Lincoln: Smells Like Team Spirit
Lincoln As She Never Saw Him  
As the nation enjoys Barack Obama’s ham-handed efforts to resurrect Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Lincolnesque “Cabinet Of Rivals,” actual Lincoln historians try to spoil the party with facts.
Dickinson College Civil War historian Matthew Pinsker challenges the renowned plagiarist, pointing out that Lincoln angered his supporters by taking in his opponents, who largely failed him.
“Lincoln’s Cabinet was no team. His rivals proved to be uneven as subordinates. Some were capable despite their personal disloyalty, yet others were simply disastrous…Lincoln was a political genius, but his model for Cabinet-building should stand more as a cautionary tale than as a leadership manual.”
