What We Lost, 40 Years Ago Today

Today is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Jeff Greenfield at CBS Sunday Morning, who worked with Kennedy, did a remarkable reflection on his life last week.

He has been gone almost as long as he was alive, and from a distance of four decades, Robert Kennedy is often seen as a player in a pageant: heir to a murdered President from America's most famous political family … a tumultuous presidential campaign in a tumultuous political year that ended on the floor of a hotel kitchen in Los Angeles.

And below is one of the most extraordinary extemporaneous speeches in American history, all the more remarkable if you know all the context behind it. It was a risky moment, a passionate moment, a perfectly expressed American moment.

Keep hope alive.

State of the Union

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you."
-- Gomer Pyle

This quote has both nothing and everything to do with a very tired looking George Bush's State of the Union address last night.

Thanks to the folks at Think Progress, here's some fact checking from the address.

SIDE NOTE: I don't believe Gomer ever
opined about being fooled 935 times.
He wouldn't be pleased.

The Man I Voted for Twice

I've been meaning all week to write something about the fairy tales that Bill Clinton has been telling about Barack Obama ... about his flat-out falsehoods and misrepresentations ... about how "the first black president" has astonishingly played the race card ... and how I now kind of take anything that comes out of his face with a grain of salt.

Peggy Noonan writes on this today, among other things, and for the first time in the history of this former Reagan speechwriter's career as a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, I agree with every single word.

Every single word.

Memo to the New York Times: Enough Already

John Kerry was unfairly labeled a flip-flopper during the 2004 presidential campaign, and it stuck. Americans seemed to believe this to be true, and subsequently the worst president in the history of the United States was re-elected, with a little help from the media along the way.

This photo at right appeared last Sunday in the New York Times. It ridicules John Kerry as being a flip-flopper.

Isn't this just awful, running this in 2007?

Isn't this just awful, dredging up this old photo, and reinforcing the bullshit stereotype of Sen. Kerry that Rove and the chicken hawks created?

***

George Bush said he'd be a "compassionate conservative." George Bush also said he'd be a "uniter, not a divider." And Bush said he was a fiscal conservative yet has spent tens of billions of dollars on a war we didn't need to fight.

These aren't merely flip-flops: They turned out to be outright deceptions.

Bush is the quintessential flip-flopper. Where's the photo of him in a dolphin suit, and why isn't it on the front page of the New York Times "Week in Review" section?

George Bush -- worst president in the history of the United States. Yeah, that's the ticket.

***

Veteran's Day is next Monday. I salute all veterans.

I salute John Kerry, and I salute John McCain, and I salute Max Cleland, and Al Gore, and George McGovern , and George Herbert Walker Bush.

But I can't salute service-dodgers like George W. Bush, chicken hawks like Dick Cheney and Tommy Flanagans like Karl Rove.

The Next President of the United States

One year from this Sunday, Americans will elect the next president of the United States. I think the winner will be clear by the next morning, Nov. 9, 2008. In other words, this will be no election decided by five Republicans on the Supreme Court, who handed the job to W in 2000.

Predicted matchup: Hillary Clinton vs. Mike Huckabee

Predicted winner: ... Ladies and gentleman, I present to you the next president of the United States: MIKE HUCKABEE.

Why? It's simple.

The more likeable candidate usually wins. Have you seen Huckabee on talk shows? He's likeable, affable, seems like "one of us." Plus he used to be fat and now he's not, and that makes fat people like him. And with more fat people than ever before in America, that's a (ahem) sizeable bloc.

If nominated by Republicans, Huckabee will come off as a "compassionate conservative," just as W did, and voters lap this stuff up, whether or not the promises come true or not. Just like Bush.

We here at The Cup of Joe voted for both Kerry and Gore in 2004 and 2000, but voters found W more likeable, more like the type of guy you could have a beer and a brat with. The same held true with Clinton over Dole (and Perot) in 1996, and Clinton over Bush I (and Perot) in 92. And even "Yale man" Bush I was perceived of as more likeable than Michael Dukakis in '88.

Competence doesn't matter, my friends. Likeability does.

And if you believe the polls, a good chunk of the population already has decided, however irrationally, that it doesn't like Hillary Clinton, or anybody with that last name.

If Mike Huckabee wins one year from today, I shutter to think what the Supreme Court will look like in 2012, after a Baptist Preacher who doesn't believe in Evolution has as many as three picks for the court.

