Artur Davis takes issue with political observers who've commented that "Lincoln" is a good template for the Obama administration to follow. The moderate-conservative Republican and former U.S. Congressman in Virginia opines about the film: "But reading 'Lincoln' as an instruction manual ignores the degree to
which this film is almost subversively hostile to two of the favorite
values of contemporary politics: authenticity and transparency. The
blunt truth of this portrait of Lincoln’s presidency is a democratic
reality that if it materialized tomorrow, we would find depressing and
hardly idealistic. It is a closed universe of insiders who operated free
of consistent public scrutiny, or ethics regulations, or even a softer
code that words and deeds should be tightly connected to be credible.
There is a void of disclosure and standards that is not remotely capable
of being replicated today, and that we wouldn’t want to conjure up if
we could. The point is not to treat Lincoln is anything other than
great, but that his greatness operated in a zone not remotely like our
own."
Lincoln's Lost World
