On That Lincoln Quote

It made it onto the House Floor.




Another conservative Republican using a discredited quote from Abraham Lincoln. I know they have the google over there on the Republican Internets. Don't they know how to use it?

Here's the line again:

Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs, and should be arrested, exiled or hanged.

Turns out that Congressman Young took the quote directly from the Washington Times, where it appeared earlier this week in a column by Frank Gaffney. Even though the quotation's been shown to be false, the Times (Ronald Reagan's favorite Newspaper, by the way) has thus far failed to offer a retraction.

NEW YORK More than two days after an inflammatory quote used by a regular Washington Times columnist was shown to be fabricated -- it was attributed to Abraham Lincoln, no less -- the newspaper still has not removed it from the article, nor carried a correction.

That's one reason Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) cited the quote on the floor of the House today in the debate over the Iraq war "surge." He took it to be true, apparently. Rep. Young added, referring to Lincoln: "He had the same problem this President has, with an unpopular war. The same problem with people trying to redirect the commander in chief."

Young's spokeswoman, Meredith Kenny, said the congressman took the quote directly from The Washington Times column. "Now that he's been informed these are not the actual words of Lincoln, he will discontinue attributing the words to Lincoln. However, he continues to totally agree with the message of the statement," Kenny told The Washington Post.

So even though he was caught using a fabricated quote, he still agrees with it? Since when does a member of the House of Representatives get away with calling for the execution of fellow House Members?