Home / Media / "Lincoln" Assassinated at the Academy Awards
"Lincoln" Assassinated at the Academy Awards
Written by Gary North on February 25, 2013
Daniel Day Lewis won the Oscar, but the movie didn't. He deserved it as best actor. He made the movie's script seem believable. That took unmatched acting ability.
The movie is about the 13th Amendment, which gave slaves their liberty. It spins the yarn that Lincoln pushed it through the House of Representatives by means of backroom deals. If true, these were the most successful backroom deals in American history. Lincoln left no trace of his machinations in support of the amendment.
It was all about the lame-duck House in January of 1865. That House was about to be replaced by a totally Republican House in March. So, Lincoln would have gotten it through the House two months later without any deals.
Lincoln had refused to support the amendment when the Senate passed it in 1864. He was running for re-election, and he did not want to make it look as though he was for freeing the slaves. He desperately wanted to beat his old boss at the Illinois Central Railroad, George McClellan, just as he had beaten his fellow Illinois Central lawyer Stephen Douglas in 1860. The Civil War broke out over the issue of which Illinois Central employee would run the country. Lincoln wanted to make it clear that he was top dog.
All this did not stop the script writer from coming up with the story of Lincoln, the deal-doer. But Spielberg knew he had to hire a great actor to make this exercise in mythology plausible. So, he hired the greatest screen actor of our generation, who pulled it off. He hired an Irishman.
Top of the mornin' to ya, Daniel!
I had hoped that Tommy Lee Jones would win best supporting actor for his portrayal of radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens. First, it was a great performance. Second, it showed Stevens as the uncompromising abolitionist that he really was. He, not Honest Abe, was the great emancipator of the Civil War.
The government of former General Lee's state of Virginia gave a $3.5 million subsidy to shoot the movie in Virginia. That represents the triumph of both Lincoln's politics and his economics. He spent his entire political career promoting government pork. As a Whig, he was a supporter of the Second Bank of the United States in the key year of 1832, the year that Congress failed to override Jackson's veto of a bill to renew the Bank's charter. He was a great believer in tariffs and federal handouts to the states. He announced this platform in 1832:
"Fellow citizens, I presume you all know who I am–I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by many friends to become a candidate for the legislature. My policies are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance. I am in favor of a National Bank, I am in favor of the Internal improvement system, and a high protective tariff. These are my sentiments and political principles. If elected I shall be thankful; and if not, it will be all the same."
He was elected in 1860. It would never be the same again.
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59 thoughts on ""Lincoln" Assassinated at the Academy Awards"
Myptofvu says:
I think they got supporting actor right (the guy in Django) however Spielberg shouldve got best director and best movie deff shouldlve not gone to Argo. Best actor, Hugh Jackman best actress, Chastain, but such is the politics in Hollywood.
JimRed says:
Wait until next year and see howw they treat "Killing Lincoln". The Academy leftists are unlikely to treat fairly anything written by someone (O'Reilly) they incorrectly perceive as a conservative.
Bobber says:
"Killing Lincoln" was made for TV, so I don't think it can go for an Oscar. Might get an Emmy though.
JDon357 says:
The emerging, pc view of Lincoln is that he was not the great emancipator. Somehow, 300 thousand Union troops died freeing the slaves, the country North and South, was decimated – and yet the man who held it all together gets no credit. Meanwhile, Obama gets a Nobel Peace Prize. I guess Reverend Wright preaches that Nat Turner freed the slaves.
Danno says:
Quite watching the Oscars years ago. Gone are the days of brilliant actors and mavericks like Brando and Geo. C. Scott who would just tell the Academy to go eff itself and refuse the award. Comic-book scriptwriting and endless sequels aimed at a lumpen teenage audience. The most interesting films are coming out of England, France, India, anywhere but Hollywood. When James Cameron moved to New Zealand that was the death knell for originality and creativity out of Tinseltown.
The studios want to blame internet piracy for their falling revenues, but it's boring, repetitive, formulaic lack of ideas in the product.
kayjay says:
Is it not ironic that Michele announces the win to ARGO? ( A movie about our foreign consulate and it''s members being rescued)
eeeeerie?
Joe Brooks says:
Mr North
Henry Clay was the father of the American System, based on the national politcal economy the US followed, starting with George Washington's Adminstration. The 2nd act of the first Congress in 1789 was import tariffs on a wide range of manufactured goods.
You can read what Clay actually thought, in his own words, here:
Henry Clay defended the American System on February 2, 1832:
"Gentlemen deceive themselves.
It is not free trade that they are recommending to our acceptance. It is, in effect, the British colonial system that we are invited to adopt; and, if their policy prevail, it will lead, substantially, to the recolonization of these States, under the commercial dominion of Great Britain."
