Chief Justice Obama?

These John McCain ads that say that Hillary should feel insulted because she got 18,000,000 votes and was not nominated for Vice President ---

They make me smile.

Because by the same logic when Barack Obama gets a record setting 65,000,000 votes, and John McCain becomes President anyway, then McCain would be honor-bound to give Obama a prominent nomination in the new McCain Administration.

Like maybe a seat on the Supreme Court.

Looking Back On Some of the Things I Said

WHERE WERE ALL HIS FRIENDS?

I stumbled across this column by Daniel Henniger at the Wall Street Journal, who may be a world-famous somebody, but is new to me.

He makes a great point about Obama that I have not seen elsewhere.

When he was trying to defend himself against Reverend Wright, where were all his friends? After listing all the Oprahs, and Kennedys, and what-nots who endorsed Obama months ago, Mr. Henniger goes on to say

"Blogs and Web sites are overflowing with how this meltdown is largely of Barack Obama's own making. What difference does that make? He is not running for class president; he's running for the presidency of the United States. Even at the crudest level of political calculation and cowardice, there's a point in a presidential race when a candidate's supporters are all in. We passed that point weeks ago. It's him or her. ...

"As entities, the parties continue to recede. The Democratic superdelegates, created to represent the party's interests, look like deer frozen in the headlights of the two candidates' roaring tractor trailers.

"As for the supersized candidates, what strikes one most about them is their "aloneness." They look so solitary. Indeed, it is possible that the old and honorable notion of "standing with" a candidate like Obama simply didn't occur to his famous supporters this week. Everyone has become used to watching celebrity stars and athletes take it in the neck on their own. Even someone running for the nation's presidency looks like just another personal crack-up."

LOOKING BACK ON SOME OF THE THINGS I SAID

My March 24 post is linked here.

I said

"Over the next 6 weeks [the Clintons] will lie about anything and everything. They will continually misstate their own positions and rewrite history. There is nothing that they will not resort to.

"And they will make sure that you know it.

"Despite all that, Hillary will win every remaining primary, except perhaps North Carolina, where she will finish within the margin of error.

"This will prove that the worst run, most brazen campaign by a white person can beat the best-run campaign by a black person.

"Because the liberal party in America is not ready for a black President."

When I wrote that, I had forgotten that Oregon had a primary later this month, but otherwise I stand behind what I wrote.

In my March 3 post , I demonstrated how Hillary won in all the large states, (except Illinois) including Florida and Michigan, which, it is universally acknowledged, did not really have fair elections.

I take an aside to tell you that whenever someone in my Weight Watchers meeting complains that something is not fair, my Weight Watchers leader says "No one gets to use the word fair if they're over 8 years old."

Yesterday, we read that Hillary intends to go "nuclear" -- and to base all of her claims in front of the Democratic National Committee, and to the convention, and one assumes, eventually to the courts, on the assumption that her election in Michigan and Florida was indeed fair and proper.

So, as in all corrupt matters, the nomination will come down to what happens in Florida.

One post where I was wrong or at least where the fact have not beared me out yet is my April 22 post, where I said that despite what the Clintons said, the super-delegates did not have to choose the candidate with the best chance to beat McCain, they had to choose the candidate who was best for the party (whatever that means).

Howard Dean has stated pretty clearly that the only standard he is interested in is electability.

That is the best and clearest indication I have heard that Hillary may yet take this nomination.

****

I have said all along that Obama has no chance of becoming President (Absolute zero), and Hillary had a snowball's chance, since voters would turn to Hillary (but they would not turn to Obama) if McCain made enough mistakes.

All these trial balloons regarding Governor Jindal of Louisiana becoming the Republican Vice Presidential candidate would be a mistake of that nature.

How Do Democrats Get Out of Suicide Mode? (Another Installment of How To Choose Between Democratic Candidates You Know Are Going to Lose in November)

HILLARY

So, Hillary did not get her 10% victory in Pennsylvania. And her arguments to the superdelegates as to why they should nominate her are no better than the arguments of any other white Democrat who is eligible to run for President. I am forming an exploratory committee.