This wolf of a candidate called Mike comes off as a sheep on The Daily Show With John Stewart -- so charming and seemingly moderate -- but what will happen if our next three justices are devotees to Intelligent Design?

Shudder now, my friends.

Boo!

And Happy Halloween.

Check, Please!

Tonight on PBS, while most of America is "Dancing With the Stars" on ABC, or seeing who the "Biggest Loser" is on NBC, Frontline is examining Dick Cheney's "secretive and often bitter battle to expand the power of the presidency."

More here.

... Might be worth dancing over to PBS and taking a look. You might just discover that in the Cheney era, the "biggest winner" is imperialism, and the "biggest loser" is our system of checks and balances.

Check, please!

I Miss Having Ratherisms

I hope Dan Rather gets every single penny of his $70 million lawsuit against CBS. And I'm still waiting for someone to provide firm evidence that what CBS reported about George Bush during the 2004 election wasn't true.

And for this Rather was fired and forced to apologize? The result: The worst president in history was re-elected as voters took the eye off the ball and bought into the Bush-Cheney '04 smokescreens.

Besides, I miss Ratherisms.

This lawsuit is hotter than a Times Square Rolex.

You Can't Teach An Old Dog New Tricks

You'll never guess whose name surfaces in the below report from ABC News from a quarter a century ago. The same conservative U.S. Senator who strongly issued a denial earlier this week that he loves the cock issued a similar denial 25 years ago on a national news broadcast.

People don't change, eh?

George Bush: An Even Worse Historian Than He Is President?

George Bush recently compared Iraq to ... Vietnam.

He said that withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq would lead to widespread death and suffering, as it did in Southeast Asia three decades ago. Here's the Washington Post story.

Bush may not have noticed it, but there's already widespread death and suffering in Iraq.

And is this the only lesson Bush learned from Vietnam? That we got out too soon and should have stayed longer?

Remember that Bush (unlike John Kerry and Al Gore) did not bother to serve in the Vietnam War, preferring instead to skip out on his National Guard service -- as only the spoiled grandson of a U.S. Senator could -- so he could concentrate on beer bongs and God-knows-what-else.

Memo to Bush: This may be a good time to reflect that as many as 700,000 innocent civilian Iraqis are already dead because of this unnecessary war in Iraq.

A study that appeared last fall in the medical journal The Lancet estimated that the War has led to 500 Iraqi deaths a day, or 655,000 souls as of last October.

Nobody knows the exact number of Iraqi deaths, but even if this were half the amount, say 325,000, it still amounts to the entire population of, say, the city of Cincinnatti, and is 10,000 times greater than the number of souls lost on 9/11.

This is tragic. The deaths aren't American lives, so for some reason it doesn't outrage the large masses of American fundamentalist conservative christians, but can God-fearing Americans really think that God differentiates between American and non-American lives, or prioritizes one race/nationality as greater than others?

America makes up only 5 percent of the world population. I want born-again American Christians to repeat that 10 times: America makes up only 5 percent of the world population. I also want these Christians to repeat (also 10 times) the following phrases:

• Jesus was not an American.
• Jesus had dark skin, just like those 700,000 dead Iraqis.

It would be unreasonable to say that, in God's eyes, American lives are more important the lives of non-Americans, right? Right?

I wish born-again Christian George Bush, back in 2002, had been more concerned with "saving the lives of innocent Iraqi civilians with the same skin tone as Jesus" as he was about "oil profits" before starting this disastrous war in the middle east.

A battle-tested man like John Kerry -- who knows what it's like to kill a man in combat, a man who saved lives in combat and "accomplished missions," a man who withstood the pressures of enemy fire -- knows the true lessons of Vietnam, in a way that George Bush -- who cut and ran from his military obligations -- never bothered to learn.

America is Not 400 Years Old

Americans tend to view history relative to us, us, us. Just as the earth revolves around the sun, Americans tend to think the world revolves around the 300 million souls fortunate enough to live in this great country.

I thought of this while glancing at the cover of the most recent issue of Time magazine, which is a report on the Jamestown settlement 400 years ago. The big headline on the cover is AMERICA AT 400.

Such coverage has been a bit of a trend lately. Earlier this year the historians over at U.S. News declared on the cover that the Jamestown settlers were The First Americans, which should come as a surprise to all the people ... who were already here.

These headlines are grade school history at its worst.

The English who immigrated here, free to enter because the Native peoples had not erected a large Lou Dobbs-inspired barbwire fence, were NOT the first Americans.