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resou…
It had nothing to do with freeing the slaves. It was about money and raw materials. Freeing the slaves was the "hook" to enlist the support of idealists. The South wanted to sell its goods in a competitive market, i.e., France and England. This fell right in with opposing Lincoln's "high protective tariff." No one in the North cared except a few exceptions – and the Union soldiers were highly resentful about being sucked into a war to free them. The emancipated ones would line up to greet the soldiers as they marched into a "liberated" town and get picked off one at a time by Yankee rifles. Don't fool yourself – it was as dirty as any other war.
Lincoln agreed with Clay, there is no doubt. 20 years of free trade experimentation has been proven a dismal failure. Time to toss out the theory, when the data clearly proves it wrong. Just look at the unemployment, food stamp and factory closings numbers over the last 20 years.
Abraham Lincoln on the American System, bottom of page 416:
"Believing that these propositions, and the [conclusions] I draw from them can not be successfully controverted, I, for the present, assume their correctness, and proceed to try to show, that the abandonment of the protective policy by the American Government, must result in the increase of both useless labour, and idleness; and so, in proportion, must produce want and ruin among our people."
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln1/1:42…
Admiral America says:
Old Abe Linkey destroyed States rights just as Barry Obama is now. Slavery would have came to an end soon enough without his Constitutional violations.
Rhondar says:
O'Reilly is hardly conservative.
Lincoln's debate with Douglas showed how racist he was. He considered slaves as human garbage and wanted to ship them all back to Africa. Read the debates and see. Funny that Hollywood portrays him as an emancipator.
Historically incorrect movies endorsing revisionist history. Small wonder we wound up with a president like Obama.
Seymour Kleerly says:
O really! Then just what is he?
Gaines says:
I didn't even bother to watch as the stories of Lincoln have all been distortions of the man that was perhaps the worst president that started the ignorance of the constitution and started the strong federal government never authorized in the Constitution. I have no respect for the man or his reputation and no respect for any historian that ignore the history.
Albert Maslar says:
O'Reilly got it wrong, Lincoln did not issue the Emancipation Proclamation until the third year of the Civil War and then freed only slaves in the rebelling South that he had no power to enforce. Lincoln did not free slaves in the North where he had the power to enforce. Talk about having your cake and eat it too. 640,000 casualties in the Civil War that had maybe 10% of today's American population, and Americans today are apoplectic about ONLY 6.400 casualties in the Bush II wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. For those reasons I put Lincoln at the bottom of presidential rankings. England and other European countries ended slavery without civil wars.
Purely Hollywood propaganda… it is all fiction boys and girls… no matter how many awards are pinned on it. This is becoming like a banana-republic… the country is going to heck-in-a-hand basket, but the "generals" are all pinning medals on each other.
Lincoln was a hack, who incidentally fought the Civil War to PRESERVE THEUNION… even at the sacrifice of the US Constitution. Slavery was an side bar in the ecomonic war… and the greatest hiprocacy of America.
Carl Werner says:
Amen to that! I thought that I was one of the only people that felt that way.
I too consider Lincoln to be America's WORST president, except perhaps for the current occupant of the White House. How many people know that Lincoln imprisoned his political opponents without trial? Go to Ft. McHenry (where the National Anthem was written) and see the cells where members of the Maryland State Legislature were imprisoned for the duration of the war, without trial, because they were in favor of secession. Lincoln was a tyrant, without whom it is likely there would have been no Civil War. The slaves would probably have been freed within 20 years peacefully as technology improved enough for the agrarian South to have survived economically. Few realize that slavery took decades to disappear in the North and there were still some slaves in the North at the time of the Civil War who weren't even living in slave states. In the North they used a system of manumition whereby the owner of a slave could keep a slave they already owned for his life and children of the slave until they turned 21. The blood of about 700,000 people is on Lincoln's hands and yet he failed to actually free any slaves. It would be nice to see the history books and Hollywood for once portray Lincoln accurately.
Wyatt says:
Hollywood once again re-writing history to suit their story lines . Lincoln tried hard to avoid a civil war , the southern states and aggitators there were just as determined to begin one and break with the Union . The Civil War was not in anyway a mission to end slavery or free slaves . Rather it was Lincoln attempting to preserve the Union . In truth , Lincoln believed that as President , he did not have the power to end slavery . In that respect , Tommy Lee Jones role is correct and he should have won Best supporting Actor . And Argo , while a good telling of the story , was made more dramatic for the screen . The police car chase of the airliner didn't happen or we would have heard about it . And Mooseshelle giving the award was just more Hollywood BS and propaganda .
bmene says:
we in America now have a big problem,it is that our History now is that of Bill(who me?) Clinton,HillBilly Clinton(I'm runnin for President sometime if Obummer does not turn himself into the new Pharaoh) and of course Obummer himself. Anything else is just old hat,non informative rumors from old people.
