Heirs of Lincoln By: Mark W Adams

My new favorite blog, Queequeg the Harpooneer, delves into the history books to annihilate the sophistry, distortions and outright lies of Rep. Frank Gaffney (R-Deluded) who not only misquoted Abraham Lincoln on the floor of the House of Representatives, but insists that despite the mis-quote, he accurately described the Great Emancipator's sentiments.

Queequeg indeed harpoons Gaffney. In fact, to truly massacre the metaphor, Gaffney didn't just subject the Congressional Record to a little white lie, but made up a whale of a story when he said Lincoln accused Congressmen who criticize the war are "saboteurs” and should be "arrested, exiled, or hanged."

Thanks to the Melvillian mariner, we know exactly how Lincoln thought, and how he behaved when he felt -- as a Congressman -- that the Mexican-American war was started by President Polk under false pretenses, that Congress had the right and duty to end the war through the power of the purse, and that the administration had deceived the American public by insinuating that it be over in a matter of months, not years.

Lincoln did not mince words in personally attacking a President he believe unworthy of the title Commander and Chief

His mind, tasked beyond its power, is running hither and thither, like some tortured creature on a burning surface, finding no position on which it can settle down and be at ease.

Again, it is a singular omission in this message that it nowhere intimates when the President expects the the war to terminate. … As I have before said, he knows not where he is. He is a bewildered, confounded, and miserably perplexed man. God grant he may be able to show there is not something about his conscience more painful than all his mental perplexity!

Can you imagine the field day Honest Abe would have had with the current savant occupying the White House.

If you ever needed proof that there's no such thing as ghosts, it's that George Bush hasn't been seen running and screaming out into the Rose Garden, mumbling something about being haunted by a tall ghost in a stove-pipe hat.