The Slow Development of "Republican Wisdom"

We all know this guy, our 16th president, and our first (!!!) Republican.
Sadly, a one-term President. Had he been Reagan, he'd have been asleep and Booth's fateful bullet would have passed harmlessly over his head.

Abe's views on national security:

"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means
shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant,
to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe,
Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own
excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander,
could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the
Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the
approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must
spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot,
we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we
must live through all time, or die by suicide."

Abraham Lincoln
Source: January 27, 1838 - Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum
of Springfield, Illinois

Cherry-picking I go; fast-forward 90 years or so to...
Ike and his take on defense spending. By the way, the top tax rate was, during his administration... (wait for it) 90%.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."

Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953

Fun, huh? We'll skip Dick though.
Too (expletive deleted) easy.


The Movie Star
The affable old uncle who took the country out for ice cream every day for eight years... but he used the kids' credit card.

"It's true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?"

Ronald Wilson Reagan during a rare moment of wake fullness.

Now a logical progression would have something from RR's successor. But that poor bastard has suffered enough, what with watching his pride and joy slowly and publicly implode.

You all knew what was coming... (drum roll please...) and in he strides, garbed in a flight suit; The Decider:
"I'm the commander — see, I don't need to explain — I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president."

George, Walker ("Porgie Puddin' and Pie") Bush.

And I thought Nixon was easy. Shooting fish in a barrel I tells ya'.
So what the hell happened?
Get the "Deep Thinker Brigade"; Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Coulter and Kristol on the case! If they can't get the GOP back on track, no one can.
That's at least something to hope for.



On a soon-to-be-related topic; on this date in 1916 (Summer Solstice... back then) the Brits began their projected five-day bombardment of German positions along a twenty-mile front, preparatory to a major offensive on the Somme.