Barack Hussein Obama II is no Abraham Lincoln

Obviously the liberal talking points regarding the wish for Barrack Hussein Obama II to be compared to Abraham Lincoln were distributed this past week to everyone in the willing world media. And, just as most of these intellectual wannabes relied on Cliff Notes and plagiarism to get through college (for those that actually attended college), they on this talking point like a "white on rice" and are trying their level best to ensure that most Americans are at least marginally confused (not hard to do) about who is actually being inaugurated on January 20, 2009 - Abraham Lincoln or Barrack Hussein Obama II.

Not having any control over the world media's latest attempt at once again proving their irrelevance in regards to staging an intellectual discussion, nor even really wanting to stop the ongoing source of enormous entertainment at at time when we could all use some comic relief, I have no other outlet than to post my disdain for this ridiculous and insulting comparison and point out the even though I obviously didn't know Abraham Lincoln, I have ready about him extensively, and have some to the conclusion, as have many others, that, "Barrack Hussein Obama II is no Abraham Lincoln." And, no amount of "repeating the big lie" by the world media is going to make it so.

And, as a way of at least providing a "fair and balanced" look at this issue, I am including an excellent overview of the ranting's of the Obama supporters as well as some interesting opinions as they were reviewed in an article by Hans Nichols on the Bloomberg Website on January 17, 2009, titled, "Obama Inaugural Strains Lincoln Comparisons While Inviting Them". Please note that I don't necessarily agree with much of what is said in this piece. However, it does a great job of framing the varied aspects of the claims and provides a good foundation for any knowledgeable scholar to form their own opinion. The full text of Hans' article are as follows:

Barack Obama’s inauguration is dedicated to the proposition that all presidencies are not created equal.

In ways big and small, Obama is trying to summon Abraham Lincoln’s spirit to the proceedings.

Obama will roll into Washington’s Union Station today by train, duplicating part of Lincoln’s railroad journey from Illinois for his swearing in. The president-elect is to appear at a concert tomorrow at the Lincoln Memorial, and will take the oath of office Tuesday with one hand on the Bible that Lincoln used in 1861. Inaugural planners drew so many ties between the Illinois legislators-turned-presidents that Obama may risk straining the comparison.

“Everyone wants to be Lincoln,” says Harold Holzer, who has written or edited more than 20 books on Lincoln and the Civil War. “Is Obama overdoing it? Maybe.”

For most of the 144 years since Lincoln’s death, presidents of all political persuasions have tried to enlist Lincoln’s reputation for honesty and courage in support of their own ambitions. Leaders “see in Lincoln’s suffering validation of the criticism they have to endure,” Holzer says.

Still, the election of America’s first black president, from the same state as the leader who issued the Emancipation Proclamation, gives Obama a stronger claim than most predecessors to Lincoln’s legacy, says Tom Schwartz, a historian at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois.

‘Clear Thread’

There’s a “very clear thread that connects the two,” says Schwartz, who describes Obama’s history-making election as “a kind of bookend to Lincoln’s legacy in the Civil War.”

Obama will be sworn in at noon on Jan. 20, just three weeks before the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth on Feb. 12, 1809, an anniversary to be accompanied by museum exhibits, ceremonies, and new books planned long before Obama’s victory. “There’s a serendipity to it,” Schwartz says.

“Both of them were born to modest circumstances,” says former Democratic New York Governor Mario Cuomo, an amateur Lincoln historian. “Both of them wrote well, both of them spoke well, and neither of them is an ideologue.”

Obama’s childhood, as the son of a single mother who sometimes relied on food stamps, is a modern analogue of Lincoln’s log-cabin upbringing. Both presidents studied law and bested better-known U.S. senators from New York for their parties’ presidential nominations.

Strength of Oratory

Each man rocketed from relative obscurity on the strength of oratory, in Obama’s 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address and Lincoln’s 1860 anti-slavery speech at New York’s Cooper Union.

A week after moving his family to temporary quarters in a Washington hotel, Obama took his wife and two daughters for a moon-bathed visit to the Lincoln Memorial, where a 19-foot-tall statue of the first Republican president looks down on the National Mall where throngs of visitors will watch Obama’s inaugural address.

The four-day inauguration schedule starts this morning in Philadelphia, where Obama boards a train to trace the last segments of Lincoln’s route, stopping in Wilmington, Delaware, to pick up Vice President-elect Joe Biden.

Gilding a Lily

“The inaugural train may turn out to be one gilding of the lily,” Holzer says, noting that the Obamas came to the capital two weeks ago. “Backtracking north to come south may be bit of an artifice.” Obama also plans a public event in Baltimore, which Lincoln slipped through in disguise, under cover of darkness, after learning about an assassination plot there.