Hillary did not need to prove it to me, since I have been blogging on this point for months, but she proved it to everyone else -- that the country is not ready for a President who is a person of color.

However, in making her case, Hillary has basically made it impossible to get the support of any person who actually listens to her or her husband speak. I expect Lou Dobbs and Ann Coulter to endorse Hillary any day now.

In seeking her less than 10% victory (i.e, a victory not worth a piece of used toilet paper), Hillary made peace with Richard Scialfe, the man who financed the Paula Jones investigation that lead directly to the disclosure of Monica Lewinsky that lead directly to the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

To answer a long standing query of my friend, A Red Mind In A Blue State, Hillary has now apologized to the vast right wing conspiracy.

I haven't.

Let Hillary form her owned damned party. (Which I suspect she'll do anyway if she is not nominated.)

Of course, since Hillary is just selfish joke, and a third consecutive Republican term at this point is an existential threat to the Constitution, I will have no trouble pulling the lever for Hillary if she is the Democratic candidate.

OBAMA

I had been saying all along that the country was not ready for a President who is a person of color. Usually, I phrase it cynically. I say that a black candidate will find that no one will vote for him because the Republicans will make sure that the voting booths are broken.

However, the less cynical reason can be found in the issue of the Reverend Wright, and the Philadelphia speech, the best speech a Democrat has made since Kennedy's inaugural speech.

Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell can spend decade after decade spewing divisive lies about all sorts of topics they know less than nothing about. Every Republican office holder has a picture of themselves shaking hands with one of these so-called "Men of God" hanging proudly on their wall. Yet no one really believes that even President Bush takes what these men say seriously.

John McCain hopped on an airplane to beg for the endorsement of Reverend Hagee, the most anti-Catholic person in the Western Hemisphere. Yet we all laugh at McCain's opportunisic pandering of the Texas megachurch vote. No one thinks that Senator McCain hates Catholics. We just assume that poor John -- the man who will have his finger on the nuclear button next January 20 -- is having another senior moment.

Yet the liberal reaction to Reverend Wright and to the entire notion of what Black Ministers may say and do, shows a complete lack of understanding (myself included) of what actually goes on in the black community on a daily basis. Barack Obama was supposed to leave his church? And go where? Do we really know that Reverend Wright is a radical in the broad scheme of things?

Why do we assume that Barack Obama is the only person in the United States who pays 100% attention to everything his minister has to say?

Obama's speech in Philadelphia appears to have been everywhere admired as an act of political jujitsu, and nowhere taken to heart.

Liberal America is not going to elect a candidate from a world they know so little about, and seem so incapable of learning about.

Forget about what's going to happen when Obama has to face Conservative America as well.

RAW POLITICS --

It's OK for Hillary to channel Jesse Helms in her race against Obama.

Why isn't it OK for Obama to ask who is going to be holding Bill Clinton's DNA while he's in Washington? Does he get to do a nostalgia tour of the Oval Office on quiet summer weekends?

When is Obama finally going to mention to the family values crowd that the only one of the 3 remaining candidates with no history of marital problems is -- um --Barack Obama?

Oh, we can't mention that John McCain started attending to business with his present wife while he was still married to his previous wife?

When is Obama going to try to backtrack from two of the stupidest things he has said on the campaign trail?

a -- That Hillary Clinton was an important part of the Clinton Administration (she even had her own personal Secretary of State -- Sinbad), and

b -- That Indiana, birthplace of the KKK and Dan Quayle, will be a fair test of how the campaign of an African American is doing.

SUPERDELEGATES

Hillary has said it over and over. And I am convinced. This entire Democratic primary season is a waste of time. The super delegates can swing the election to either candidate.

However, neither Clinton nor Obama is electable now.

The super delegates can vote as a block to deadlock the convention and slowly squeeze the juice out of the Clinton and Obama campaigns.

People who make that argument, like me, tend to hope that Al Gore will emerge from a brokered convention as the Democratic candidate.

But why should I hate Al Gore so much? What did he ever do to me?

Al Gore spent his whole life looking for a movement he could lead. He has it now. Why make him risk it?

