So Frank Gaffney pens a piece calling for treason charges against those in Congress who disagree with the decider, using a fabricated quote from Abraham Lincoln as the cornerstone of his argument:
Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged. — President Abraham Lincoln
The usual suspects, and read their daily Washington Times while drinking their morning coffee, and a flurry of posting about the merits of this idea begins:
Of course, the left would howl and scream if a modern person said this. They would whine that we were questioning their patriotism.
You’re damn right we are!
This is a wonderful quote from “honest Abe Lincoln” that should be on every conservative website as a reminder to America why the Dems are not to be trusted with our national security:
Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged. — President Abraham Lincoln
Now who is going to argue with Abraham Lincoln? If you oppose the Democrat plans to surrender Iraq, post this quote someplace.
The joy is palpable, as their noble cause of smearing anyone who disagrees with them now has the apparent backing of the man most like the decider- good old Honest Abe, himself. Except, of course, the quote is fabricated:\
But this quote is completely invented. Lincoln never said it. This “quote” was first attributed to Lincoln by J. Michael Waller in Insight Magazine, in a 2003 article revealingly entitled: Democrats Usher in an Age of Treason. But as Waller himself now admits, the quote attributed to Lincoln is completely fraudulent. Waller wrote in an e-mail to FactCheck.org (h/t William Wolfrum):
The supposed quote in question is not a quote at all, and I never intended it to be construed as one. It was my lead sentence in the article that a copy editor mistakenly turned into a quote by incorrectly inserting quotation marks.
It was Waller, in The Washington Times’ Insight Magazine, urging that anti-war Congressmen be hanged — not Abraham Lincoln. But to justify their plainly un-American assault on our most basic constitutional liberties, neoconservatives like Gaffney simply invent quotes, attribute them to Abraham Lincoln, and continue to use them long after they have been debunked.
So the Washington Times features a story from a columnist that features a bogus quote that found its origin in another Washington Times publication. How delicious. But that isn’t the real punchline. The real joke is who the conservatives who ran with this story are blaming. I will give you three guesses.
If you guessed Frank Gaffney, you would be wrong.
If you guess J. Michael Waller, you would be wrong.
If you guessed the Washington Times, you would be wrong.
Nope, our intrepid conservative stalwarts are blaming… the media.
Apparently even our vaunted journalists can be taken in by an internet fraud. Turns out this quote is not from Lincoln. Great. Now we can’t even trust the media to get quotes right.
You are right, MEDIA LIES. The “Media” can’t get quotes that DO NOT FUCKING EXIST right. The “Media” can not correct every wingnut idea pubvlished by some wingnut columnist in the Washington Times. Clearly, this is David fucking Broder’s fault. Damned liberal media.
Then there is my favorite:
I was linked by some foul mouthed childish liberal nut, who had a good point – this Lincoln quote I saw in a Washington Times article is an internet fake. Of course I cannot fact check the news media, and if the emotionally stunted blogger would have simply emailed me with the fact this was one of those urban legends I would do what I am doing now, alertiing folks that the quote is a fraud.
Damn liberal media.