The 44th president will be sworn in with an 1853 printing of the Bible, bound in burgundy velvet, purchased for Lincoln’s first inauguration in 1861. After his speech, Obama will join members of Congress in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall for lunch, served on china that duplicates the dishware first lady Mary Todd Lincoln picked for the White House.

Obama is following a well-worn precedent in comparing himself to Lincoln. Earlier this week, at his final news conference, departing President George W. Bush said his most- vocal critics remind him of fierce opposition that Lincoln endured: “There’s some pretty harsh discord when it came to the 16th president, just like there’s been harsh discord for the 43rd president.”

Obama announced his candidacy on the steps of old state capitol building in Springfield, noting that he and Lincoln both served in the state legislature. In May, as he was pulling away from New York Senator Hillary Clinton in the fight for the Democratic nomination, Obama suggested that -- like Lincoln --he would consider stocking his Cabinet with former rivals.

‘One of My Heroes’

“I’m a practical-minded guy,” he said. “And you know one of my heroes is Abraham Lincoln.”

Obama did nominate Clinton for secretary of state, the same post Lincoln assigned to William Seward, a New York senator who was considered a frontrunner for the 1860 Republican nomination. For vice president, Obama tapped Biden, a Delaware senator and former presidential candidate.

Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar at the capital’s George Washington University, says that overplaying the Lincoln connections may raise false expectations. “At this point I would pull back a little,” Hess says.

Some efforts to link Obama and Lincoln may now be out of Obama’s control. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies picked “A New Birth of Freedom” as the official inauguration theme, lifting a phrase from the Gettysburg Address. For the post-inauguration lunch, the committee is serving dishes that Lincoln is believed to have liked, including a seafood stew, duck and pheasant.

“Some of his supporters go much too far,” says Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz. “Basically, a lot of it is twaddle, but it’s harmless twaddle.

“To the extent that he’s emulating any president, Lincoln is about as good as it’s going to get,” Wilentz says. “If he was trying to emulate Calvin Coolidge, that would be a problem.”

Is Barack Hussein Obama II a US Citizen or Not?

As we approach the historic inauguration of the second coming of Lincoln and Gandhi and the dawn of a new era of hope and prosperity in the World, the questions and associated law suites of whether or not President elect Barrack Hussein Obama II is a natural born United States Citizen or not continue to gain momentum.

As this question begins to rise up the conspiracy rankings of whether or not there are UFO's and an Area 51; there were two (2) gunman that shot President Kennedy; and, Elvis is still alive, it is beyond my ability to comprehend why the "Obama team", with all of its talents for public relations and controlling the media, have not silenced this "story" with irrefutable proof that the Lord and Savior is in fact a natural born US Citizen. With access to the resources of the world, I can't image that it would be that hard for them to do. And then, they could move on to more important issues such as addressing climate change, formulating grass routes socialism disguised as community volunteer events and laying the foundation for the new American fascism by dismantling term limits and enabling the President of the Unites States to stay in office indefinitely. Could it be that this is story is true?

An excellent overview of the current status of this "issues" can be found in an article by Bob Unruh, posted on January 18, 2009 on the WorldNetDaily website, title, "Eligibility battle rages on 3 fronts - Court, Congress and college challenged on constitutionality". The full text of Bob's post is as follows:

Officials at Occidental College in Los Angeles, Calif., have been served with a demand to produce records concerning Barack Obama's attendance there during the 1980s because they could document whether he was attending as a foreign national – in one of three fronts now established by those contesting the president-elect's constitutional eligibility for the Oval Office.

The Supreme Court and Congress also both are being challenged to address the worries that Obama doesn't meet the requirements of the U.S. Constitution that the president be a "natural born" citizen.

WND has reported on a long list of legal cases raising questions over the issue, and several of those have reached the U.S. Supreme Court already. Justices have so far declined to give any of the cases full hearings on their merits, but another conference remains on the Supreme Court docket for Jan. 23 on the issue.

"If Obama is sworn in as president, we will file a Petition for Writ of 'Quo Warranto,' a case that will challenge Obama as being ineligible to serve as president because he is 'not qualified,'" said Philip J. Berg, a lawyer who has brought several cases to court. Berg, whose information is on his ObamaCrimes.com website, indicated the issue isn't going away.

Orly Taitz, a California lawyer whose dispute remains pending before the high court, agreed, noting that one of the hearings already is scheduled for the days following Obama's inaugural on Tuesday.

Taitz said her arguments rest on precedents from both the California Supreme Court, which years ago removed a candidate for president from the ballot because he was only 34, and the U.S. Supreme Court's affirmation of that ruling. The Constitution requires a president to be 35.

In one of the latest developments, Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation petitioned Occidental College with a demand for its records concerning Obama.

"The gravamen of the petition is the question as to whether United States Senator Barack Hussein Obama, of Illinois, is eligible to serve as president of the United States pursuant to the requirements for that office in the Untied States Constitution," he wrote. "The records sought may provide documentary evidence, and/or admissions by said defendant, as to said eligibility or lack thereof."

