Extremely long, a must read. MC

"This account appears in many different forms. It is consistent with--or can be made to be consistent with--a particular view of American political history that emerged out of the radicalism of the 1960s and is widely held today. On this view, elected officials, even the most worthy, are at best cautious and unreliable figures who must be forced by unruly events--and by outsiders--into making major reforms. "

".......The implication of this anti-political or meta-political narrative is that the outsiders are the truly admirable figures, whereas presidents are merely the outsiders' lesser, reluctant instruments."

"The intellectuals' rapture over Obama, their eagerness to align him with their beatified Lincoln, has grown out of a deep hunger for a liberal savior, the likes of which the nation has not seen since the death of Robert Kennedy in 1968. The eight years of George W. Bush's presidency only deepened the hunger; and last year it overtook a new generation of voters as well who, though born long after 1968, yearned for smart, articulate, principled liberal leadership."


The New Republic

Who Lincoln Was
by Sean Wilentz
And was not: the images and illusions of this momentous bicentennial year.

1.
The past three generations of historians have agreed that Abraham Lincoln was probably the best president in American history and that Franklin Pierce was one of the worst. Pierce, a New Hampshire Democrat, gave political cover to fractious slaveholders and their violent supporters in the 1850s. His softness on the slavery issue encouraged the southern truculence that later led to secession and the formation of the Confederacy. Apart from their closeness in age--the bicentennial of Pierce's birth passed virtually unnoticed four and a half years ago--about the only things that he and Lincoln had in common were their preoccupation with politics and their success in reaching the White House.

Continued:
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=2634954a-b287-480e-9fbd-8a4663174031