Why should Al Gore be hated by every non-white man and every woman of any race in America for stealing the nomination for President?

No. Right now I have some other Tennessee Democrat in mind.

Harold Ford, Jr.

I am sure there are better ideas out there. Let me know.

How To Choose Between Democratic Candidates You Know Are Going To Lose In November

(Third in an ongoing series)

(RE-EDITED ON TUESDAY, APRIL 22)

(PENNSYLVANIA PRIMARY EDITION

Since I am blogging, I have the following strongly held opinions about last week's debate, which I haven't seen.

a. I thought some of the questions were absurd, but Obama should have had an answer to all of them. They were none of them hard or unexpected questions.

b. What made them hard for Obama was that, as lame as the Gibson/ Stephanopolous questions were, they were asked out of a false assumption that both candidates seem to accept -- the Pennsylvania primary, specifically, and the general election, beyond, will be decided by so-called "Reagan Democrats."

c. Obama cannot possibly win an election on that basis, and he is unwise to even try. All the "Reagan Democrats" are Republicans. If they weren't, John Edwards would still be a factor in the primaries.

d. The election will be decided on what "new" voters decide to do. John McCain has recently said that the "new" voters will vote for him. Maybe he's right.


e. The other false assumption is that a key issue in the primary campaign is "electability". It isn't true that the superdelegates have to, or are even supposed to, choose a nominee on the basis of electability. Hillary Clinton likes to say that, but what else is she supposed to say? No. Superdelegates are supposed to act in the best interest of the Democratic Party. It may be in the best interest of the Democratic Party to nominate the candidate that will lead to the happiest and most motivated warriors, the ones most likely to give money and time to the Democratic Party going forward.

f. So, for example, a lot of young people will be happy to give their time and passion to elect Obama, even against long odds. A lot of middle age women feel likewise about Hillary. They do not care about their electability in a general election. They care about the progress being made by having the first African-American Presidential nominee, or the first woman Presidential nominee.

g. If Hillary does not win the Pennsylvania primary by more than 10 percent, then the numbers work in such a way that her arguments to superdelegates are no different from the arguments that John Edwards or you or I can make to the superdelegates.

h. The notion that this election was there for the Democrats to win, but for the constant bickering between Obama and Clinton is nonsense. There are no slam dunk wins when your candidate in 2008 is either a woman or an African-American.

i. Hillary can win against McCain if McCain makes enough missteps. He could select any one of the people who ran for the Republican nomination against him to be his Vice President. He could be caught with his pants down (hopefully just figuratively). Facts about his health could come out (he could have a real senior moment on the stump). Facts about his wife's finances could come out (McCain wants the Democratic candidate to accept public finance limits that McCain will gleefully get around by getting loans from his wife). Most likely, if McCain does all those things, Hillary will lose anyway. Even so, Hillary does have that snowball's chance.

j. It still says here that the country is not ready for an African American President. If it turns out the country is ready, we'll never know about it, because there will be no voting booths available for non-whites and other liberal riff-raff to vote from.

k. That was the entire point about the U.S. Attorney scandal.

l. You could still look at all of that and say that the future is with Obama, or with someone more like him. You could still say the right fight is more important than the wrong win.

m. Or you could say that given the stakes, winning is too important to give it up to the romantic vision of youth. A paralysing campaign will leave Hillary Clinton in no shape to govern. It is worth it if it means we can stop digging the hole that the Republicans are so intent on burying the United States in.

How To Choose Between Democratic Candidates You Know Are Going To Lose In November

(Part of an Ongoing Series)

FURTHER THAN PERHAPS I SHOULD BE COMFORTABLY THINKING.

"But I'm a superstitious man. And if some unlucky accident should befall him - If he should get shot in the head by a police officer, or if he should hang himself in his jail cell - or if he's struck by a bolt of lightning, then I'm going to blame some of the people in this room, and that I do not forgive."

Clearly, Hillary is hoping for some unlucky accident to befall Obama and rescue her campaign.

Therefore, if any of Don Corleone's worries should occur to Obama, Hillary should take some of the blame, not because she loves to shoot guns, but simply for the negative karmic energy she is intentionally creating.

