Nine minutes are left in Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. I wonder what the Republican party’s greatest president would have to say if he were around today to see the conservatives in his party — I’m sure he would regard them as radicals, a word in vogue in his day — try to destroy the GOP’s nominee for president. Lincoln believed in diversity of thought. His inner circle was comprised of a group of men who were antagonistic toward each other, but whose reciprocal tensions produced greatness and wisdom with Lincoln as their leader. Lincoln was a big-tent president. He even wanted the Confederates back in the tent. Modern-day Republicans would do well to remember his injunction: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” The rubble awaits.