Pervez dons a stovepipe hat

As the world teeters on the brink of nihilistic positivism, a beacon of perpetual emancipation has emerged from the unlikeliest of places. Father Abraham has a champion among the sons of Ishmael, the great General Pervez Musharraf.

To hear the words of Lincoln, transposed in undulating pitched consonants to the Pakastani emancipator's mouth and dripping forth from his tongue like the blood of Atlanta's Calhounite housewives trickled off the boot heels of General Sherman, truly brought joy to this old man's heart. Let us hear the General's message as he urges us Americans, and indeed the inheritors of the Gettysburg banner, to once again affirm our faith in the purity and guidance of Father Abraham:

I would at this time venture to read out an excerpt of President Abraham Lincoln, specially to all my listeners in the United States. As an idealist, Abraham Lincoln had one consuming passion during that time of crisis, and this was to preserve the Union.

The Union, oh blessed and merciful may it be to you, General Musharaff. For you are truly a man who has seen his house divided and declared that there shall be no more crisis! But lo, I see that the modern day's Copperheads have targeted you with their venom and a thousand blogging Booths now descend upon your theater perch. The heirs of Calhoun and Hitler know no boundaries, seemingly having even dragged the once talented Eric Foner into their camp.

Here is what Lincoln did not do and Musharraf did. He did not suspend the Constitution, remove the Chief Justice, impose martial law upon the entire country, incarcerate dozens of lawyers, arrest leaders of the opposition party and human rights advocates or ban political demonstrations. Perhaps most important, he did not disrupt the operation of political democracy.

No, no, no, Eric! You have it all wrong, and if you had paid attention when I told you that Lincoln gave this country a new birth of freedom you might possibly glimpse a reflection of a shadow of the depth of the wrongness that I know you to now exhibit.

How dare thee suggest Abraham Lincoln failed in his attempt to impose martial law! How dare you accuse him of inadequacy in his efforts to arrest leadership of the opposition party! How dare you impugn Father Abraham's ability to disrupt the operation of political democracy! And he would have arrested that rat bastard Taney too if the weaker minds in his cabinet had not impeded him. My dear Eric, you make a great story teller but know Lincoln you do not, for Abe not only met the bars you set for him but met them like a viking.

It is General Musharaff in emulating Lincoln's grand example who falls short for want of simple elocution. But that is no fault of his. In the century since the American people were robbed of Lincoln's divine utterances only one voice has attained a peerage along side the Emancipator's oratory. Though such assistance was available to him, for reasons unknown General Musharaff neglected to return my phone calls.

"Extremism in the defense of Lincoln is no vice," he should say! Declare that and in United Pakistan, much like the United America, children would forever frolic to Abraham's guidance amidst the daisies and the glowing rays of light cast out upon the land like a mushroom's spores from the glory that is Union.