Virkelighedsfjern venstrefløj - nu også i USA

Normalt holder jeg mig gerne væk fra amerikansk indenrigspolitik, men den her var for god til at lade slippe upåagtet. De husker måske Barack Obama, det Demokratiske Partis store sorte (nå ja: sort/hvide) håb, fra da han holdt nomineringstalen for John Kerry sidste år?

This week comes the previously careful Sen. Barack Obama, flapping his wings in Time magazine and explaining that he's a lot like Abraham Lincoln, only sort of better. "In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat--in all this he reminded me not just of my own struggles."

Oh. So that's what Lincoln's for. Actually Lincoln's life is a lot like Mr. Obama's. Lincoln came from a lean-to in the backwoods. His mother died when he was 9. The Lincolns had no money, no standing. Lincoln educated himself, reading law on his own, working as a field hand, a store clerk and a raft hand on the Mississippi. He also split some rails. He entered politics, knew more defeat than victory, and went on to lead the nation through its greatest trauma, the Civil War, and past its greatest sin, slavery.

Barack Obama, the son of two University of Hawaii students, went to Columbia and Harvard Law after attending a private academy that taught the children of the Hawaiian royal family. He made his name in politics as an aggressive Chicago vote hustler in Bill Clinton's first campaign for the presidency.

You see the similarities.

Lincoln var forøvrigt republikaner, frigav slaverne og prøvede at give dem bare et minimum af borgerrettigheder. Efter han blev skudt i 1865 lykkedes det demokraterne at tage borgerrettighederne fra negrene og sørge for at de ikke fik dem igen før et århundrede senere.

Henrik