quote:Originally posted by ricree101: It's impossible to say for sure, but the magnitude of the crisis Lincoln faced isn't really all that comparable to that which Bush faced.
You're not in a position to determine that, especially when talking about a retrospective vantage point a hundred years from now. There could be a global event tomorrow that would redefine every action Bush took in the last 8 years, from the perspective of somebody a century from now. I'm sure Buchanan's America wasn't aware of the scope of the calamity he preceded, nor were they aware just 8 months after his Presidency that he had made things much, much worse. Those terrible things hadn't happened yet, so none of was likely to seem all that real. Now we know what a fool he was in that situation, and what a terrible job he did.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: 'Wishy washily'? Aside from being a funny phrase to say, I disagree with that characterization. The 'wishy-washily' part came later, when it became clear (to the public, that is) just how much misleading the Executive had done. I would characterize their authorization as 'negligently', not 'wishy washy'.
And in any event, Pres. Bush did have their consent. Might have beens or even very-likelies don't add up to dictatorships.
As for Lincoln, there was also a war for the nation's survival on. I think in such situations the judgment of history, so far removed, ought to be on what his intentions and his outcomes were. While he did abuse some powers, I don't think anyone can claim his ends were dictatorial, nor were even his means except when absolutely necessary to preserve the Union in the midst of a civil war.
The frightening thing there, for me anyway, is that there was a window there when a dictatorship would probably have been fairly easy to establish. Lincoln violated the constitution a number of times in ways that we, with the benefit of hindsight, are perfectly okay with because we have deemed them necessary departures from strict observance of the law for a specified desired outcome. But the fact that things ended up okay was due wholly to Lincoln being of unusually high moral character. He on one hand gathered immense powers to himself that in at least one case that comes to mind, were specifically refuted by the Constitution, and on the other, used them like a scalpel to fight the war, and then set them all aside. He was even willing to lose an election in order to achieve his aims. But absent his choice to give up all the powers he'd so easily gathered to himself, I think it would have been extremely difficult to pry them away. Lincoln was extremely popular with the military, at a time when the military was unprecedentedly large (so popular in fact that he beat an extremely popular general in the election), to say nothing of the fact that Congress was rubber stamping nearly everything he did, and SCOTUS was a blip on the map as far as authority goes.
That was a dangerous moment in our history, and we got lucky that the right guy at the right time happened to be there, but that doesn't change the fact that in many ways, Lincoln was a virtual dictator for a time during his presidency. The difference between him and dictators today is that he was so good at controlling the public mood, and gauging the public mood, that he didn't have to resort to shutting down newspapers (well, not much anyway) and calling off elections to get what he wanted. But I wonder about what a lesser man might have done.
Keep in mind, I'm not bashing Lincoln. His was my favorite presidency (though he's not necessarily my favorite president).
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