Anniversary

I came across a long TV biography of Abraham Lincoln. The Civil War started this spring, 140 years ago.

I got a biography of him as a birthday present but have put off reading it. A melancholy business, that war.

He gets a hagiographical treatment from most. And I know that some folks see him as a great destroyer of the Constitution for a lot of things he did during the war. The program emphasizes him as the Pater dolorosus, his personal and presidential suffering. No doubt true, but typical of the age of Oprah.

Unfortunately, Gore Vidal, whom I loathe, has written a Lincoln bio and so we must endure snippets of him. Boy, if you want a reason to be homophobic, there he is. And transgendered Brit Lincoln revisionist Jan Morris is also featured, along with authors who specialize in Honest Abe's depression.

When I was a kid, I assumed that the War Between The States was about slavery. Nowadays it is considered self-indulgent to believe that. That it was instead about the Union. But why was the Union falling apart except over slavery? They seem inseparable issues to me.

The program has a recreated scene from a ball at the White House of the period. And it's mixed race. I don't believe it. Lincoln himself is an example that you can be dead set against slavery and still not be a racial egalitarian, which he certainly was not.

Oh, they've got Vidal on again. Gotta use Lincoln to bash Bush. And calls the Civil War "the bloodiest war in history." A rank lie. Can't stand it. Changing channel.