"You, sir, are no Abe Lincoln" but Bush IS a lot like Andrew Johnson

You, sir, are no Abe Lincoln
Bush may wish he measured up to the Great Emancipator. But he does stack up quite nicely against Andrew Johnson.
By Garrett Epps

Aug. 23, 2006 | News reports about President Bush's tragically short and recently concluded Crawford vacation were dominated by the bizarre information that the president's après-brush-clearing reading included "The Stranger" by Albert Camus. But lost amid the resulting snark was another item on the president's alleged summer reading list: "Lincoln" by Richard J. Carwardine. It would be pleasant to believe that Bush was learning about this great leader in an attempt to upgrade his own modest executive skills. It seems more likely, however, that Bush is attempting to console himself by imagining ways that he is like the Great Emancipator. Alas, those similarities are either superficial or illusory. If anything, Bush is the anti-Lincoln; he bears far more resemblance to another 19th century statesman, Lincoln's inept successor Andrew Johnson.

SNIP

Like Bush, Lincoln found himself leading the nation in a war he didn't anticipate. He was reviled by much of the public as a buffoon, and was mocked even by members of his official family. Many professional soldiers were withering in their criticism of his decisions. He pushed executive authority to extremes never before imagined; he created the first "national security" apparatus since the Alien and Sedition Acts fiasco of 1798; he showed no hesitation about curtailing civil liberties, aggressively used military commissions to try American citizens for aiding the enemy or even speaking against the war effort, suspended the writ of habeas corpus, and maintained his own system of extra-legal executive prisons, including one that stood on the site of the present Supreme Court building.

But the differences are far more important than the similarities. On the personal level, Lincoln had none of Bush's obstinacy and egotism. He scorned yes men, and surrounded himself with Cabinet officials better known than he was, refusing to purge even those actively working against his own political interests. He had no personal vanity at all (when a political opponent accused him of being "two-faced," Lincoln responded, "If I had two faces, would I be wearing this one?"). The historical imagination rebels at the very idea of his swaggering around in the cavalry equivalent of Bush's flight suit. He was always ready to sit down with his adversaries, favored compromise whenever possible and never held a grudge. "With malice toward none, with charity toward all" was for Lincoln more than a rhetorical flourish; it was the key to his greatness.

Most important, Lincoln was a lawyer. It is hard to find any sign that Lincoln thought himself above the law. He had none of Bush's scorn for procedures and rights. He used executive authority in an emergency -- and always dutifully reported to Congress and asked for its ratification as soon as a new session began. He restricted civil liberties temporarily, and without enthusiasm -- he once compared his suspension of habeas corpus to the drugs doctors give to induce vomiting. Unlike this administration—which will not ask for legal authority even when it knows it will receive it -- Lincoln never did anything to prove a point. He didn't have an authoritarian bone in his lanky body. His objective was victory for the Union, not power for himself.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/08/23/bush_lincoln/print.html

he and his goons planned it.