Just in time for President's Day, Congressman Don Young of Alaska expressed his wish during the House debate that Democrats who oppose the Bush administration's troop surge in Iraq are saboteurs and should be exiled or hanged. Then he attributed the quote to Lincoln, when really it is the work of a right wing columnist J. Michael Waller.
"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged."
The misquote ran in a 2003 issue of Insight Magazine in an article "Democrats Usher in An Age of Treason." In August of 2006, there were 18,000 web references to the misquote. The day after Young said it on the House floor (Feb 16) there were 20,000 references. Today there are 30,200 web references on a Google search.
The idea that it's appropriate justice to hang liberals, editors, Democrats, Congressmen for opposition to the Iraq war and/or the Bush administration has been kicking around for as long as the AUMF; it's a favorite theme of Ann Coulter, Melanie Morgan and Krew of KSFO. The phony Lincoln quote is used as a banner on sites like these. Congressional hopeful Diana Irey used it in campaign speeches against John Murtha.
The original Waller article is a compendium of Republican talking points, many of which echoed through the House of Representatives during the Iraq debate... if anyone wants a copy of the original, email me.
For example, that debate on the surge would be "aiding the enemy".. that's also a Wallerism:
Democrats Usher in An Age of Treason; The Democratic Party and its operatives have launched an all-out assault to destroy a wartime president by manipulating rules of the Senate Intelligence Committee.(THE NATION)
From: Insight on the News | Date: December 22, 2003 | Author: Waller, J. Michael | More results for: democrats usher in an age of treason
Byline: J. Michael Waller, INSIGHT
"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled or hanged" - that's what President Abraham Lincoln said during the War Between the States.
While none have suggested such extreme measures in the midst of the war on terrorism, Lincoln's approach illustrates the deadly seriousness of political responsibility in wartime and draws a fine line between legitimate political dissent and aiding the enemy.
...
Today's very different Democratic Party is said to be playing with treason - even by outraged leaders within its ranks - to destroy the nation's wartime Republican president. Critics aren't using that word lightly. But with many liberal politicians having cut their teeth in the protest movement against the war in Vietnam - a movement characterized by militant displays of support for the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese enemy - treason is something to be taken lightly."
MADAM SPEAKER, I MOVE THAT WE STRIKE FROM THE RECORD...
My question is, will the House of Representatives allow the misquote to stand? to remain unaltered in the Congressional Record? Or will someone move to correct it? Will some Congressman or Congresswoman have read into the record what Fact.Check has to say about this phony Lincoln quote? FactCheck: Misquoting Lincoln
Or shall we chisel the features of J. Michael Waller into Mount Rushmore? Shall we recast the Lincoln Memorial in the image of this right-wing illiterate?
The House of Representatives has a process to remedy this:
Strike from the Record:
Remarks made on the House floor may offend some member, who moves that the offending words be "taken down" for the Speaker’s cognizance, and then expunged from the debate as published in the Congressional Record.
cite
Back in 2004 the Republican-led House of Representatives voted to strike from the record the words of Congresswoman Corrine Brown, who said that the stolen 2000 vote was a coup d'etat. She never backed down from her assertion. To this day her statement is up on her website: cite
Don't let this lie retold by Congressman Don Young pass for truth. When writing your Congressmen and Congresswomen through: Congress.org I suggest you include this quote:
Commentary: George Orwell
"If the party could thrust its hand into the past and say this or that event never happened - that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture or death."
"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed-if all records told the same tale-then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'" " Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary."
George Orwell, 1984
Happy President's Day.