He said, "All the president states as facts, he falls far short of proving his justification, and that the president would have gone farther with his proof, if it had not been for the small matter, that the truth would not permit it."
He went on to say, of James K. Polk, "Now I propose to show, that the whole of this -- issue and evidence -- is from beginning to end, the sheerest deception." He went on to claim, "As to the mode of terminating this war, and securing peace, the President is equally wandering and indefinite."
Lincoln ended: "He knows not where he is. He is a bewildered, confounded and miserably perplexed man … ."
Lincoln's speech was not well received back home, and he became a one-term Congressman. The lawyer from Springfield preferred truth to popularity, and paid the ultimate political price for forcefully expressing it.
Last week the Senate debated President Bush's preemptive war against the nation of Iraq. What Lincoln said of Polk any Senator could have rightly said about this president. Most Democrats urged a new course.
The GOP voted, as one, to stay the present failed course, thus ensuring that a growing civil war in Iraq will be exacerbated, a trillion dollars or more in treasury will be wasted, and the killing of American men and women who find themselves surrounded by disgruntled Iraqis of all political stripes will go on and on.
Lincoln was right to point out presidential lies and deceptions in 1848. So too, were those Senators who now plead for a new, winning strategy for the Middle East.
Paul R. Dunn
Pinehurst
