Lincoln and Bush similarities

When talking about President Bush's penchant for disregarding popularity polls when making major decisions some of us have pointed out that President Lincoln was extremely unpopular while in office but his reputation is secure as a great president. Now documentary film maker, Yervand Kochar compares Abraham Lincoln and George W. Bush in the film “Wounded Warrior.”

“The similarities between Lincoln and Bush are impossible to ignore,” Kochar says. “Lincoln was the most disliked president of his time. His very election divided the society.”

Sound familiar? As president of the United States, Lincoln was attacked mercilessly by the press. Newspapers in England described him as an “egregious failure.” Domestically, he was portrayed as a dumb frontiersman, prone to goofy slips of the tongue. “And, also like Bush, he changed the objective of the Civil War right during the middle of the war,” he says. “At first, the war was about the restoration of the union. Then, (the objective) changed to the freeing of the slaves. People were angry. They claimed Lincoln had dragged us into war under the guise of keeping the union together and then decided to fight for these people – slaves – that 80 percent of Americans had never even met.”

The similarities between the presidencies of Lincoln and Bush are explored further in Kochar’s documentary “Wounded Warrior,” one of three films to be featured during the Abraham Lincoln Film Festival this weekend at the Lincoln Museum. Drawing parallels between the two time periods is meant to calm the fears of people in the United States today, Kochar says. “We want to tell people to not be afraid,” he says. “History repeats itself. We’ve already been through a war like this. We’ll be OK.”

The documentary’s inspiration comes from a speech Lincoln made on Sept. 11, 1858, in which he discussed his plan for preserving the spirit of liberty. Today, President Bush continues Lincoln’s vision, which is one of the reasons their presidencies seem so similar, Kochar says. “Anyone who is pro-Lincoln must be pro-Bush,” he says. “I’m not saying that Bush is Lincoln and Lincoln is Bush, but their policies are too similar to be ignored.”

Reading that article reminded me of this:

Similarities Between the Assassinations of Kennedy and Lincoln