Dear Delegate Lingamfelter,
In a recent appeal to your constituents, you wrote:
Lastly, I want to close by asking you to carefully consider the words of Senator Barack Obama, which is enough to make any Democrat yearn for McGovern, Mondale, or Dukakis: “My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it.”
However, nonpartisan websites like factcheck.org and snopes.com have documented that the quote is a fake. Obama never said it; it was made up as a joke in the National Review, and then misunderstood by some of the Review’s readers.
Voters should be able to rely on elected officials to be truthful, especially in official correspondence and newsletters. Believing they can rely on your newsletter, some of your readers are now spreading the fake Obama quote you sent them.
Will you be issuing a public correction, as well as an apology to Senator Obama?
Best wishes,
Barry Deutsch
* * *
Of course, Delegate Lingamfelter isn’t the only right-winger spreading this myth, but it should be embarrassing to him that he’s doing it in his official newsletter. I’ll update this post if I get a response.
The “isn’t the only right-winger spreading this myth” link doesn’t work.
Here are some suggested replacement quotes:
Patriotism strong enough to raise the dead:
“On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today — our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.”
Whaddya mean, rural people get to vote too? Oh shit!:
“It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Oh, screw the feminist vote anyway:
“Hold on one second, sweetie, we’re going to do — we’ll do a press avail.”
That’s an awesome point, Robert. McCain has said some embarrassing things too, so I guess it’s cool just to make up some quotes.
—Myca
As far as I know those are all real. Debunkings welcome, of course.
It’s not cool to make up quotes, but as far as I know, nobody has done that. Mark Steyn made up the original quote, but as a joke, and without attributing it to anyone other than a generic politician – it was a “they’re all like this” joke rather than a slam on any Democrat, or Republican for that matter.
But hey, keep up the humorless hyperdefensiveness! It’s super attractive to the voters.
Myca’s displaying humorless hyperdefensiveness? Myca?
With all due respect, Robert, you’re the one responding to an amusing case of an elected Republican spreading a false quote by saying “but Obama’s said some real quotes that were embarrassing!”
Why not just admit that this particular Republican has a little egg on his face which should be wiped off?
Surely. And if he doesn’t respond to your correction, then I’ll even go so far as to say he’s dishonest. (Right now he just looks clueless, if he fails to accept correction then he’s being a bad guy.)
Dude. Robert.
I wasn’t saying that any of your quotes were invented.
I was saying that the presence of real and embarrassing quotes (which you provided) did not justify spreading a made up quote.
After all, the only way that pointing out some of Obama’s actual gaffes was even vaguely on-topic for the original post was if you thought it was relevant.
Or hey, maybe you have no response and instead posted something off-topic in order to avoid admitting that. Naaah. That’s certainly unlikely.
—Myca
There’s several thousand injured veterans outside who’d like to talk to you about what it takes to be a “fallen hero.” Do you want me to let them in?
Robert – Obama did apologize for the last quote you mentioned. Not that an apology makes it all better, but it’s something.
I never understood exactly why so many people were bothered by the “bitter” quote. Could you explain why you consider it to be a gaffe on the same level as the one Lingamfelter made up?
This is off topic, and I’m sorry but I have an issue on my mind and your letter reminded me of it. but I work at a call centre. Our latest client is the Republican Party. We’re calling Florida for McCain and Alaska for Ted Stevens, started yesterday. I find it interesting that the GOP has outsourced this to a Canadian branch. Is this a subject worth contact Democrats about? I realize they probably do the same thing, but anything to work for a company who works for the Republicans a little less complicitly is something that interests me.
You do know that in some countries, Lingam is the word for dick, don’t you.
I don’t believe I actually took in much of this post, because I was laughing at the name “Lingamfelter”.
Obama’s comment about gun culture among working class whites being a result of their bitterness was pretty clueless. Many rural and semi-rural whites go hunting because they ….. enjoy it. Further hunting culture among whites long predates NAFTA, large scale Latin American immigration, and modern free-market economic policies (the supposed source of gun pathology).
Despite that misunderstanding by Obama, it’s nowhere near as bad as making up quotes by him and spreading them around. Also those ignorant attacks on Obama about his tire air pressure comment demonstrates the fake patriotism the republican party has for addressing real problems facing American society.
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Thank you for correcting my mistake. I issued a “retraction” here (http://citizentom.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/caught-in-error/).
Guns and God make me plenty bitter. So much I am clinging to my air pressure gauge right now!