In other words, just because she will be the last person standing in such an unfortunate circumstance, it will not mean she is entitled to the nomination. In fact, it should be a disqualifier -- an opportunity for the Democratic convention to seek a nominee who can truly beat McCain.

How To Choose between Democratic Candidates You Know Are Going to Lose in November

(Part of an ongoing series)

(Not an original thought, but I'll go on record)

Barack Obama said that certain people, who feel left behind in life, may find themselves "bitter". That statement may or may not contain a kernel of truth, but to the extent its true, there are, as Obama himself has admitted, about a million better ways to say it.

Hillary Clinton has responded in part, by handing out "I'm Not Bitter" buttons to her potential supporters in the middle of Pennsylvania.

It's hard to know what she is thinking. Obama misspoke, but Hillary panicked.

I've said all along that Hillary's base consisted of people who do not have the leisure time to read blogs all day. But maybe Hillary doesn't see it that way.

Maybe she should be thinking more about her responses to Obama, instead of tossing back shots on a Saturday night

(Have you noticed recently, in moments when she's tossing shots or talking about her background as a hunter, how much Hillary looks like the Big Dog's Mom? I'll try to post pictures, as soon as I can figure out how!)

Anyway Hillary's response indicates to me for the first time that, despite what I've said on a miillion different blogs, Obama has a puncher's chance of winning the Pennsylvania primary outright.

Because Hillary is running around looking for voters who would proudly wear an "I'm Not Bitter" button during this Presidential campaign. And there's a word for voters like that --

-- Republicans

In Defense of Hillary

My good friend A Red Mind In A Blue State entitles his blog post "HILLARY'S A LIIAARR."

Just got through listening to the Bush-Bash over on MSNBC -- and quite frankly Red Mind was nicer to Hillary than Chris, Keith, Dan Abrams and the rest of the Obama circle-jerkers were.

But the boys at MSNBC are missing the point. And Frank Rich, who all of us over on the left think is "spot on" is dead wrong when he says that the Obama-Clinton fracas leaves an opening for McCain. My friends at The New Republic, and Huffington Post, too.

***

Everything Red Mind says about Hillary in his post today is true.

I'll even go Red Mind one better.

Hillary certainly knew that there was video of the trip to Bosnia that would prove that she was a liar.

Bill Clinton certainly knew that he was questioning Obama's patriotism last Friday, when he said he was looking forward to a general election with two people who "love America".

While Hillary may be able to hide behind "misspeaking, " Bill Clinton has never and will never misspeak. He may lie, but he has never said a thing in public that he did not mean to say.

Likewise, James Carville expressly refused to back down from calling Bill Richardson a "Judas" for betraying the Clintons. Who's Jesus? Carville did not dispute the implication.

What's going on?

First of all, this fight has nothing to do with Red Mind or John McCain.

This is a family feud concerning whether the most liberal party is liberal enough to go into a Presidential election with an African-American candidate. Thereby, skipping past the step where we, like every other corrupt body politic, vote for the President's wife before we vote for the minority candidate.

The Senator and her husband are betting that in the end, we won't want to skip that step.

Over the next 6 weeks they will lie about anything and everything. They will continually misstate their own positions and rewrite history. There is nothing that they will not resort to.

And they will make sure that you know it.

Despite all that, Hillary will win every remaining primary, except perhaps North Carolina, where she will finish within the margin of error.

This will prove that the worst run, most brazen campaign by a white person can beat the best-run campaign by a black person.

Because the liberal party in America is not ready for a black President.

And then the Super-delegates will have a choice.

Do you nominate Obama -- a sure loser -- because even if his young voters go out to vote, they will find that the Republican U.S. Attorneys have left them with no polling places with which to vote, and no power with which to protest the result. Sure you will have brought the young Americans, and the new Americans into the Democratic Party. But to what end? All you've done is assured a McCain victory -- and guaranteeing that you wind up with 4 more years of the country on the same wreckless fruitless path to hell.

Or do you nominate Clinton -- who may lose the election, but knows how to steal it.

