Political Analogies ...

by Cliopatria

Some of my smartest colleagues are doing the smart thing this time of year, which is to get away from it all, so I'll have to stand in for them. Michael Barone in the LA Times (registration required) and Geitner Simmons at Regions of Mind are making the summer of 2004 argument that George W. Bush is like Abraham Lincoln and John Kerry is like George B. McClelland. It's time to look back at Tim Burke's criteria for the use of historical analogies. Rather than my arguing that Barone's and Simmons's analogy is a good or a bad one, I'd like readers in comments to indicate the ways in which the analogy is either useful or inappropriate.

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Richard Henry Morgan - 6/20/2004

One could add, of course, Richard Clarke's assertion that al Qaeda and Iraq were linked through the pharmaceutical/bioweapons plant in the Sudan.

Richard Henry Morgan - 6/20/2004

Given the taste for willful misreading when it comes to Bush's statments about al Qaeda and Iraq, my last fragment above should read "... as Clinton's prosecutor had filed a federal indictment in NY alleging ties between al Qaeda and Iraq.

Richard Henry Morgan - 6/20/2004

It would work particularly well if Lincoln's predecessor had filed, in NY, a federal indictment alleging Canada was in cahoots with the CSA -- like Clinton's prosecutor did.

Ralph E. Luker - 6/20/2004

Wouldn't the analogy of Bush to Lincoln work better if old Abe had decided that Canada was in cahoots with the CSA and launched a second front by invading Canada?

Wiliam McCune - 6/19/2004

GB McClellan could not tell good intel from bad, he was arrogant, partisan, and over his head on both the political and military fronts. A Lincoln really was a uniter, not a divider. He included leaders from both major parties in his cabinet. His plan for reconstruction would be a major improvement over Bush's plans for Iraq. I did not know A Lincoln, but G Bush is no Abraham Lincoln.

Richard Henry Morgan - 6/18/2004

And I had the impression it was the other way around -- that the Dems couldn't get their riders on the bill, so they voted it down. Maybe the truth lies somewhere in between, maybe at each end. I'll have to go back and look it up. Thanks for the friendly kick.

David Lion Salmanson - 6/18/2004

It's a great sound bite, but it is kind of unfair. Kerry was trying to point out that the bill came up in different forms with different riders and that he voted for one version of the bill but not another. It's kind of the opposite of Clinton's "is" remark which was lawerly and slick. This was literal and clumsy. The slick would have been, "I supported the bill right up until the Republicans tried to play politics with national defense. Our military deserves better and our President deserved a bill that was solely about keeping our soldiers safe in Iraq." or something like it.

Richard Henry Morgan - 6/18/2004

The largest disanalogy is that McClellan was commanding troops under Lincoln while flirting with Lincoln's political opponents. The jibe against McClellan is that he felt he couldn't win the nomination if he actually went into battle, and so though he enjoyed a numerical superiority, he sat with his thumb up his 6 o'clock.

Kerry doesn't command anything beyond his own snowboard, and he is already, in effect, the opposing candidate, left in the position of responding to events, rather than creating them through action or inaction. BTW, Kerry's comment was priceless: "I actually voted for the 87 billion -- before I voted against it." Almost as memorable as "It depends on what the meaning of is, is." Look for Kerry appearing at an International House of Pancakes near you.