“Sleazy Lincoln” Commentary Sparks Humorous Exchange on Blog

It’s not surprising that our recent Anti-Abe commentary has been met with some resistance here in the “Land of Lincoln.”  One of the more comical exchanges involves our Research Director, Dennis Constant, and Ken Lowe of the Herald-Review. A post to his blog, “Roll Call,” read as follows:

“Today’s baffling fax comes courtesy of Dennis Constant, who may or may not be a relative of a Kurt Vonnegut character. Constant is part of the Illinois Taxpayer Education Foundation, which doesn’t have a Web site that I could locate, and so I am unsure if the foundation is concerned with how taxpayers pay for education or if it’s about educating said taxpayers.

That’s right, folks, in The Land of Lincoln there’s an anti-Lincoln fringe, and it’s being run by a sci-fi character’s brother and John Kerry using an unimaginative fake name.”

Dennis responded with the following:

“Hello Ken. By now, you should have received part 2 of the commentary.

I am not related to Kurt Vonnegut or any of his characters. My name really is Dennis Constant, and I have been writing about tax matters for over two decades. If you will enter Dennis Constant (in quotes) and search Google, you will find quite a few Dennis Constants. Some of those entries refer to articles I have written.

As for our Foundation, if you go the TEF website, https://www.taxpayereducation.org/, and click on “Commentary” on the left side, under Categories, quicker than you can say, “Gee, I’m sorry Dennis,” you will be transported to the Foundation’s research papers and commentaries.

As our research has shown, after leaving the state legislature, “Honest Abe” found employment representing the Illinois Central Railroad and several other railroads. As their highly paid counsel and lobbyist, Lincoln traveled about the country in a private rail car and rubbed elbows with some of the wealthiest and most powerful railroad barons in the country.

Abraham Lincoln was the biggest state tax raiser in Illinois during the 19th century. As legislative leader in Springfield he promoted pork barrel spending that raised state property taxes and almost bankrupted Illinois. None of his tax-subsidized projects were completed, but his political allies lined their pockets with tax dollars and helped make Lincoln a well-paid politician. President Obama compares himself to Lincoln. Obama is justified in doing so.”

ITEF contributor Jerry Kohn adds,

“Name-calling and ridicule are cheap ways to avoid having to address an argument. Perhaps I am part of what you might call an “anti-Lincoln fringe,” but time and again so-called “great men” (Lenin and Stalin, for example) have been pulled off of their pedestals once people got past the “court historians’” propaganda.”