Need a Job? Write a Book About Lincoln

Tireless writer published average of one book every ten years

(NEWSER) - Lyndon Johnson's biographer takes his work seriously—so much so, he didn't cover LBJ's presidency for 30 years, Newsweek reports. Rising from the tabloid world in the 1960s, Robert Caro first wrote a painstaking biography of New York mogul Robert Moses. Next came a volume on LBJ's youth; Caro even slept outdoors in rural Texas to get a feel for it. History "can be literature in the deepest and highest sense of that term," Caro says. More»

He ducks rumor that Liam Neeson will portray prez

(NEWSER) - Once he wraps up Tintin, Steven Spielberg will make a long-awaited biopic about Abraham Lincoln, the Los Angeles Times reports. The director spilled the beans while promoting Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and said he wants to shoot the flick next year, Lincon's 200th anniversary—but did not confirm rumors that Liam Neeson will play the 16th US president. More»

Clintons denounce author Edward Klein as a 'known liar'

(NEWSER) - Bill Clinton considers Barack Obama such an "incompetent" president that he begged Hillary last summer to quit the State Department and run against him in 2012—or at least, that's the story a new, unauthorized Obama biography is telling. "Barack Obama is an amateur," Clinton is quoted as telling his wife in an excerpt from Edward Klein's new book, which appropriately is titled The Amateur. Hillary protests that she wants to make her mark on the State Department. "The country needs you!" Clinton counters. "The country needs us!" More»

Lincoln assassin even held a little gun

(NEWSER) - The gift shop at the Gettysburg Museum has had second thoughts about selling a novelty item some thought was a little tasteless: a bobblehead doll of John Wilkes Booth, complete with miniature gun. Museum officials pulled the dolls after the local Evening Sun wrote about them. The museum isn't saying much, but doll-maker BobbleHead is unapologetic. "We've made probably over a million bobbleheads and this is the first time it ever happened," says an exec. "So why change course? We've done Osama bin Laden." See the Sun link for an image of the doll. More»

Jackie Hogan gives 4 reasons today's GOP would write off Abe

(NEWSER) - Sure, the GOP calls itself the "Party of Lincoln," but would today's Republicans actually nominate him for president? Writing in the Christian Science Monitor , Jackie Hogan gives four reasons why they wouldn't:

1. He was the first president to make income tax law—and it was a progressive income tax that required the richest to pay a higher rate. What's more, he taxed earned income and capital gains at the same rate.