Obama is finally acting like Lincoln

The Great Emancipator wasn't afraid to wield executive authority either

Obama Lincoln
(Image credit: (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images))

There was a particularly tense period during the summer of 1862 when Abraham Lincoln finally shed his folksy demeanor and confessed some of his real frustrations as president. Sounding more like Tony Soprano than the Great Emancipator, Old Abe growled in a private letter, "I distrust the wisdom if not the sincerity of friends, who would hold my hands while my enemies stab me." Then adding a line which represented for him a kind of leadership credo, Lincoln wrote firmly, "It may as well be understood, once [and] for all, that I shall not surrender this game leaving any available card unplayed."

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