May he die of old age in a world made better by his efforts

I was reading this CNN article that just made me shake my head. I'm hope the author just wasn't thinking of the message he was accidentally sending...

Can Lincoln's playbook help Obama in the years ahead?

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The similarities are eerily similar.

Okay, "The similarities are eerily similar".
First: that's a dumb sentence, and more than a little redundant redundant.
Second: Eerily, huh? This had better be good. I'm getting heart palpitations just psyching myself up for this. I'm chewing my nails. It's halloween all over again. Lay the eerily similar similarities on me, baby...

Both Abraham Lincoln and President-elect Barack Obama were not from Illinois but became two of the state's top politicians.

They were both criticized for being too inexperienced to become president of the United States.

Both were raised by women other than their mothers (Lincoln by his stepmother and Obama by his grandmother) and later visited the women before their respective inaugurations. Both women died before the respective inauguration days.

Lincoln, a Republican, and Obama, a Democrat, will be noted as relatively young presidents: Lincoln was 51 when he took office. Obama will be 47.

The two tall and lanky politicians also wrote best-selling books before becoming president.

Historians and political pundits have pointed out that both Lincoln and Obama share the gift of eloquence, speechwriting and oration.

It's unintentionally tasteless. The similarities are rather mundane. They'd only be appropriately described as "eerily" if there's something... well, eerie... about it. But it's completely germain, and too be expected. Pick any two people in the public eye, and you'll find they have something in common. There's certainly nothing eerie about two people both having strong women in their lives, being around 50 years old, and running for President.

Let's ask my old friend Mirriam Webster about the word:

1chiefly Scottish : affected with fright : scared
2: so mysterious, strange, or unexpected as to send a chill up the spine eerie howl> eerie> ; also : seemingly not of earthly origin eerie glow>

Or maybe it's intentionally tasteless. There's nothing creepy about minor similarities. The description of "eerily" only fits, if say, they were both assassinated, or something. I mean, come on, the last time I read one of those lists, it ended with "Both were shot in the head on a Friday while sitting next to their wives, Lincoln in the Ford Theatre, and Kennedy in a Ford Lincoln limousine." It's like CNN is baiting some would-be lone nut. I think I need to write the dumbasses a nasty-gram.

While I'm on the subject of stupidity in the news, I'll throw in another coincidence. Lincoln, Kennedy, and Obama were all repeatedly and erroneously labeled "most liberal member of the Senate" by Fox News.