This "country" had a civilization and a culture well before the English arrived. We had cities on the level of Paris and London right here in 'Merica well before the Jamestown settlement, and predating Leif Eriksson, the man credited as the European "discoverer" of North America about 1,000 years ago.

I think we do ourselves a disservice when we measure the history of this land starting in 1607.

America likes to think of itself as the center of the world. That the 3,000 dead on 9/11 are somehow more important than the 655,000 Iraqis* that a team of epidemiologists estimates have died in Iraq because of the war.

We are all equal in God’s eyes.

If Americans think they’ll enjoy the same insular standard of living come heaven-time, they’re wrong, because inside those Pearly Gates they’re going to be sharing that Jacuzzi-tub not only with St. Peter, but with someone who probably doesn’t speak English.

Oh, and St. Peter didn't speak English either. Just like Jesus, his native tongue was Aramaic, and his skin was dark.

***
This entry is largely a cut-and-paste from a January entry, when U.S. News ran its Jamestown cover. I wonder if I'll get another opportunity to test my cutting and pasting skills again if the historians at Newsweek ever take a crack at America's 400th "birthday"?

***

* Here's the sourcing (Washington Post account) for the 655,000 number.

And here are some other 'Mericans whom Time and U.S. News didn't think were worth remembering: here and here.

***

Delivering The Wow

Here's my four-part advice on how the Bush administration can turn things around in its final 21 months.



(Part two is the most important.)

Feel free to liberally borrow from this advice in your own life as you attempt to "Deliver the Wow" 365 a year.

Cuckoo

Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cukoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cukoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cukoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cukoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cukoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cukoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo.

The Holy Weak

In honor of Holy Week, here's an Easter remembrance of four modern money-changers in the electronic temple we know as television.

Although a resurrected Jesus wasn't around to cast these souls out of the temple, we are fortunate that media reporting was able to accomplish the exact same thing.




"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours."
-- Rev. Jonathon Edwards, from his sermon Sinners in the Hand of An Angry God, July 1741.

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy."
-- Jesus, Sermon on the Mount

I *heart* Jesus. Happy Easter.

Mexicans Are The New Irish

A Special St. Patrick's Day
Message for Lou Dobbs

Some of my best friends are ... Irish.

I'm blessed in this way. They have great Irish surnames like Flannery, O'Flannery and McFlannery. As I said, truly blessed.

Starting last weekend, and continuing this weekend (St. Patrick's Day is Saturday) and still continuing the weekend after that, I'll be celebrating St. Patrick's Day at pubs, parades and parties put on by various friends with great names like Patrick or Paddy, Seamus or Shane.

With so much love for the Irish during this time of year, it's easy to forget just how much the Irish in America used to be hated. Despised, really.

Let's review the history.

Around the middle of the 19th century -- say, roughly 1840 - 1860 -- there were lots of Lou Dobbs-like characters who were hell bent on whipping up hatred of Irish-Catholic immigrants for many of the same reasons that Lou Dobbs whips up hatred of Mexican immigrants (also usually Catholic) today.

Back then, the ire revolved around the competition these new immigrants posed for housing and jobs in America's Protestant-packed cities. There was also a strong anti-Catholic religious element as well. People were a-feared of the pope sticking his beanie-capped head into American politics via Irish-Catholic Democratic politicians (The 19th Century Teddy Kennedys, if you will.) The thought among the radicals was that Catholics sought to take over the United States and install the Pope as its leader, a sentiment so strong that JFK faced these same questions when he ran for President in 1960.

So just as Lou Dobbs is fearful of Mexicans today because they supposedly take good jobs (like picking lettuce) away from Americans, men like Dobbs in the 1850s pumped up a similar fever-pitch against the Irish, many of whom were fleeing the Irish Potato Famine and (also like Mexicans today) just trying to make sure their families didn't starve.

Back then, the anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant crowd had their own political party, The American Party, also known by other names, such as the Know-Nothing Party.

They were quite successful, as third parties go, including a presidential ticket in 1856 that included a former president, Millard Fillmore, who received almost one in four of the votes cast that year. (The gay guy, James Buchanan, won this race. And, as a sidenote, I wonder if the current anti-gay party, the Republicans, will look as foolish 100 years from now?)

Lou Dobbs probably would have been a Fillmore-button-wearing and card-carrying member of the Know-Nothing party had he lived back in the 1850s.

