Beware of Histo-tainment

I'm very glad that Matthew Pinsker penned this op-ed today taking a more critical look at Doris Kearns Goodwin's pop pseudo-history "Team Of Rivals". As a yarn, I hear the book is quite good, but as a piece of history it's not exactly true to the source. And since it's become accepted wisdom among the DC chattering class and the politicians they influence, that's a serious problem.

There were painful trade-offs with the "team of rivals" approach that are never fully addressed in the book, or by others that offer happy-sounding descriptions of the Lincoln presidency.

Lincoln's decision to embrace former rivals, for instance, inevitably meant ignoring old friends -- a development they took badly. "We made Abe and, by God, we can unmake him," complained Chicago Tribune Managing Editor Joseph Medill in 1861. Especially during 1861 and 1862, the first two years of Lincoln's initially troubled administration, friends growled over his ingratitude as former rivals continued to play out their old political feuds [...]

By December 1862, there was a full-blown Cabinet crisis.

"We are now on the brink of destruction," Lincoln confided to a close friend after being deluged with congressional criticism and confronted by resignations from both Seward and Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase. Goodwin suggests that Lincoln's quiet confidence and impressive emotional intelligence enabled him to survive and ultimately forge an effective team out of his former rivals, but that's more wishful thinking than serious analysis.

Consider this inconvenient truth: Out of the four leading vote-getters for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination whom Lincoln placed on his original team, three left during his first term -- one in disgrace, one in defiance and one in disgust.

The Village has more of a sense of bumper stickers than history, and Goodwin, whose scholarship is not exactly spotless, is a Villager in good standing, so this will probably pass through the Beltway without comment. But I hope someone in the office of the President-elect is paying attention. Pinsker doesn't even tackle the false equivalence between the Civil War and our day - the real rivals were seceding from the Union and massing an Army at the time. This was a moment that called for unity between anyone who wasn't a Confederate, necessitating Lincoln's choice - and it STILL DIDN'T WORK VERY WELL.

That is not to say that any of these rivals potentially in Obama's cabinet would create similar controversy. And I'm not talking about Hillary Clinton in this context - her political future would rise and fall on her ability to carry off positive results, and if she made peace in the Middle East her signature goal, the consequences would be very beneficial. But if you want to broaden out the analogy, is there that big a difference between the Republicans and the Confederates? I mean, this is really what Obama is talking about, even exploring, that ought to have you worried. Is it that wise to put people in the Cabinet who want us to be avowedly with them," as Lincoln put it?

Maybe the traditional media shouldn't keep parroting this concept when its application was actually flawed? Or is that the point, a back-door way to imprint bipartisan leadership on the new Administration?