It’s fair to say that he exceeded expectations.

It’s always useful to remember how low expectations were for Abraham Lincoln when he took office. Even his ostensible allies sometimes described him as a rube, a hayseed out of his depth in troubled times. As for his political enemies, the editors at Harper’s Weekly*, a publication that had shilled for Stephen Douglas during the 1860 campaign, printed the above cartoon (click here for a larger image) on this day in 1861. Less than a week before Lincoln’s inauguration, the artist, John McLenan, depicted the president-elect, apparently drunk, joking with cronies as a funeral procession for the Constitution and Union passed by in the background.

* The editors at Harper’s maintained a Unionist stance throughout the war. And by the end of the conflict, the publication had become aggressively pro-Lincoln.

Charging RINO

You are a famous Republican columnist and you have a problem. Over many years, you’ve solidified your position as the Official Intellectual GOP guy. The competition has died off, the insider guys like Kristol pose no threat, and nobody else dares to wear a bow tie. You are it. You cultivate the position through said wearing of bow ties and by writing long meandering paeans to baseball (the manly intellectual’s sport) while studiously ignoring football (manly but not intellectual) and (horrors!) NASCAR. You like this position, as it gains you spots in famous magazines and on talk shows. You go to state dinners. You even get to host dinner with a Democratic President. You get book deals.

Lately, though, things are becoming awkward. Intellectuals have not been welcomed in the GOP for a long time, and the party itself is skewing away from the kind of erudite conservatism you claim to espouse. The insane Palin-Limbaugh-Jindal-O’Reilly wing of the GOP has taken over. People are suddenly accusing you of being a “RINO”: Republican In Name Only. Threads at the Volokh Conspiracy go back and forth over whether you’re a “real conservative” or not. What’s a bow-tie wearing columnist to do?

Sans bow-tie

Well, first, you wear your bow tie less. But that’s too subtle for the most rabid Republicans, so stronger measures are required. You make a list of red-meat issues for social conservatives, ones that send both them and Democrats into screaming frenzies of argumentation, real foaming-at-the-mouth foundational beliefs. From that list, you choose a belief and then you go out and espouse the insane wing of the GOP’s side of it, as loudly as you can.

This does not go well the first time you try it. Note to self: make sure Nobel laureates are not present during this maneuver.

So you go back to the list and choose another one. This time, you write a column about it (no Nobel laureates allowed!). This time things work perfectly. There is a firestorm of outrage and condemnation from the community of the sane, a firestorm which makes the crazy wing of the GOP rise to your defense. You stoke the fire a bit by writing another column defending the first, and then sit back and enjoy the warmth. You are George Will, and you have just reaffirmed that you are a Republican.