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http://www.newsweek.com/id/169170
Contact:
Jan Angilella FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
at
212-445-5638 Sunday, November 16, 2008
COVER:
OBAMA'S LINCOLN
OBAMA
WILL NEED THE LEADERSHIP SKILLS OF A LINCOLN IF HE'S GOING TO ACCOMPLISH MUCH
OF ANYTHING
----
THE
MOST IMPORTANT QUALITY MAY BE HUMILITY, WHICH OBAMA AND LINCOLN REFER TO AS AN
ESSENTIAL VIRTUE
New
York-If there was any one message that defined the Obama campaign from the
beginning, it was his promise to rise above the petty politics of division and
unite the country. But now comes reality. As Newsweek Correspondent-at-Large
Evan Thomas and Senior White House Correspondent Richard Wolffe write in the
November 24 cover "Obama's Lincoln" (on newsstands Monday, November 17),
if Obama is to accomplish much of anything, he is going to need all the
leadership skills of a Lincoln.
Thomas
and Wolffe look at Obama's strengths, make comparisons to Lincoln's leadership
style and examine how each will benefit him during his presidency. 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.
The
theme of Obama's Inauguration is taken from a line in Lincoln's Gettysburg
Address: "A New Birth of Freedom." Asked in January by CBS anchor
Katie Couric which book, aside from the Bible, he would find essential in the
Oval Office, Obama answered, "Team of Rivals." Doris Kearns Goodwin's
2005 bestseller recounts how Lincoln surrounded himself with advisers who were
better educated and more experienced and who made no secret of coveting
Lincoln's job. Goodwin, who has spoken with Obama about her book, thinks he has
absorbed the deeper meaning of Lincoln's leadership style. "I think he's
got a temperamental set of qualities that have some resemblance to Lincoln's
emotional intelligence," Goodwin tells Newsweek.
# # #
(Read cover article at www.Newsweek.com)
