Stanley Kutler noted in the Chicago Tribune a week ago that the Bush administration's efforts to quelch dissent bear similarity to the efforts of past presidents throughout history. And he presents one particular act of dissidence that is particularly relavent today:

Challenging President James Polk's dubious response to alleged Mexican aggression against the United States, Congressman Lincoln voted to censure the president in 1848–while the war against Mexico still raged. He contended that the president's justification for war was “from beginning to end the sheerest deception.” Polk would have “gone further with his proof if it had not been for the small matter that the truth would not permit him.” Lincoln threw down the gauntlet: “Let him answer fully, fairly and candidly. Let him answer with facts and not with arguments. … Let him attempt no evasion, no equivocation.” Lincoln more than suspected that the president was “deeply conscious of being in the wrong.”