Spielberg's Lincoln is a surprise in some ways. It more or less confronts some of Pres. Lincoln's arbitrariness when it comes to the Constitution, though it doesn't much get into specifics about how Lincoln believes he's fulfilling his oath to protect the Constitution as he engages in sophistry to circumvent the restrictions of the Constitution. The timing of this is not that surprising since we have a President that is so slippery about his Executive Powers that even Rachel Maddow has reacted with incredulity at his rationalizations ("construct[ing] a legal regime" for prolonged detention being a kind of "ad hoc legal strateg[y]") ― and yet gets a lot of public approval after running on a ticket to reform executive licentiousness. Well, Lincoln in the film admits to assuming powers he wasn't sure were given him by the Constitution he swore to uphold, and he explains one of his "ad hoc legal strategies."
If there is one overriding theme to Spielberg's Lincoln, it is that when the cause is righteous enough, there is no amount of fraud and corruption that is unwarranted. This is good news to the Left, because they've known for a long time their causes are just that good. I'm not embellishing about the movie at all. According to Spielberg's narrative, a movie that ironically has Abe rebuking the Confederate leaders for not having faith in the democratic process, Abe's idea of democracy in action included among other things: (1) lying to Congress and the American people about the purposes and effects of policies, (2) dealing in bad faith with a diplomatic peace mission from the Confederacy, (3) deliberately misleading Congress about diplomatic relations with the South, (4) buying votes through cronyism and cash payouts, etc. The movie presents all of these things as noble and grand, because they were done for a noble cause.
Lesson:
