln calls to our attention that right before Lincoln's renomination for election for his second term, the New York Herald said he was "a joke incarnated, his election a very sorry joke, and the idea that such a man as he should be the President of such a country as this a very ridiculous joke."

Ay caramba. This is but a brief glimpse of the scorn heaped upon President Lincoln while he was in office.

Nevertheless, when history had time to reflect upon Lincoln's accomplishments, it was determined that he was one of our greatest presidents.

Go figure.

I hope that history shines as kindly on President Obama as it has on President Lincoln. I pray for his success.

Read the entire column here: A connection of Biblical proportions and a few presidential pet projects

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Kevin Dayhoff www.kevindayhoff.net http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/