Her older white voters are going to goddamn well have polling places, and we're going to get in and out of them quickly too. 10 minutes tops. And the Big Dog and the boys know their way around the sharp corners and the sharp elbows.

If Jeb Bush winds up being the Republican candidate on election day, then maybe the Clintons will have met their evil match. But McCain? Please.

Nominate Clinton, and you probably still get McCain and the continuous corrosion of freedom and prosperity, but you have a puncher's chance that Bill can find a way through. You take the chance that maybe -- just maybe -- you wind up with President Clinton -- 4 years of deadlock --- in the hope that maybe, just maybe the country can catch its breath before it slouches towards the void.

Yes, I Voted For Hillary -- No, I Don't Regret It But ...

(A bit of a rant while waiting for the 3 a.m. phone call.)

While you might not like the way the Clintons campaign (and you may be right) and you might be horrified by the way they might govern in the 21st century (and you may be right), the reason Hillary is still upright and standing is not because of some supposed rhymes-with-witches' brew.

It is because she was and is the only candidate -- including Edwards (self-serving parting comments notwithstanding), including Kucinich (I'm in this for the free meals and to show off my young wife) -- who even pretends to know or care about the half of the country that does not have the leisure time to sit around and chit-chat on blogs all day.

****

Obama's empathy is completely intellectual, and not at all emotional.

I don't expect Obama to go back up to a diner in New Hampshire and start crying anytime soon.

However, if Obama wants to get rid of Hillary, and stay on the high road that he needs to stay on, Obama needs to talk a little more about what he learned about the community when he was a community organizer (which would be an appeal to poorer people), and a little less about what he learned about the organizing (which is an appeal to elites).

*****

I think it is completely fair for Hillary to throw the kitchen sink at Obama. I think the notion that Hillary is thinking up things to say about Obama that McCain hasn't already thought of is nonsense. The Senator is a bright and ruthless man. His staff is brighter still (although none of them have Senator McCain's personal flair for giving you a knee in the balls during choir practice, and then complaining to the congregation that you're suddenly singing off-key)

The converse is also true. It is completely fair for Obama to say those things about Hillary that McCain will say.

There are thought to be two exceptions to that rule --

1. McCain will assume that everything the Clintons say is a lie. Democratic voters won't buy that because we all think that the Clintons were set up in the 1990s, and

[RANT WITHIN RANT -- McCain may have a problem making that argument to "undecided" voters in the general election as well. McCain spent 8 years blindly supporting George Bush and Dick Cheney off any and every cliff. You can't do that and say you really care about integrity and honesty in government -- or any other human virtue for that matter. For every Marc Rich, there is a Lewis Libby. For every Lincoln Bedroom and Vincent Foster, there is a Blackwater, a KBR, a Halliburton, a Carlyle Group, a Dick Cheney hunting expedition. President Bush has already conceded (i) that he is taking donations for his Presidential library from non-Americans and (ii) he does not expect to disclose any of their names.]

2. McCain will say that Hillary's experience in the White House does not make her qualified to be commander-in-chief, or much of anything else for that matter. After all, you wouldn't let your brain surgeon's spouse perform the operation.

There is a consensus that Obama can not make that argument to Democrats. In fact, in the last debate, Obama expressly conceded Hillary's right to say she was part of Bill's administration. In Oprah's world, the couple does everything together all the time.

I think Obama has to reconsider that concession. In the real world, we vote for a President, and not for the royal family. George W- never made any claims that he was part of his father's Administration, although in fact, he was as much of a witness (and as little a participant) to that administration as Hillary was to her husband's administration.

Hillary is completely unqualified to be Commander-In-Chief. And McCain and Obama are similarly unqualified.

In fact the only people "qualified" to be Commander-In-Chief at the moment are the people who have already had the job.

If we need someone with 3 a.m. experience as badly as Hillary says we do, maybe Jimmy Carter or Bush 41 would like to take another crack at winning a second term.

***

Again and again, we get to the heart of the Obama problem. The same issues that Al Gore faced --

y -- Does he want to be President badly enough?

z -- If he doesn't want to roll around in the mud with the Clintons and the McCains of the world, what is his compensating strategy?

