OMG!

My bad. I forgot to put the <joke> </joke> parameters around the Lincoln first EO. I thought it was pretty clear that I was mocking Trump’s renaming of the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. Sigh.

Just for the record, Lincoln is my favorite president (by far) and I’ve read over 40 books about him, my favorite being Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Lincoln had a wicked sense of humor and I think he would have laughed at my joke. And, he would have never done something that stupid.

The following two bits of useless trivia about Lincoln that are 100% accurate:

Maybe 10 years ago, Doris Kearns Goodwin gave a speech at a local university as well as a breakfast with book signing. My friends, who know I am a Lincolnholic, got me tickets to both events. When I handed her my copy of TOR to sign, I mentioned that I thought her book was the best book about Lincoln that I’ve read. Her response; “Of all the presidents I’ve lived with, he was my favorite.”

Spielberg’s movie Lincoln was based on TOR. The movie had some inaccuracies, but was good. But based on descriptions I’ve read about Lincoln’s physical characteristics, Daniel Day-Lewis just slammed it out of the park. It felt like I was actually watching Lincoln. Anyway, in the movie there is a scene of Lincoln sitting at his desk just thinking, the only sound being the ticking of his pocket watch. Spielberg actually talked the Smithsonian into winding Lincoln’s original pocket watch a bit so he could record the actual, authentic sound of Abraham Lincoln's personal pocket watch, recorded by Oscar-winning sound designer Ben Burtt.