Obama Looks to Lincoln | Newsweek Politics | Newsweek.com

Obama Looks to Lincoln | Newsweek Politics | Newsweek.com: "The most important quality may be humility, which both Obama and Lincoln repeatedly refer to as an essential virtue. Humility in this case is not to be confused with meekness or passivity. Rather, it comes from confidence. A Lincolnesque leader is confident enough to be humble—to not feel the need to bluster or dominate, but to be sufficiently sure of one's own judgment and self-worth to really listen and not be threatened by contrary advice. Lincoln showed this rare quality before he was sworn into office in March 1861. 'Lincoln wrote a really bellicose Inaugural [Address] at home,' says Harold Holzer, author of 'Lincoln President-Elect.' 'It ended with looking at the South and saying, 'Shall it be peace or sword?' He showed the draft to people, and they all urged him to tone it down and make it more conciliatory.' And so he did. It turns out that the lines quoted by Obama in Grant Park ('We are not enemies, but friends …') were not written by Lincoln, but by Seward."