Who is Scott Walker's Favorite Republican President?

If you like an amusing read, check out Scott Walker's silly commentary on the GOP's need to "reclaim" Abraham Lincoln. It's absolutely one of the most vapid odes to the nation's greatest president you'll have the misfortune of reading. Hardly two grafs in to the piece Walker reveals that his actual intent is not to praise Lincoln, but to slam Democrats:

It is because Lincoln was a great Man and Great President that makes him such a current hot commodity, surprisingly among Barrack Obama and his Democrat Party. While it is not surprising that anyone would embrace Honest Abe over the likes of Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, or Robert Byrd, both the Democrats and the mainstream media are attempting to cover up the most important Lincoln… Lincoln the Republican. It is time for Republicans to reclaim Lincoln from the Democrats.

Unfortunately, it's the Republican Party's own fault that Lincoln has been relegated to "second-class presidency" status within his own party. Check out this exchange that occurred during the debate for RNC chair earlier this year:



Not one candidate named Lincoln as their favorite Republican president, an absurdity made even more ridiculous by Grover Norquist's glib commentary that "everyone got that one right." Walker would have his readers believe that Democrats "stole" Lincoln's legacy from the GOP when in reality it was the GOP who gave it away. The scary thing is that if someone asked Walker the same question, he would almost certainly give the same answer.

Why doesn't someone ask Walker who his favorite Republican president? One answer only, he can't say how much he respects and admires Lincoln, but that it was really Reagan with whom he grew up with and inspired him to be a Republican blah blah blah. He gets to choose one.

So who's it gonna be? I think we all know the answer to that question, which makes Walker's sorry praise praise of Lincoln disingenuous and just another one of Walker's eye-rollingly transparent and foolish attempts at pandering to his base.

Praising Lincoln is a gimme. All it takes is a little honesty and admiration of his accomplishments, which are almost too mind-blowing to comprehend at times. It takes a special blend of obliviousness and arrogance to turn an homage to The Great Unifier into a polarizing tract designed to smear one's ideological opponents. If this is how Walker plans on running his campaign for Governor next year -- and there's little evidence to suggest otherwise -- then even the greatest leader America has ever known won't be able to help him.

[via CD]