By Joe Marren
Buffalo, NY – Think about Abraham Lincoln and what images come to mind?
Sure, he was the tallest president; he had a beard - perhaps thanks to a letter from a little girl in Western New York suggesting he grow one; and he once lived in a log cabin.
Another thing you might think of is that he had a terrific sense of humor even in the midst of great personal and national crises. Getting back to his appearance, and perhaps indirectly his beard, he once joked during a debate with Stephen Douglas (who had called Lincoln a two-faced man ) that "if I had another face to wear, do you think I would wear this one?" Better known is his observation that "The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is the reason He makes so many of them."
Funny, right? Even poignant. And that is the soul of Lincoln: He could come up with a good quip without the benefit of speech writers or reading Top 10 lists on TV. I suppose the 19th century equivalent would be penning an editorial in a Horace Greeley newspaper. So when I think of Lincoln, I think of a great writer who was also president, and thankfully the president who saw us through our greatest national turmoil.
He could take common or uncommon ideas, string them together into magnificent words, sentences, and paragraphs and the result was often poetry. I don't think another president is in his league, certainly no other president who had to deal with enemies foreign or domestic, whether brought on by others or through self-destructive lies and actions.
For instance, I was a newspaper journalist for 18 years in another life in a galaxy far, far away. Warren G. Harding was the only newspaper guy to ever become president. So I should probably look to him for stirring ideas that touch my soul, right? WRRRRRONG! His morals were nonexistent and his speeches could put rocks to sleep. In the parlance of his day, he liked to chase skirts - at home, at work, in the White House, it didn't really matter where or when.
A contemporary said of him: "His speeches leave the impression of an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea."
Better yet is what a real Washington wit, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, said about him: "Harding was not a bad man. He was just a slob."
OK, enough with the history lesson, let's look at current events. Is there a candidate today who can inspire us with a deft phrase or two? Who can from the passive voice lead us?
Let's check the scorecard:
Howard Dean: He had his moment before Iowa. After that, to steal a line from Whitman, he sounded his "barbaric yawlp over the rooftops of the world." Unfortunately for him, we were all tuned in and watching that night.
John Kerry: His rich wife must have bought him a lifetime supply of waffle irons.
The current prez: His stilted machismo was overblown and awkward four years ago. Bring on the competition!
Lincoln didn't have speech writers, the money in his budget wasn't wasted, but instead went to the War and Navy departments. So he did his own metaphorical heavy lifting. And what gems he produced!
In his First Inaugural Address he tried to quell rebel hearts by reminding them that "The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
But those hearts turned to stone. During the Civil War, Lincoln traveled to a Pennsylvania city to remind the world in 268 eloquent words why the country was at war with itself and what things like freedom and democracy mean. To this day, "government of the people, by the people, and for the people," has not perished.
And at the end of that cruel war, when many wanted vengeance, Lincoln told the country that his policy was "malice toward none charity for all."
Few others in his day or ours can write like that. Few other leaders can inspire and lead at the same time. And the only line I can think of that sums it all up was written by Bruce Springsteen, Lincoln was the first "cool rocking daddy in the USA."
Listener-Commentator Joe Marren is an assistant professor of communications at Buffalo State College.