Happy Birthday, President Lincoln

Like all good Americans, I'm at home today, celebrating the birthday of, perhaps, our greatest president. What? You're a good American and you don't have the day off?

Okay, so my employer is the only one I know of that still closes shop on Lincoln's birthday and Presidents Day. Even the descendants of Lincoln himself are toiling away today.

And fine, I'm not really celebrating--I'm watching, perhaps, one of our greatest American movies on AMC, The Three Amigos, of course. But now I'm feeling a little guilty about that. So, I think I'll pick up my copy of Sarah Vowell's Assasination Vacation, which I never finished, and learn a little something about Lincoln. Vowell, a history buff, chronicled her tour of all the key sites related to Lincoln's assassination.

I don't see a thing about Lincoln's birthday in the newspaper or CNN.com. Regis and Kelly were apparently too busy yammering on about a weekend trek to The Hamptons to honor the man today.

But, as I sit here, the three amigos are now realizing their calling is to free the villagers of Santo Poco from the infamous El Guapo, and I see that watching this movie is, in a very weak sense, an homage to Honest Abe. The battle to liberate an oppressed people.

Barack Obama invoked Lincoln liberally as he threw his stovepipe hat into the presidential ring over the weekend: "He had his doubts. He had his defeats. He had his setbacks, but through his will and his words, he moved a nation and helped free a people." Just like the three amigos, I'd have added.

As for Obama, he's my top choice so far. For a presidential candidate, he's great on gay issues. The one sticking point is marriage equality. While he supports civil unions and a state's right to make their own decision, he allows his personal religious beliefs to define his policy position: "I'm a Christian. And so, although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman."

If a candidate said something like that in a local race in California, my vote would likely go to someone else. In fact, newly elected San Jose mayor Chuck Reed said almost exactly that in a candidate forum at the DeFrank LGBT Community Center.

But I am a realist. I understand that our puritanical country is far from ready to elect a presidential candidate who advocates marriage equality.

Furthermore, I am far more interested in how a candidate views the war and America's standing in the world. On Iraq, Obama took a politically risky, but wise position way before it was popular to do so.

Here are Obama's prescient words from 2002:

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors...and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars. So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president.

That's the way I was thinking in 2002 as well. And it's why I can't get excited about Hillary Clinton. She was wrong on what was probably the most important decision of her life. Yes, she got really bad information from the Administration. But like other Clintons, she has a tendency to take the politically expedient route. Now she has finally acknowledged that if she knew then what she knows now, she would not have voted to give the president the authority to invade Iraq.

If she wins the primary, I'll decide how she measures up against her Republican opponent. I may even work hard to help her get elected (like many of us did in 2004 for Kerry).

Sarah Vowell got a kick out of a zinger from Lincoln's second inaugural address. After the bloodshed of the Civil War, Lincoln said, "It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged."

Great orators from Illinois who hate war. Today, I salute you.