Review
by Bob Ignizio
Although
Steven Spielberg's LINCOLN
does provide insight into what made our 16th president the man he
was, it's not so much a biopic as it is a movie about how the
sausages are made. By that I'm referring to the legislative process,
about which John Godfrey Saxe (and not Otto Von Bismarck, who often
gets the credit) famously said, “Laws, like sausages, cease to
inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.”
The
particular sausage being ground up and shoved into its casing in
LINCOLN is the 13th
amendment which, when it was eventually ratified, abolished slavery
in the United States of America. Obviously that's a good thing, but
like much that takes place in congress it required a great deal of
careful maneuvering and political favors to reach fruition. And while
it would be nice to think that “Honest Abe” was strictly above
board in all these dealings, the truth is that then as now, the
lawmaking process often crossed into ethical gray areas.
