February 16, 2007
Dragging Lincoln Into Iraq Posted by Frederick E. Allen at 09:00 AM EST Rep. Don Young of Alaska, in his five-minute address in the congressional “debate” over the anti–Iraq surge resolution yesterday, quoted Abraham Lincoln as saying, “Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs, and should be arrested, exiled or hanged.” If you don’t recall President Lincoln coming out in favor of hanging congressmen, you’re right. (The President also tended to make noun and verb agree.) An author named J. Michael Waller wrote an article titled “Democrats Usher In an Age of Treason” for Insight magazine in 2003 that began, “‘Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs, and should be arrested, exilded or hanged,’ that’s what President Abraham Lincoln said during the War Between the States.” When called on it, Waller explained that “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.” You can see Congressman Young delivering the phony quotation here.
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