Not to make too much hay of this but I think there are two notable points to the below story from ABC News:
In Montana, Clinton Invokes Suffragette Icon, Botches Suffragette History
On Sunday in Montana, which will hold its primary on June 3, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, invoked a legendary state icon, former Rep. Jeannette Rankin, R-Mont., the first woman ever elected to Congress.
"Remember, Jeannette Rankin was elected before women could vote," Clinton told a crowd in a Missoula airplane hangar. "So who says men don't vote for a woman?"
See below the fold for debunking and analysis...
But Clinton's description of Rankin's election is rather free from the constraints of historical fact -- Montana as a state gave women the right to vote in 1914 and even as a mere territory had given women the right to vote in 1887.
Check out this classic New York Times story from the year Rankin was elected, November 5, 1916, in which she is described as "a handsome and vigorous woman, with a wealth of red hair," and noting the states that allowed women the right to vote as of 1916: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.
Anyone could mess up a fact like this. But it's also true that those whose hearts contain special space for suffragette history will no doubt be disappointed by Clinton not knowing some of this basic history.
Several suffragette historians on the web -- Cliopatra, and others HERE and HERE have corrected Clinton's error, some expressing chagrin that she would get this wrong, others pointing out that Rankin was a pacifist, voting against going to war in World Wars I and II, and would doubtless take issue with Clinton's October 2002 war vote. (Though, c'mon, guys -- Rankin was clearly on the wrong side of history on those votes, my historian friends...let's not take this too far.)
My thoughts:
1. We can argue about the merits about Clinton continually playing the gender card with speeches like this but, if the situation were reversed and Obama got up on the stump and trumpeted the first black this and the first black that, don't you think people on this site would be all over it?
2. Although certainly not to the level of Tuzla or anything, doesn't Clinton need a better staff of fact checkers?