Obama would have supported slavery

William Kristol on Faux News today:

KRISTOL: We’re electing a war president in 2008. If I can go back to Obama and Lincoln for just one second, Lincoln’s “house divided” speech in 1858 was a speech saying we cannot live as a house divided on slavery. And he implicitly says we’ll have to fight a civil war if necessary on this.

Obama’s speech is a “can’t we get along” speech — sort of the opposite of Lincoln. He would have been with Stephen Douglas in 1858. Let’s paper over these differences, rise above politics and all get along. That’s not Giuliani’s mode. And I think in a war context, social conservatives want to win the war against Islamic jihadism.

To accuse an African American of supporting slavery seems to me to be pretty damned low, and racist to boot, but this remark is obviously designed to play on the several themes that the Thuglicans have begun to use against Obama:

a) He's not really black (white mother)
b) He's not authentically black (raised abroad, no poverty, good schools, etc.)
c) He's soft on communism terrorists
d) Abe was a Republican not a Democrat

The only theme it didn't really pick up is the "he's inexperienced" one.