Over at Politico today, I write about President Obama and other liberals trying to claim Lincoln:

Obama knows what he’s about. Progressives have been after Lincoln like Mormons baptizing the dead since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. By capturing the legacy of Lincoln, they know they can use one of the most beloved figures in American history to bless an endlessly expansive government and isolate and deprecate their opponents.
“The official leaders of the Republican Party today,” as Roosevelt put it in 1913, “are the spiritual heirs of the men who warred against Lincoln.” If Obama hasn’t stated it so starkly, his point is essentially the same. This is shrewd politics but poor (and self-aggrandizing) history. It distorts Lincoln or entirely misses his point in a brazen act of historical body-snatching.