Stop misnaming Republican Lincoln Day dinners

While viewing Steven Spielberg's compelling film, "Lincoln",  I couldn't avoid  thinking of the wide gulf between the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln's age and the impostors that have kidnapped the GOP of today. In the 1860s, Republicans were the good guys who supported their president's efforts to preserve the Union and free the slaves.  Lincoln had little hope that he would be reelected.   The Democrats were the bad guys clinging to slavery while engaged in a war of secession.

But in a dramatic reversal of roles,  the capture of the Republican Party by the Tea Partyers and their wealthy enablers has openly abused the Lincoln of wisdom, courage and patriotism (so sensitively  revealed by Daniel Day-Lewis).  There is still silly talk of secession within wacko groups.
And few will deny that racism kept Barack Obama's victory closer than it might have been.  For confirmation, simply check the figures of white-guy voters.

In February, or a little later,  Republicans will stage their traditional Lincoln Day Dinners, often showing preference for right-wing GOP speakers.   The trend by the Summit County GOP, for example,  has featured   such conservative icons  as Mike Huckabee (whom, it says in the invitation, is a "leading favorite to top"  the 2012 presidential ticket;  Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the party's very very conservative Study Committee;  and Rick Santorum, who needs no further introduction.  I have occasionally referred to these misnamed "Lincoln" events as identity  thefts.

 Although I don't expect happier results, may I suggest that now that they have lost the election, the  sponsors of these political stage shows find a new name for the dinners .  The  Norquist Day Dinner?  The LaPierre Day Dinner?  At least this would be a more honest approach and not slander Lincoln in his grave.

A letter to update Abe Lincoln

Open Letter to Abraham Lincoln:

Dear Mr. President:

It's been quite awhile since we've heard from you and I thought it might be a good time to bring you up to date on your party (Now old, but hardly grand these days.). Sadly, you would not recognize it, even though local pretenders still hold Lincoln Day dinners in a blatant annual exercise of identity theft. Whatever works for a night out, I guess.

Would it be too much to ask the Lincoln Day hosts what attributes are shared with you today? Yes, I guess it would.

You have been remembered throughout the years - even in a few textbooks in South Carolina and Georgia - as a great leader who kept the Union from dividing. How times have changed! A new generation of Republican governors is now plotting at several levels with plans that not only divide their constituents but divide us as a means of conquering the unions themselves. Rapacious members of your party, from Washington to state capitals, have created such havoc that the deep political wounds to the national interest will linger for many years to come.

I'm sure that you recognize the ninjas among us today with their talk of states rights, nullification and secession that is making the rounds. John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis would have felt quite at home with this gang, right?

But there's more to illustrate that despite your heroic efforts at governance in troubled times, the GOP is giving up its soul daily with scandalous theatrics that have nothing to do with how we live together as the Republic that you saved at your own peril. Yesterday, Rep. Peter King of New York staged a reprehensible McCarthy-like hearing in congress that singled out one group of Americans as the enemies of the people. Peter King, for God's sake, the devout supporter of the IRA across the ocean. The show trial against Muslims was such a pathetic political farce that it should have embarrassed every American while serving to dishonor all of the Tea Party- inspired robots on Capitol Hill.

There was nothing to be gained from it in meeting the challenges of modern terrorism. It was strictly for show, and nothing at all was learned from it. How shameful, don't you think, Mr. President?

You have also missed the clinical madness of several Republican presidential pretenders. Let me update you.

Mike Huckabee, a former preacher mining his audiences along the yellow brick road, has tried to associate President Obama with a Mau Mau childhood. And Crazy Guggenheim (aka Newt Gingrich) ludicrously explained his adulterous married life (on the Christian Broadcasting Network, no less) on forces that were well beyond his control. He said his powerful libido was partly driven by his deep passion for his country. He was standing in front of big American flag when he said it.

And up in Wisconsin, the billionaire-owned governor, Scott Walker, is proudly proclaiming a victory on the backs of public worker unions, fibbing that it was all about budget deficits. From all that I have read about you, Mr. President, I'm convinced you were a sensitive man, quite conscious of the welfare of other human beings. If you were here to see this fellow Walker, you might agree with me that he is a deadpan with motionless eyes who never makes eye contact with anybody else. It's creepy, don't you think?

Finally, since every Scatterbrained Republican on the TV news each night is considered to be presidential (dead) timber, there's a gal up in Minnesota, Rep. Michele Bachmann, who has lowered herself to be the queen of the congressional Tea Party Caucus. It is her right of passage to Fox News and other right-wing asylums(and you think you had it bad!) where she can pursue her certainty that President Obama is the capo di tutti capi of a gangster government.

I should leave you for now, Mr. President. It's too depressing to continue. I want to tell you however, that I will best serve your honorable leadership by staying away from those Lincoln Day Dinners. They have become nothing more than show trials, too. Meantime, you and I can both ask of these troubled troublemakers: Is that all you've got?

Respectfully,

Abe Zaidan , AKA Grumpy Abe

On Arshinkoff, Lincoln, socialism and whatever

REPUBLICANS DON'T have to look to Rep. John Boehner, RNC Chairman Michael Steele or Fox News to get their adrenalin flowing this election year. There's some basic fill-in-the-blank name-calling in the invitation sent out by the Summit County Republican Party for its $40-a-plate (and more) Lincoln Day dinner Saturday Night at Quaker Square. Prepared over County Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's signature, the currently fashionable plea to the party faithful is dredged up for the currently fashionable Pavlovian response - anger and more importantly, ready cash. Sigh. Times are tough all over.

In return it is promised to the dinner guests that U.S. Rep. Steve LaTourette, once slotted in the "moderate" column on Capitol Hill, will give a "lively first-hand report on what it's like to serve on the front lines in the fight against Nancy Pelosi and Obama's far-left socialist agenda."

Oh?

Actually, what it has been like on the front lines for all of the GOP congressmen has required very little effort. Just say No, or, if you prefer to be more macho, Hell, no. There has been little evidence that anybody on the Right has given the "far-left socialist agenda" much of its own blood, sweat and tears. Nice work, if you can get it. You even get some weekdays and most week-ends off, as well as great self-mandated health-care coverage.

None of this would have deserved any attention, except that it's just starting. And with the current state ticket bearing hyper-candidates who want to repeal the health care reform law, or eliminate the state income tax, the field of battle into November is looking more like Texas. I mean, will anybody take a breath long enough to find out what socialism is? Or was?

By the way, it wasn't mentioned in the letter, but Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House and Barack Obama is the President. Both, I believe, are Democrats. As George Gobel once said of World War II, it's been in all of the papers.

They're Lincoln Day dinners - but why?

AS AN ALWAYS confused political observer, I must again ask what I've asked in the past:

With the current round of Republican Lincoln Day dinners in play, is there anyone who can explain to me what Abraham Lincoln, a leader of exceptional courage and conscience, has to do with the current version of the Republican Party?

Or is this one more instance of identity theft?