There is one big difference between the Know-Nothings of the 1850s and the present-day Lou Dobbs. These haters of yesteryear didn't reinvent themselves and go on populist rants just for want of better ratings, as Lou Dobbs has and does, since cable TV (of course) had not been invented yet. In any case, The Know-Nothings would have LOVED to have played hard-ball and engage in all the shouting that goes on on cable TV news programs. Like Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs and Chris Matthews, they'd probably have top-rated shows.

So on St. Patrick's day, I want all my Irish friends to turn the other cheek. I want them to raise their frosty and frothy mugs, filled with green sudsy liquids, and to give a special toast to Mr. Lou Dobbs himself -- and to all of Mr. Lou Dobbs' ancestors who had the good sense to immigrate to this fine country.

***

Suggested Toast for Lou: May the wind always be at your back, and may the windbag anti-immigration hysteria on CNN be kept to an absolute minimum.

Related: Gays Are The New Irish.

A Hawk Who Is Not a Chicken

Tomorrow, March 14, marks the 34th anniversary of John McCain's release as a prisoner of war.

His plane had been shot down five-and-half years earlier, on Oct. 26, 1967.

If you need to put these almost 2000 days as a captive in perspective, imagine having spent every waking minute since the fall of 2001 as a prisoner of war. This is what McCain has been through.

***

Here's an earlier post on this same topic.

And pictured below: The guy who beat McCain in 2000 poses in a flight suit at a slightly less-heroic photo-op.

Coffee Wars End With Peace Treaty

Last week was Coffee War Week on The Cup of Joe, as previously mentioned in this short post.

Each day I would sample either Starbucks, McDonald's Premium Roast or (an addition late in the week, thanks to a reader) Burger King's BK Joe coffee-flavored product.

***

I was inspired to do this after Consumer Reports reported that in blind taste tests McDonald's was chosen as the best-tasting coffee among the three.

But not trusting Consumer Reports -- I'm still bitter about the CR-recommended Pioneer turntable I purchased back in 1987 -- I wanted to see for myself. Here are the results of my investigation:

Burger King

The BK Joe Turbo Blend had a full body with virtually no acidity. Nutty, and with a refreshing and surprising brightness, this smooth and rich blend had a haunting suggestion of butternut and caramel in the mid-palate, teetering just on the edge of The Forbidden Zone, a place where flavored coffees are sent to die after being given to coffee drinkers as Christmas presents.

Moreover, all the senior citizens at Burger King, who had been drinking the same cup of coffee for between five and nine hours, seemed delighted in the blend as well, including the hobo outside who was collecting coins for more Turbo blend. (This hobo, incidentally, was last heard mumbling something about Turbo blend being a diuretic, and how he should really have his name promptly removed from the state Attorney General's special Internet list.)

On a celebrity scale, I rate the caffeine kick as JIM CAREY-like in terms of generating the type of coffee buzz craziness one demands. You sure won't feel like you're doing time on maple drive if you select this flavorful cup of coffee-flavored hot water. Final rating: 3.75 out of 5 coffee cups.

McDonald's

Rich, smooth and nutty doesn't just describe that One Guy at work who's on disability. It also describes the new McDonald's Premium Roast coffee. Not elegant, but still flavorful and mysterious, this coffee has an earthy aroma and a well-balanced flavor profile. The best food pairing for this coffee are the "greasy sausage patty with fried egg and cheese on biscuit," or a "lingonberry crepe in a lemon-butter sauce."

The McDonald's crowd, too, seemed to enjoy the Premium Roast coffee, as betrayed by an occasional twinkle and glint in the otherwise icy and vacant forward stares of the McDonald's Silver Hairs who, like the Burger King crowd, had been drinking the same cup of coffee for several hours while complaining about the government.

On my celebrity scale, I rate the caffeine kick as TOM CRUISE-like in terms of generating the type of manic productivity at work that could frighten co-workers, especially those on disability and senior citizens. After drinking this coffee you'll be jumping up and down on a couch as if you've seen the face of Oprah. Final rating: 4 out of 5 coffee cups.

Starbucks

My favorite (and longest) blog post last week was a Starbucks Sumatra-blend-induced spasm concerning Elisabeth from The View, J.C. (as in Jesus Christ and James Cameron) and George Bush. Starbucks wins.

My Starbucks visits included bold and light selections all week. Yet no matter what, all the coffees had a full, syrupy body with a medium level of acidity. Our favorite was the concentrated spicy and herbal notes and earthy aroma that are the telltale signatures of Sumatra blend, which did not disappoint.