Doesn't 55 million buy anything anymore?

You Can't Spell Obama without a Big O (Part 1)

I have long said I support Hillary. I agree with her on the issues, and I particularly agree with her on issues where she differs with Obama. 5 in particular -- the War, Education, Health Care, the Environment and Social Security.

On two of those issues -- the Environment and Social Security, I think we will discover that Obama is not only to the right of Hillary Clinton, but to the right of John McCain.

On the environment, and global warming, and that set of issues, it is even possible that Obama is to the right of George W. Bush.

On education, I am married to a teacher, my cousins are teachers, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law are teachers, I have relatives who are school psychologists, and on and on -- so I have a vested interest in it. I will save for another day my substantive arguments about why I think the "blame the teachers union for our failures in education" argument is a lot of hooey.

Suffice it to say, that on Social Security and Education and Health Insurance, Obama has been spouting the conservative Republican line since he was an embryo.

On the War, I believe Hillary's Senate record has been right, and that Obama's has been wrong. It is true -- as Bubba tried to say, but surprisingly quite didn't know how to -- that both Senators have misstated their records throughout the campaign.

It doesn't matter.

Hillary will not take the political hit required to leave Iraq. She will be able to say that the circumstances in 2009 are different from the circumstances now. During a war, circumstances are changing all the time.

Obama has continually said that "I want us to be as careful getting out, as we were careless getting in." Not the sign of a man planning on leaving Iraq anytime soon. Plus, of course, Obama has not ruled out going into Pakistan. President Bush has made a point to mention that as well. Bush thinks that the voters will be scared of going into Pakistan to wipe out Al Qaeda. I'm not so sure.

The only person who can get us out of Iraq quickly is McCain. McCain can come into office and say that after reviewing the super-duper, top secret, for Dick Cheney's eyes only, intelligence, that we should leave immediately. I doubt he would do that, but he could. And the American people would say OK.

***

Similarly, McCain is the only one who could admit that if we are going to meet our national security obligations properly, and maintain any chance at all of government of the people, by the people and for the people, we need a draft.

The Rumsfeld alternative -- the one that says that we don't need a draft to fight a war -- we merely farm it all out to outside contractors -- means that the core function of government -- the decision to make war or peace -- is no longer in the hands of the people. It is in the hands of the outside contractors.

It is unclear to what extent tactics and military strategy are being dictated by the outside contractors. Maybe Henry Waxman -- who chairs the House committee with the appropriate oversight jurisdiction --- can stop bothering Roger Clemens for a day or two to look into it.

(I digress)

***

Why is Hillary in so much trouble?

Have the times changed on Hillary, and on a lot of us who support her?

A 60-year old Democratic Senator from a major state, a liberal in the current setting, but not really in the historical setting. A professional politician, in both the good and bad sense of the word. A person who has spent a career in public service, paid dues and to whom a lot of favors were owed.

Except that it is a man. Or it is a woman who isn't Hillary Clinton.

Can any person, with that sort of resume, wrest the Democratic nomination from Barack Obama in 2008?

More to follow.

Abraham Lincoln in New York City -- February 27, 1860

I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did. To do so, would be to discard all the lights of current experience - to reject all progress - all improvement. What I do say is, that if we would supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that even their great authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better than we. …

But he has no right to mislead others, who have less access to history, and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live" were of the same opinion - thus substituting falsehood and deception for truthful evidence and fair argument. If any man at this day sincerely believes "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live," used and applied principles, in other cases, which ought to have led them to understand that a proper division of local from federal authority or some part of the Constitution, forbids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the federal territories, he is right to say so. But he should, at the same time, brave the responsibility of declaring that, in his opinion, he understands their principles better than they did themselves; and especially should he not shirk that responsibility by asserting that they "understood the question just as well, and even better, than we do now." …

But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"…

These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly - done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated - we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas' new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us. …

*****

Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this? ...


If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively.

Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored - contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man - such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all true men do care - such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance - such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.

I wrote about this speech the night Barack Obama addressed the Democratic National Convention in 2004.

The entire Cooper Union speech is here .

Happy Birthday Abe!