Carol Mitchell says:
I don't know what they were thinking when Michelle Obama was chosen to announce winning movie. What does she have to do with Hollywood? Oh yes…left wing liberals stick together.
All Cameron did was to make another movie about white men killing the Indians, there's inovation for you.
branded969 says:
I can't understand WHY when a person proves to be a Son of a Bitch that after he dies he becomes a hero, WRONG. Lincoln was at the top of the list, followed by Wilson, Bama, Roosevelt, LBJ, Hover, Clinton, Reagan? Do people not know how to read and see what they did to our country? If you are born an ass you will die an ass! I wish they would start telling the truth about the CROOKS that have led our country into ruin! Semper Fi.
awkingsley says:
The Civil War was about economics. Our corrupt Federal Government was robbing the South of its revenue from cotton, by far our major export. The Federal Government was paying the Southern Planters 12-20 cents per pound for cotton, transporting it for 4 cents per pound, and selling it in New York for as much as $1.89 per pound. The South did not have the extra income for investment capital, and in fact if they wanted any return on their investments and any lifestyle, they either had slaves or share croppers, all institutionalized by our corrupt Federal Government. After the slaves were freed, the share cropper system was instituted for the same reason we had slavery – low profit margins on cotton. Our corrupt Federal Government is responsible both for the Civil War and for slavery. Federal Government tyranny has existed for far too many years to be ignored.
fxdp says:
James Cameron didn't move to New Zealand. He just opened a visual effects studio in Manhattan Beach, CA.
otoole123 says:
think you hit the nail on the head….go CIA.
@ArlenWms says:
1. Lincoln's re-election was existentially necessary for the U.S.A. Emancipation had to be delayed. McClellan was for giving in or giving out.
2. After being re-elected, Lincoln aggressively sought and won emancipation.
3. Tariffs were constitutional and maintenance of nationally responsible economics is Adam Smith's and our founder's vision. It avoids the globalist despotism which is now warring against a free and independent set of United States.
4. Lincoln was not around to oversee America becoming more honoring of state powers once again, though from his fervent statements that appears among his objectives.
5. Lincoln's truly American, constitutional interpretation of nationally/congressionally custodianed banking was essential. Again, it staved off the anti-sovereignty, grossly corrupt and corrupting central banking system at least mostly, at least until 1913.
6. This president who made the PRIME OBJECTIVE of America applicable to all Americans (popular sovereignty) and won two wars at the same time, against the existence of the U.S.A. (vs. the C.S.A. and the foreign central banking complex) is perhaps our the most heroic president in our history.
7. Anyone who is savaged by both the Marxoid left and the bitter Dixiecrats, Know Nothings, quasi-anarchists, and aristocrats of the lamer factions of right is to automatically be looked upon with esteem — and by me, even if I hadn't learned about this particular, perpetual target.
Here is my comment, after editing the prior: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/l5cclo
Must have hurt very much for her to say any other movie but Zero Dark Thirty. Lincoln should have won.
Dottie, guest says:
I quit watching the Oscars several years ago, with all their pawing and swooning over the near nudity of the female 'stars.' The only good movies (exception of Lincoln) are movies made in France, Denmark, England, and other foreign countries. Hollywood is putting out trash for the most part, and then swooning over the so-called stars as if they are the most knowledgeable and important people in the world. The media even seeks their opinion on every subject esp. politics, as if they have enough brains to even know what is going on in the world.
Dottie says:
Yes, and how did you like Michell's $30,000. dress? and her new hairdo, with her bangs covering part of her eyes, and in a bubble stylell no less. Ugly. Can't stand the lady and it is sickening how the press idolizes her,like she is some 'queen.' Disgusting. All at tax-payer's expense.
Don Duncan says:
Sovereign states created a loose confederation, not a "union" or "one nation". Lincoln created a centralized, super state he called "The Union" at the expense of the state's sovereignty and 600,000 American lives. Thus he made his position more important, more powerful, and became the first American dictator. He deserved what he got. Too bad it was too late to stop his empire building.
Lincoln was the worst president. History professors teach the opposite. This has resulted in Lincoln being the most loved president for over a century and proves the true intent of "public education", i.e., indoctrination.
Apparently you, just as Lincoln, have no understanding of the Constitution, much less understood the founding of the Former USA. The POS who was promoted to godhood after his late death began a new country, one which should be titled the CSA, to wit, the Conscripted States of America. The incompetence and cowardice of the northern states in allowing a tyrant to jail members of the press, allow the jailing of any individual who believed in the Constitution, and even jailing a state legislature because of their political views (MD) shows that the people of these states (North of the Mason Dixon) are predominately cowards, afraid of their own shadows.
What is ironic is that her husband did not think the four people in Benghazi were worth rescuing.