Not even this delicious coffee could be spoiled by the overly friendly (and possibly slightly retarded) Starbucks employees, who for some reason seemed to think I had the remotest interest in engaging them in any conversation other than: "Where's my coffee?" or "Just give me my coffee." Best food pairing: Any Starbucks pastry that miraculously happens to still be fresh.

On a celebrity scale, I rate the caffeine kick as ROBIN WILLIAMS-like, but not the post-rehab Robin Williams. I'm talking about the coked-up and "in a manic phase" Williams. The Mork and Mindy Robin Williams who used to suffer near-heart attacks while being interviewed by Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. Final rating: 4.5 out of 5 coffee cups.

Believe me, that's one good cup of Joe.

***

War may be hell, as Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman told us, but Coffee Wars can be kind of fun, in a jittery, "I'm annoying all my co-workers and Wally" type of way.

Speaking of Sherman, some historians theorize that Sherman was bi-polar, and that the burning of Atlanta was the result of a manic phase in the general's manic-depressive illness.

Maybe Sherman just had too much Turbo Blend.

***

Confidence and Bravado: A President's Day Reflection

"The difference between the almost right word & the right word," Mark Twain wrote in 1888, " is really a large matter -- it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."

I thought of this quote last week while reading an entry on Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish about Abraham Lincoln. It's a letter from Lincoln to Ulysses Grant in which he admits a mistake:

My dear General,

I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do, what you finally did -- march the troups across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition, and the like, could succeed. When you got below, and took Port-Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join Gen. Banks; and when you turned Northward East of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake.

I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right, and I was wrong.

Yours very truly
A. Lincoln

What is the one single quality a man would have to have to write such a letter? The word I came up with was "confident." Lincoln is a man who is smart and secure enough to be able to rationally admit a mistake.

But isn't George Bush -- who is pictured above in his 2009 Halloween costume aboard the ship the USS Abraham Lincoln -- a confident man, too?

The answer is "not quite." The word is not quite the right one. Rather, Bush demonstrates what you'd call "bravado," a foolishly unyielding confidence.

George Bush, unlike war hero John Kerry, is certainly no flip-flopper, so he certainly could have never written a letter like the Lincoln letter. But at least he has a liberal dosing of bravado to complement his swagger and his Andrew Johnson-like stubbornness.

Bush likes to compare himself to former presidents, like Harry S Truman and Abraham Lincoln. The comparisons are rubbish. Truman was our last true liberal president, advocating national health care and civil rights.

The comparisons turn into contrasts when you scratch the Bush-Truman surface a little:

• Truman founded the United Nations. Bush lied to the United Nations.
• Truman fought a limited war in Korea that was truly an international effort. Bush's Iraq fiasco was largely a U.S. effort, involving only an additional 24 non-combat Laundry Corps soldiers from Poland, a country that has since withdrawn not only all its troops but also all its fabric softener.
  
• Truman was instrumental in international efforts such as the founding of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund; Bush shows contempt for such globalism, opposing the Kyoto accords and showing absolutely no interest in international cooperation whatsoever prior to 9/11.
  
• Truman opposed generals for the right reasons; for example, he had the audacity (and the vision and good judgment) of disagreeing with the very popular (and possibly manic) Gen. Douglas MacArthur by refusing to use dozens of atomic weapons against China and Manchuria. Bush opposed generals, too, but the problem is that these generals, unlike MacArthur, turned out not to be insane.
  
• Truman demonstrated confidence and certitude; Bush demonstrates ... bravado and stubbornness.
  

From all of us here at The Cup of Joe, and by all of us I mean "me," here's wishing a Happy President's Day to you and all you hold dear. As you head off for a night of partying and celebrating the holiday with loved ones, remember that the difference between the right word and the wrong word, and the difference between a good president and a dreadful president, is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. May your lights shine brightly, my friends.

***

Gay Guy Wants to Jingle In Your Pocket

So, I hear they're going to put all 40-something ex-presidents on the new dollar coins? This is kind of neat, especially since there's already an alarming lack of white males on U.S. coinage.

But this is historic. Why? This country's only "confirmed bachelor" president, James Buchanan, has not yet been honored, making him the first gay person ever to appear on a U.S. coin.

