- Jun 24, 2007
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- HR/Finance
“I’ve been spending a lot of time reading Lincoln,” President-elect Barack Obama told 60 Minutes recently. “There is a wisdom there and a humility about his approach to government, even before he was president, that I just find very helpful.’’
Well, of course he would. Obama and Lincoln have much in common. Both men come from Illinois, though both men spent many years living in other states. Both are stylish writers and eloquent speakers. Both have a background in law. Both have as his principal rival a senator from New York, and both selected that rival to be secretary of state. Both come to the presidency under most difficult of circumstances.
But only one, so far, has spent his transition growing a beard.
[...]
But there just might be a good reason for Obama to grow a beard: foreign policy. Consider that in the almost 100 years from Wilson to Bush that America has had clean-shaven presidents, the following individuals have been prominent among its enemies: Pancho Villa, Kaiser Wilhelm, Adolf Hitler, Emperor Hirohito, Hideki Tojo, Josef Stalin, Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Gamal Abdel-Nasser, Hafez al-Assad, Daniel Ortega, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden, and right now we’re not exactly sweet on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Anybody see a pattern here? Surely it can’t be so simple that America just hates guys who don’t shave. And yet…look how George W. Bush was never quite as friendly with Vicente Fox as we first thought he would be. Look how quickly Ike tossed over Anthony Eden and de Gaulle at Suez. Think he would have done that to Churchill?
Who knows? But the evidence points to a trend—and an opportunity. A bearded Obama would show the world that America bears no one ill will. Everyone starts with a clean slate, if not a clean lip.
Full Article Here
I found this somewhat humourous ~ Zulile