William Kristol smears Barack Obama

Isaac Chotiner flags a disturbing statement by William Kristol from Fox News Sunday in which he suggests that Barack Obama would have backed Stephen Douglas over Abraham Lincoln:

We're electing a war president in 2008. If I can go back to Obama and Lincoln for just one second, Lincoln's "house divided" speech in 1858 was a speech saying we cannot live as a house divided on slavery. And he implicitly says we'll have to fight a civil war if necessary on this.

Obama's speech is a "can't we get along" speech--sort of the opposite of Lincoln. He would have been with Stephen Douglas in 1858.[Italics Mine]

Note the inflammatory implications of this attack. Kristol suggests that Obama -- a black man who is not African American -- would have supported Douglas, who supported allowing settlers to choose whether to have slavery, over Lincoln, who opposed the expansion of slavery.

Comments

[Mark Adams]

Smear?? I don't think so. I saw this on Sunday morning and I certainly don't think Kristol's comments came across like you think. In fact I had been waiting for someone to point out what Kristol pointed out: Lincoln wasn't exactly a uniter in the way that Obama wants to be known as a uniter.