Liberal reporter [1] turned ultra-liberal nytimes.com blogger [2] Timothy Egan didn't disappoint his fans in his Wednesday night posting, "Obama's Lincoln Moment [3]."
There must be, in the glaring light of an anxious, heat-stinging summer, an image or two from the past appearing in President Obama's White House.
As Abraham Lincoln had an Army of the Potomac that looked inert under Gen. George McClellan, Obama has an economy stalled and troubled, and two wars, one now branded as the nation's longest, its outcome never more uncertain.
Where to advance? Where to retreat? Who to fire? Who to hire? The general of the one conflict, in Afghanistan, has been removed, as was McClellan by an impatient president. But the other campaign, the one to resurrect an economy ruined by debt and unregulated greed, seems intractable.
Who is to blame for that "unregulated greed"? The "criminal" governing philosophy of the GOP.
The other big stall, the economic Army of the Potomac, will not respond to deadlines or firing generals. The Republican governing philosophy of a criminal deregulatory environment drove the economy into a ditch. And when they put more than a trillion dollars worth of wars on the credit card, they left future administrations with few options.