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| Significance not immediately realized |
Yet there were those who disparaged Lincoln during his lifetime. He truly was a person who could never have comprehended the glory with which his image is now draped, based on anything that happened during his lifetime.
EARLIER
THIS MONTH, the Harrisburg Patriot-News newspaper in Pennsylvania went so far
as to apologize for what its predecessor (the Patriot & Union newspaper)
wrote about the speech when it occurred.
The
Patriot-News “regrets the error” that the Patriot & Union wrote that
Lincoln made “silly remarks” that were motivated by partisan politics.
“Our
predecessors, perhaps under the influence of partisanship, or of strong drink,
as was common in the profession at the time,” were mistaken in their coverage,
the 21st Century take of the Harrisburg-based newspaper wrote.
Now
I’m not about to say whether or not a reporter-type of the past was intoxicated
(anything’s possible). Nor am I going to rant about how this correction was
self-serving and did nothing more than to get a local paper some national
attention.
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| Reason for recent presidential criticism |
BUT
WHEN I learned of this editorial, it couldn’t help but make me think of our
modern-day situation. One in which our current president gets all the abuse the
ideologues think he is worthy of, and where anyone who doesn’t share in their
rancid rhetoric gets decried as somehow being “un-American.”
And
with the fact that the Affordable Care Act’s implementation isn’t going
smoothly, there are those who are willing to pile on to the president as well.
It
should not be any surprise that the president’s approval rating isn’t all that
high these days (40 percent approval rating, according to the Gallup
Organization, with 53 percent disapproving of Obama’s performance).
There’s
also a recent Gallup poll that says only 28 percent of people questioned think
Obama will be remembered as an “outstanding” or “above average” president, with
31 percent saying he’ll be “average” and 40 percent saying he’ll be remembered
as “below average/poor.” That's far from the worst -- both Presidents Bush are thought of less-highly, as are former presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon.
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| An impression from JFK's own time |
THAT
STUDY FOUND that John F. Kennedy (who this week will have been deceased for 50
years – too many morbid “anniversaries” in coming days) is regarded the
most-highly in history amongst recent presidents.
Although
I can recall many studies throughout the years that show Kennedy’s legacy
approval rating, so to speak, bouncing up-and-down depending on the circumstances.
My
point being that these things are flexible. They’re alterable. Nothing is
carved in stone.
I
wonder what it will be like when much of the rhetoric we hear and read about
Obama these days will sound ridiculously dated, or just ridiculous.
WE
PROBABLY SHOULD remember that much of the trash-talk Lincoln faced was just as
over-the-top as what Obama gets these days – particularly from the ranks of
trash-talk radio that seeks to make money by appealing to their Tea Party-type
listeners.
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| Apology owed, although not likely to ever come |
It
has been eight years since I visited the Lincoln Presidential Library and
Museum in Springfield, Ill., and my most vivid memory was of the exhibit devoted
to the nasty rhetoric. Literally getting to read the libelous stories and
commentary and hearing some of the slurs read aloud.
There
are a lot more publications than the Patriot-News that probably owe Lincoln’s
legacy an apology. How many publications are going to have their future
incarnations issuing apologies to Obama (probably long after he’s departed this
Earth) for the things they wrote, or allowed to be said without challenging
them?
Will
they be able to get away with just an apology – that will come across as
self-serving in the future as the one Lincoln got earlier this month?
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