Now, I'm not going to defend Buchanan just because we played on the same team. He was, frankly, a pussy, demonstrating no moral compass, no discernable leadership abilities (why do anything when you can find excuses for inaction?) and (perhaps worst of all) a really ghastly fashion sense. He is easily among the three worst presidents EVER, along with Harding and the guy with the jiggly legs who is currently keeping the chair warm in the oval office. That would be Bush the Lesser, of course, the worst president in the history of the United States, the world, and, quite possibly, the entire tri-galaxy region.

***

Was Abraham Lincoln Gay?

First off, we here at The Cup of Joe need to send a birthday shout-out to Abraham Lincoln. He would have been 198 today, had he lived. (I understand he tells all his friends in heaven that he's only 129.)

Last week, on Andrew Sullivan's blog, Andrew got me thinking when he wrote that Walt Whitman was arguably the most distinguished gay American in history, then noted parenthetically that this is true "if you don't count Lincoln."

Now, I realize that Andrew is being a little tongue-in-cheek in so casually acknowledging the premise that Lincoln may have been gay, a premise advocated in recent years through various books and articles. But the idea has been around for decades, and was slyly alluded to in a Carl Sandburg 1926 biography that hints that Lincoln's relationship with Joshua Speed had "a streak of lavender, and spots soft as May violets."

Was Lincoln gay? It's a good time to revisit the question, especially since the Party of Lincoln has become the Party of Cheney, as in Mary Cheney.

I've read a good amount on Lincoln, so I've given this question some thought before. Of all the books I've read, I think the best single "straight" biography of Abe is David Donald's book Lincoln, for its scope, thoroughness, the objectivity of its decidedly unheroic portrait, and the author's emphasis on primary sources.

What do I mean by a primary source? Well, Donald didn't rely on newspaper accounts, or, say, the multi-volume biography of Lincoln by Sandburg or the biographical accounts of any number of other historians. Nope, Donald relied on primary sources, like letters and diaries and government documents and presidential papers. First-hand accounts. Straight from "Mary's" mouth, so to speak, as in Mary Todd and others.

WHEN ABRAHAM MET JOSHUA

I've snapped a photo of the page from the Donald book that describes how Lincoln first met his best and most intimate friend, Joshua Speed. (CLICK TO ENLARGE THE PHOTO.) It should be noted that David Donald has made clear in interviews that he does NOT subscribe to the notion that Lincoln was a Friend of Dorothy.

So why do some people say Lincoln was gay? Here's a quick review:

* Joshua Speed and Lincoln shared a bed for four years, a fact that is not up for historical debate. It happened. Does this make Lincoln gay? Not necessarily, because it was common for men to share beds in rooming houses at the time. So you can't say for sure.

* Lincoln also is said to have shared his bed with a solder (David Derickson) for an eight-month period during The Civil War but only when his wife was away, according to C.A. Tripp's The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln (2005). Does this make him gay? Well, it's impossible to say. The behavior is a little strange, but during a Civil War when you're the president, wouldn't you want a bodyguard close by, particularly if it's a strapping soldier with buns of steel and the guns to match?

On second thought, you don't have to even answer the question since the book's conclusions based on available evidence have already been pretty much discredited.

* Lincoln didn't have particularly close relationships with women, but Joshua Speed was his closest and most intimate friend. Even an old-fashioned and cautious historian like David Donald emphasizes this closeness and intimacy.

* Lincoln certainly suffered from depression, which sometimes sounds more like bi-polar disorder. Was Lincoln depressed in part because he had, on some level, a kind of self-hate that many closeted homosexuals experience?

A PENNY FOR MY THOUGHTS?

What's the bottom line for me?

You can't say that Lincoln was definitely not gay. There's evidence to indicate that Lincoln hardly was what you'd call a Kinsey 1 or zero, and that on the spectrum of sexuality he certainly wasn't in the same camp with, say, Sam Elliot.

But to leap to the conclusion that Lincoln was gay is quite the stretch. In Lincoln's day people didn't discuss sex. Sex wasn't a topic for polite company during the Victorian Era. This generation didn't leave us the evidence we'd need to arrive at some sound answer to the question. (And we also have to be careful not to read a 19th century letter or diary entry with a 21st century mindset.)

We'll never know whether Lincoln was gay or not, and anybody who claims otherwise is going to have to show me the YouTube video (shot in secret by Matthew Brady, of course) to prove that Lincoln was splitting more than just rails.

Maybe if we had video-shooting cell phones, gay.com, blogs, gay hooker Mike Jones and crystal meth way back when, we'd have some clearer and substantial evidence on the whole matter, and we could declare Lincoln as not only America's finest president, but also its greatest and finest Otter as well.