Lincoln

If you've followed my blog at all you've seen some posts on my interest (Mrs Mike would say obsession?) with all things about the Civil War.  I've studied that era pretty extensively, read voraciously, visited many battlefields and museums, and just generally can't get enough of trying to figure it out.

So it should come as no surprise that we went to see the new movie "Lincoln" tonight.  Now I'm not one to gush over movies, especially with all the shenanigans of the Hollywood crowd in recent years.  Most of them really piss me off.  But that's a whole other blog topic.  I don't very often pay to go to movies.  I'm usually pretty happy to wait until they come out on pay-per-view so I can get some small bit of satisfaction by not giving them full payment.  But, not on point.

The point is that I thought this was a very well done movie.  I thought Speilberg nailed it.  The story was compelling.  You could just feel the texture of the movie.  The characters were very well developed.  Lincoln, Seward, Grant, Stevens, and a host of others were totally believable.  The torment that Lincoln felt was palpable.  As I have said, I'm a Civil War junkie, but I was kept spellbound the whole movie.

Going in I wondered what aspect of Lincoln's presidency they would focus on.  The fight to get the 13th Amendment passed was a perfect story for this movie.  It was supremely difficult and contentious.  The fight went down to the wire.  It took cajoling, convincing, building alliances, pandering, and even some bribing.  Both sides were dug in.  Both sides were passionate about their beliefs.  Both sides predicted doom if the other side won.  Lincoln had to be dedicated, persuasive, knowledgable, compromising, and self-assured of the rightness of his mission.  Even though we all know how it turns out, it was riveting.

I came away with three overwhelming thoughts.  First, those who say that what we're experiencing today is the worst partisanship in our history don't know history.  That those who say we are at a cataclismic point and that the republic is in danger don't know history.  Second, that the 24-hour media cycle exacerbates everything we see in politics today.  Nothing new there, but it keeps getting more distressing.  Third, that either Obama doesn't have the ability or the desire to exercise the kind of leadership needed in a President to get difficult things done.  He is good at rhertoric, but short on action.  I kept thinking that if we had the kind of President who would exercise the kind of Presidential leadership displayed in the movie, we wouldn't be in the difficult position we find ourselves as a nation.  Of course, it takes two to tango.  The Congressional leadership certainly hasn't been world class.  I think Pelosi, Boehner, Reid, McConnell, et. al. could exercise a lot more leadership when it comes to solving our problems.  But most of it is on the President.  He has the bully pulpit.  He is the most powerful leader in the world.  A good and accepted definition of leadership is getting people to do things that they otherwise wouldn't want to do.  I don't see any of that in Obama...