ALSO LINCOLN WAS TALL, WHEREAS OBAMA... WELL, LINCOLN WAS WHITE.

Conservative writing on the Iran Deal has been so feverish that it conjures an image of a red-faced Bibi Netanhayu screaming at the authors to "DO WHAT I'M TELLIN' YA!" like Broderick Crawford in Born Yesterday.  One of the weirder specimens appears at National Review where, after some preliminary obvious bullshit ("It’s nice to see that even CNN recognizes the president’s deal with Iran for what it is: 'another legacy-making item on his checklist'"), Ian Tuttle tries this gambit:

What could account for [Obama's] astonishing indifference to American security? In his 1838 address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Ill., Abraham Lincoln suggested ambition, and that seems to me as good an explanation as any.

Lincoln? Iran? Huh? Tuttle preambles a quote from the speech...

This “field of glory” harvested, to what would the next Alexander or Napoleon turn? He warned: 

Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. It sees no distinction in adding story to story upon the monuments of fame erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction... 

Distinction will be his paramount object, and although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm, yet, that opportunity being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling down.

 ...and interprets:

Barack Obama’s ambition, his hunger for his own aggrandizement, has long been obvious. No humility afflicts a one-term senator who promises to “fundamentally transform” the United States of America, or who proclaims his mere nomination for the presidency “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” 

He is an ideologue, yes, a Chicago leftist, community organizer-in-chief, unreconstructed Columbia poli-sci grad student. I’ve no doubt he thinks a diminished America a better America — for us, and for the world. But “building up” or “pulling down” is secondary. America is merely the instrument with which Barack Obama would carve his name into history.

The short version is: Lincoln said America would have ambitious, bad presidents in the future -- and that's just how I feel about Obama! Plus Alinsky!

The subterfuge seems at first merely lazy,  the prose equivalent of the Obama paintings of John McNaughton. But I see a deeper purpose: The connection between the modern Republican Party and Lincoln has taken a beating over the past 50 years, and the recent Confederate Flag controversy has pretty much severed it. (Tuttle was a big help there!) Now that they've totally blown it on race, I guess they have to find some other way to associate themselves with Honest Abe. Foreign policy seems a stretch, but what else do they have? It's not like they can endorse high tariffs. (And if they don't have Lincoln, what other GOP president is left beside Reagan, who is losing his charm as a demigod? They disowned Teddy Roosevelt. Tricky Dick, maybe your rehabilitation is at hand!)

There's always abortion, which some of the more hysterical brethren (including Tuttle!) like to portray as the new slavery, but in order to get traction on that they're going to have to work on their approach:

COLUMBUS, Ohio, July 13, 2015 /Christian Newswire/ -- Created Equal, a national anti-abortion group, will be displaying abortions in progress on a Jumbo-Tron TV screen at the Lincoln Memorial on July 14, 2015 as part of our week-long Justice Ride.

I'm seeing the hearts and livers angle, but not the hearts and minds. Maybe they should put a beard and stovepipe on Mike Huckabee and see where it gets them.

GULF WAR III - THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM!

I found this charming video via the (so-far) single-tweet account of the American Security Initiative, which Ryan Cooper of The Week informs me is basically Saxby Chambliss, Evan Bayh, and Norm Coleman trying to sabotage a deal with Iran. (Jennifer Rubin refers to it as a "bipartisan group," which pretty much proves it's bullshit.)

To summarize, a sinister van drives into what looks like Toronto, while the radio plays clips of those great Americans Lindsay Graham and Bibi Netanyahu warning us about Iran's nuclear ambitions. But ha, too late, Obama sold us out and blam -- the nuclear device blows the doors off the back of the van.  (The van rears up like a horse just before the explosion, which may be how fission works; I was never good at physics.) Then we hear one lonely siren, indicating the nuclear explosion has wiped out several whole blocks of Toronto.

I wonder how they would be talking to us if they respected our intelligence?