Looking at politics through Lincoln-tinted spectacles | Whale’s Tales

Published 1:30 am Friday, April 10, 2026

Regular readers of Whale’s Tales may have noticed.

I like to quote Abraham Lincoln. I like to write about Abraham Lincoln.

We all need our heroes. And for many reasons, Lincoln is mine. Indeed, I tend to measure the quality of candidates for high office, especially for president, through Lincoln-tinted spectacles.

The problem is that Lincoln remains one of a kind, and it’s highly unlikely anyone will ever measure up to the standards I lay out below. But if I can cross off a couple of the items on my list respecting candidates, I figure I’m doing all right.

In Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon of Greek, we find the original meaning of the word areté, that is, demonstrating the use of one’s gifts “along lines of excellence.”

As I find the word fitting Lincoln, I’ll start there.

• Not only will the would-be politician pledge to hire only the best and the brightest — no bootlickers or sycophants need apply — but can point to a track record showing him or her consistently backing up his word.

• Demonstrate a capacity to listen to different points of view, eschewing toadyism, without firing them.

Lincoln kept on his cabinet several men whom he had bested (Secretary of State William Seward and Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase).

Lincoln created a climate where members of his cabinet were free to disagree without fear of retaliation. At the same time, he knew when to stop the discussion, and after listening to the various opinions, make a final decision.

Incidentally, Seward, who quickly grew to love Lincoln like a brother, said of the president, “His magnanimity is almost superhuman.” Also, when Chase’s politicking for the presidency behind the president’s back grew too obvious, Lincoln fired him, then elevated him to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

“I would rather have swallowed my buckhorn chair whole,” said Lincoln afterward to a friend, “but it was the right thing to do for the country.”

• Be ready and willing to share credit for success, instead of making everything about him or herself.

• Demonstrate a capacity to learn.

Lincoln was able to acknowledge errors, learn from them, and then move on. In this way, as Doris Kearns Goodwin noted her book “Team of Rivals,” her book about Lincoln’s cabinet choices, he planted and fed a culture of learning in his administration.

• Intelligence.

We’ve been so smothered by stories about Lincoln’s compassion that we forget what a highly intelligent, shrewd and brilliant politician he was. One writer called him, “The canniest judge of men who ever sat in the White House.” And yet, sometimes his judgement of men led him to pursue courses of action and paths that would strike us a peculiar today.

One of my favorite Lincoln stories centers on the day when Lincoln turned aside a man’s application for employment because he “didn’t like the guy’s face.”

A colleague of the disappointed man went to remonstrate with Lincoln about this.

“Mr. President, you can’t refuse to hire a man just because you don’t like his face! No man is responsible for his face!”

“Every man over 40 is responsible for his face,” Lincoln replied.

Finally, I think a president should be able to laugh at himself or herself, as the famously homely president demonstrated the day woman called him “two-faced.”

“Madam, I leave it for you to judge,” said Lincoln. “If I had another face, would I have brought this one with me?”

Robert Whale can be reached at robert.whale@soundpublishing.com.