Many people remember Lincoln as our greatest President; he saved the union, wrote and spoke beautiful and lasting words, and freed the slaves.  What they forget is that before most of that, he made choices that made his enemies, and even many of his supporters, to curse him, or hate him. 

Early in the war, John C. Fremont was appointed as a Major General, and at one point claimed that all slaves owned by Confederates in Missouri were free. Lincoln was furious when he heard the news, because he feared that this action would force slave-owners in border states to join with the Confederates.  Lincoln asked Fremont to modify his order and free only slaves owned by Missourians actively working for the South. Fremont refused claiming that "it would imply that I myself thought it wrong and that I had acted without reflection which the gravity of the point demanded."

President Lincoln was urged to fire Fremont.  Horace Greeley, who was editor of the New York Tribune, wrote an open letter to Lincoln defending Fremont and criticizing the president for failing to move faster on slavery, and put an ultimate end to it.  Lincoln famously replied:

 "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it."

But what we know now is that Lincoln already had the issue of slavery in his long term sights, and was already manuevering himself and others into a slow progression towards that ultimate goal.  He finished his letter saying,

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free. Yours,

A. LINCOLN

 

We know that Lincoln had an Emancipation later drafted, yet waited and waited until a Union Victory to implement it.  We know that the Emancipation did not free every slave, yet two years later, Slavery was forever abolished.

My belief is that Obama wants to do certain things, and in many cases has claimed or promised to do them.  Indeed the long electoral season was full of them.  However he probably has that short-term/long-term sense of history, and how it is to be made--the same that Lincoln had.  He knows, as Lincoln did, that you cannot please all of the people all of the time, that there is a necessary evolution to any systematic shifts or changes in a society, and that slowly manuevering the opponents of an issue closer and closer to a resolution can be not unlike that of a flea market deal.  The price is 100, you offer 50.  You and he somehow both know that you are going to end up buying it, but that is not the point.  The closer you both move towards an agreed number, the less objection both will have, and thus--a done deal.  Both are satisfied, and the thing is sold.

Obama is not stupid.  Yes, there is basically a filibuster-proof majority in Congress.  Yes, Obama is leaning on extremely high personal and job approval ratings.  Yes, he made promises and now he is President.  But I suspect there are considerations, motives, chess moves, and grand designs lurking behind the so-called "flip-flops" and not-so-fast movements.

Many on the left screamed on high for prosecutions and censures against the last administration and it's minions as soon as Jan. 20th became a jubilee for all of the hopes we put in this young man.  But Obama is President because he knew better than most how to pull it off; how to sell the thing. 

I understand being disappointed in slow movement, reversing course, saying no to the seemingly obvious right moves that we, had we the chance, would make to right the wrongs of the last 8 years. 

But let us remember also that it took Lincoln his entire presidency, almost 5 years, to go from wishing the "negro" free--and actually freeing him.  It took not just election to the office, but persuasion, words, war, compromise, and patience.  I appreciate the fact that, and Lincoln explained as much, that to do what he paersonally wanted to do, could interfere with more important things to the whole.  He looked at moves in relationships the way an artist does.  Moving one way too hard or too fast, even in the right direction--can pull, or drag, or confuse--or ruin the whole design.  Had the slaves been freed not by law in 1865, but in April 1861--he would not have had popular support for it, would not have persuaded some one opposing sides, the war may have led to two separate countries, or a slaughter of race-rioting.  Lincoln may have been assassinated in 1861 if such a course had been followed, and he would be remembered not as a great man with foresight and vision, but as a martyr who had failed. 

I trust that many will respond with the reasoning behind wanting immediate action on certain issues, for wanting to abandon the existing Gitmo trial structure, to release the photos which establish the unamerican methods of the Bush years, or to prosecute those who we can prove deserve prosecuting.  I appreciate this feeling, and share in it.

But I believe that Obama has the lonely, back-breaking task of establishing a more perfect union, not just with our Constitution and it's laws, not just with righting wrong, but with slow, deliberate persuasion, compromise, and action--that can sometimes only arrive with time. And he may not be satisfied with just one side prevailing on an issue--he may want the other side to move closer to reckoning why it's fitting and proper to do so.  Moreover, like Lincoln, he has more than just one consideration:

Answering liberal complaints, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters: "First and foremost, the president does what is in the best security interest of the United States."

 

In a larger sense, not unlike what Lincoln said in his reply to his supporters-turned-critics, there is a larger picture here.  One small piece can affect the whole.  And there is an appointed time to every purpose.