Are we getting a little creeped out with Barack Obama's obsession with linking his presidency to Abraham Lincoln's? I get the cultural and racial connection that binds them together in history, but imitating Lincoln's train ride from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. for Obama's inauguration seemed a bit much -- until it was announced yesterday that Obama would be sworn in with his hand on the Lincoln Bible -- and the whole shebang went over the top into silliness. Here are some images of that Bible with some color correction to compensate for the overly golden tone of the official versions.
The scientific preservation of the Lincoln Bible 147 years later is a wonderment. The Library of Congress does beautiful work.
I wonder if there will, one day, be an "Obama Bible" that future presidents will use just as Obama is using Lincoln's?
I wonder if there will, one day, be an "Obama Bible" that future presidents will use just as Obama is using Lincoln's?
The danger of close associations is the risk of imitating them to death -- and when Barack Obama so closely tethers his hope and his dream to Lincoln's -- we shudder in the recognition of sharing of the same end.
There's a fine line between having a role model and trying to be the same as someone, I suppose. I hope President elect Obama sticks to just the one and not the other.
Gordon, I understand most Americans are busy and probably dense -- so forcing the connection between Abe and Obama needs to be constant and overdone to get the point across -- but I would still be wary of making that tether too tight, because there are those in the world that crave closing a perfect circle.
One can only be oneself.
Right, Nicola! We can look up to people and admire them, but then we need to draw a line and go our own way.