Wednesday, October 29, 2008

quoting fascists and whatnot

Todd Palmer sent me this about Palin's habit of quoting weird and sometimes fictitious stuff:
...It works both ways, though—be careful of context, and of who you accidentally let slip that you’ve been reading. When Palin, referring to the value of “small towns” in her nomination speech, quoted Westbrook Pegler, the nearly forgotten American nativist and pseudo-fascist, some of his “glory” rubbed off on her as well.

Palin also made up a quote to help along her bungled answer to Katie Couric about the separation of church and state: “Thomas Jefferson also said ‘never underestimate the wisdom of the people.’” Super. Except as far as anyone can tell, Jefferson never said that. And even very wise people had trouble understanding what that piece of invented Jeffersonian wisdom has to do with the First Amendment...

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