Deputy says:
Yes, it was a Republican, not a Democrat that freed the slaves! It was Blacks, not Whites that made other Blacks Slaves! Blacks, to this day, are still making Blacks slaves! It was not Lincoln's intent to free the slaves, but only did so in order to try and keep the Union intact! Lincoln committed heinous criminal offenses in the manner in which he allowed Southern prisoners of war to be tortured, denying them food and clothes, and even murdered a Southern Black soldier upon his arrival at a Northern prisoner of war camp!!! Lincoln is not the great person false history has made him out to be!!! Eventually truth will come out, but will history books be changed to tell the tuth?!…
Brett Moffatt says:
It was Lincoln who completed the work started by Alexander Hamilton, of destroying the republic of our Founding Fathers and creating a mercantile empire. He supported slavery, even until the last weeks of the war, if the South would come back into the union. His government was dependent on Southern taxes. In his first inaugural he stated their would be no bloodshed as long as the tariffs were collected.
Texas Chris says:
O'Reilly is a right-authoritarian Progressive.
You can't be "conservative" and advocate for a government solution to every problem, as O'Reilly does.
Lincoln didn't live long enough to be revealed as the villain he was. The curse of Boothe… And why I hope nobody assassinates Obama; Barry needs to die of extreme old age, with his ideology completely discredited.
Well said. You are obviously a student of history.
My problem with the scenario you paint is that the Confederate South was no better. Yes, they had every right to secede, but they squandered their opportunity at independence by 1) not capitalizing at Bull Run, and 2) becoming as tyrannical as the Lincoln government.
nuke waste says:
You know nothing about Free Trade. We have an illegal bank in charge of our money, 50% of Americans are sucking some kind of government dick. Small businesses are taxed to death. This is not Free Trade.
VeeDub57 says:
"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything." ~ Abraham Lincoln
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views." ~ Abraham Lincoln
KJQ says:
Argo was almost complete fabrication from the moment the students entered the embassy compound. The 6 Americans were not all at our (Canadian here) Ambassadors house initially at all. One went to the Swedish embassy, the others made the rounds of several other countries embassies who turned them away, then made it to the home of one of our Canadian embassy staffers. The CIA had almost no role in the rescue at all. Tony Mendez spent a total of 36 hours in Iran. All of the background paperwork for the Americans (e.g. Canadian passports, driver's licences, social insurance cards, club memberships, library cards etc. etc.) were made and provided by Canada. Several cover stories were ready to go but the CIA insisted on the elaborate movie crew ruse which delayed their exit by weeks. The entire exit was fake, as they literally just drove to the airport in Canadian embassy vehicles, checked in and flew off. It may be a great move, but at best it's 'historical fiction'.
You're wrong, fxdp. Cameron moved to NZ last year. He bought a 2500-acre ranch there.
Like we really need more snoozers based on Sixties sit-coms or a DC Comic book. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I agree with your assessment of actors. These are people who make a very good living by playing people that they're not. But audiences are so gullible, they think that actors ARE the characters they portray! THEN, they think that these people who excel at playing people they're not are also experts on all matters! This is totally ridiculous.
pcj says:
Check out Rush Limbaugh's take on Michelle's "visit" : http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/rush-supreme-irony-for…
He had some good points…another Obama "campaign" to make themselves look better after Benghazi~!
scarletdove says:
I would have liked to see Lincoln win, and TommyLeeJones get best supporting, he is terrific. The fact that Michelle Obama was even at the awards is questionable, but they have trouble staying out of the limelight. But the hypocrisy is that she presented an award for a film about rescuing americans from Iran, while her husband let americans be killed in Bengazi. I found Seth MacFarlane boring and some of his humor inapproriate. Gone also are the days of decency.
Blair Franconia, NH says:
It was a hard choice.
Politically he's "independent", philosophically he's conservative. Every word out of his mouth is anti-Liberal. You make a perfect Fox News fan.
Bosco says:
Now the Tea Party nitpicks the Academy Awards. Tea artiers are concerned the Lincoln movie did not get more awards. On the same page, Tea Partiers are taking away the hard fought rights African-Americans and abolishionists fought for the slaves. What hypocrits. Tea Party cowards, ya gotta love em. Let's send them to fight our wars next time. Watch as they run toward deferments.
Tasha says:
They write their own marxist divisive history. If you read Lincoln's speeches, he was ALWAYS personally against slavery. As President, his first duty was to preserve the NATION.
Bosco you are trruly igrnorant. =It's demoncrap slavery once again–enslaving and crippling the low information slut class and enslaving the people who work and have their earnings stolen to support htme and their demoncrap pol masters.
Al Lee says:
Wow! so much talk about the awards–bunch of people I don't give a hoot about all congratulating one another.
The Who says:
A much better choice would have been 1986's TV mini-series "On Wings of Eagles". It's the story of Ross Perot rescued his employees from Iran.
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