Where's the proof Barack Obama was born in the U.S. or that he fulfills the "natural-born American" clause in the Constitution? If you still want to see it, join more than 200,000 others and sign the petition demanding proof of eligibility now!

College officials confirmed they had gotten the notice, but had not decided how to respond, a decision that may be removed from their hands because of the team of lawyers Obama has engaged to prevent such inquiries into his past.

"Senator Obama has filed responsive pleadings in this matter and is represented by counsel, and has the opportunity to object to this production, should he so desire," the affidavit from Kreep said.

"Good cause exists for this production under Subpoena Duces Tecum, in that testimony will be elicited from the original records obtained through the witness named herein, and there is no other process available to secure said testimony," he wrote.

The lawsuits allege in various ways Obama does not meet the "natural born citizen" clause of the U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, which reads, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

Some allege his birth took place in Kenya, and his mother was a minor at the time of his birth – too young to confer American citizenship. They argue Obama's father, Barack Obama Sr., was a Kenyan citizen subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time and would have handed down British citizenship.

There also are questions raised about Obama's move to Indonesia when he was a child and his attendance at school there when only Indonesian citizens were allowed and his travel to Pakistan in the '80s when such travel was forbidden to American citizens.

The lawsuit on which USJF is working was filed on behalf of presidential candidate Alan Keyes and others, and describes the potential damage an ineligible president could create.

"Should Senator Obama be discovered, after he takes office, to be ineligible for the Office of President of the United States of America and, thereby, his election declared void," argues a case brought on behalf of Ambassador Alan Keyes, also a presidential candidate. "Americans will suffer irreparable harm in that (a) usurper will be sitting as the President of the United States, and none of the treaties, laws, or executive orders signed by him will be valid or legal."

On his ObamaCrimes.com website, Berg sent his message directly to the U.S. Congress.

He's asking in an open letter to members of Congress for congressional hearings "to determine the truth regarding qualifications of Barry Soetoro, otherwise known as Barack Hussein Obama…"

"As you must be aware, there are many unresolved questions concerning Soetoro/Obama's status or lack thereof, as a 'natural born' American citizen, as required by 'our' U.S. Constitution," he wrote.

He noted the failure by Congress to challenge Obama's eligibility during the process through which the Electoral College vote was adopted.

"Because of your failure to 'question' the eligibility of Soetoro/Obama, we are headed for a 'Constitutional Crisis.' Yes, a 'Constitutional Crisis' because Soetoro/Obama who appears not to be a 'natural born' U.S. citizen is 'ineligible' under 'our' U.S. Constitution to serve as president," he said.

He cited the document published on the Internet by Obama's campaign, the "Certification of Live Birth," as no more than an effort to "quash" questions. Other critics have noted the state of Hawaii granted such certifications to parents of children not born in the state at the time.

"Without truthful information concerning Soetoro/Obama's eligibility to serve as President, 'We the People' have been injured," he wrote.

Taitz took a different route, submitting to the U.S. Supreme Court a motion "to declare that by default, the president elect respondent Barack Obama has failed to qualify under [the] U.S. Constitution."

"Does the burden of proof lie with the petitioner to prove standing and evidence lack of qualification by a candidate/president elect, where election officers rely on a candidate's declaration? OR does the [Constitution] place the burden of proof on the president-elect to provide objective government certified witnessed proofs, with election officers under oath to challenge, examine and declare that the president elect has or has not qualified, enforceable by petition for redress of grievances?"

Not only has the respondent, Obama, "failed to submit proofs … for any of the qualifications," she wrote. "Respondent has hindered discovery."

She argued that having Obama declared ineligible until he would provide documentation would "cause far less political trauma" than allowing his inauguration because it would uphold the constitution.

She also raised the issue of the concealment of Obama's records.

"Obama has refused to submit certified copies of any of his original long form 'vault' birth certificates in Hawaii to any public officer or to any Petitioner. Relevant records in Kenya have also been officially restricted," she said. "Obama has sealed all educational records which might reveal his stated citizenship. These include Punahou High School, Occidental College, Columbia University, and Harvard Law School."

Her letter included a warning, too.

"Thirty-three democracies descended into tyranny during the 20th century by failing to uphold constitutional protections," she said. "Petitioner humbly prays this Court evaluate the Petitioner's case in context of how best to enforce restrictive qualifications for president to preserve the Constitution and Republic from tyranny."

WND twice has organized opportunities for readers to send FedEx letters to the Supreme Court, asking for consideration of the issue on its merits.

The most recent campaign generated 12,096 messages, following the earlier effort that resulted in 60,128 letters.

Obama has claimed in his autobiography and elsewhere that he was born in Hawaii in 1961 to parents Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Kenyan national, and Stanley Ann Dunham, a minor. But details about which hospital handled the birth and other details provided on the complete birth certificate have been withheld by Obama despite lawsuits and public demands for release.

WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi went to both Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama's birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.

The biggest question was why, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists as his campaign has stated, Obama hasn't simply ordered it made available to settle the rumors.

The governor's office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin: Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?

Obama Cabinet Nothing more than Clinton Retreads

As President elect Barack Hussein Obama II announces his cabinet nominations to implement his self proclaimed new era of change in the world, it is obvious that these nominations are nothing more than retreads from the Clinton administration or fiercely partisan liberals.

An overview of the announced nominations appeared on November 24, 2008 on the "Letter from the Capital" Blog.

Treasury. Timothy Geithner is, like his new boss-to-be, a hotshot at age 47. He is highly regarded on Wall Street, if unknown to Main Street. His government experience includes a stints at Treasury in three administrations, for five Treasury Secretaries. He also worked at the International Monetary Fund. As New York Federal Reserve chief, he has been in the thick of the rescue efforts.

State. Hillary Clinton is the third iconic choice for the post within this decade. Icon of State just might be a better label. Her one shortcoming is that she may not have the managerial ability to keep State's bureaucracy in line; we shall, in the event, see. But she brings many assets to the position: As "Ms. 3 AM Phone Call" Hill in effect tells the world that she is behind the new president. She has enormous Washington savvy and international star power. Her husband will have to behave--at least, to the extent of avoiding serious headlines. The GOP would be wise to climb aboard, as Hill's move out of the Senate will lead to a less powerful successor there, and take her out of the health care debate, a cause she has wanted a second chance at for 15 years. Ted Kennedy's refusal to step aside for her on this issue may have sealed her decision to leave. Attacking Hill will only undo some of the good Sarah Palin's VP nomination did for the perception of the GOP among women. By the way, does anyone think that Joe Biden, selected as VP nominee for his foreign policy smarts, is going to step between Hillary and President Obama?

Attorney-General. Eric Holder is a partisan player, whose hand in the pardons of Puerto Rican FALN terrorists and of fugitive financier Marc Rich, plus his helping bypass an inconvenient judge to enable Janet Reno's goons to kidnap Elian Gonzalez at gunpoint in 2000 (photo here) & send him to his hitherto absent father, toadying to Fidel Castro (thus sealing Al Gore's fate in Florida) make him a poor candidate. But taking after him would be a huge error, for what would likely be the Lani Guinier Effect: as with Guinier, Holder would likely be followed by an even worse pick--quite possibly, the person who succeeded Guinier, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. Also, attacking a prominent African-American nominee at the start of the first African-American presidency would be a cinch to backfire. Note, however, Holder's 2002 statement to CNN that presents a refreshingly realistic view of the limits of using Geneva Convention rules to govern treatment of unlawful combatants held in detention. Perhaps Holder can persuade his new boss on this.

Homeland Security. Janet Napolitano brings experience as a successful state governor (Arizona) whose immigration policy has the support of her state's constituency, plus having been a U.S. Attorney. She has never held a Washington post, but no doubt has the savvy to catch on quickly. She is surely no Rudy Guiliani, but is probably the best the GOP can expect from this administration.

Health & Human Services. Tom Daschle is a hard-nosed partisan who fought the GOP tooth & nail as Senate Majority Leader & then Minority Leader during the first Bush II term. He will do less damage at HHS then he would have done in the White House as chief of staff. HHS has a tendency, like quicksand, to swallow its nominal chiefs.

Commerce. Bill Richardson brings extensive government experience, having held the Secretary of Energy and the UN Ambassador portfolios during the Clinton years, and pays off Hispanic voters for their support. Commerce usually is a backwater, a place often given to cronies. The last superstar Commerce Secretary was the late Malcolm Baldrige, who held the post for seven years during Reagan's terms, until he was killed in a rodeo accident. Baldrige was a real dynamo. Richardson will be pushing exports in an administration that leans towards protectionism. Why BR would give up the governorship of New Mexico for this is a mystery, from a standpoint of his career, so I will presume he was asked and decided "yes" for reasons of patriotism, seeing his country in trouble.

Non-Cabinet Key Posts. White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has Daschle's sharp political elbows, but got 60 or so Democrats--mostly moderate and some even conservative--elected in the past two cycles, giving his party strong Democratic control. Gregory Craig, slated for White House counsel, is a top Beltway lawyer, best known for playing key roles in fending off the conviction of Bil Clinton in his 1999 Senate trial, and also for pushing for the return of Elian Gonzalez and opening up to Fidel Castro. Lawrence Summers will head the National Economic Council, a Clinton advisory group established to bring policy focus within the White House--while the Council of Economic Advisers offers economic analysis, less related to day by day policy. Summers, a former Treasury Secretary, is brilliant and justly highly respected.