Changing History

According to the American Thinker website, PBS has deleted from their copy of the transcript a historical mistake made by President Obama in his jobs-plan speech this past Thursday night. The president's error was in saying Abraham Lincoln was the founder of the Republican party. I remember hearing that and thinking it sounded unusual, but didn't check the facts. Laziness on my part, and an assumption that "surely the president's speeches are fact-checked."


The president said (from the New York Times transcript):


We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union.  Founder of the Republican Party.  But in the middle of a civil war . . . 


What the president said after PBS deleted the historical error:


We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union.  But in the middle of a Civil War . . . 


A good example of how history (the history of this speech) gets rewritten courtesy of PBS. (Note also PBS's error in capitalizing "Civil War" following the indefinite article "a." NYT 2, PBS 0.)

Thought for the Day 12.0

Oh, yet we trust that somehow good

Will be the final goal of ill,

To pangs of nature, sins of will,

Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;

That not one life shall be destroyd,

Or cast as rubbish to the void,

When God hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain;

That not a moth with vain desire

Is shrivelld in a fruitless fire,

Or but subserves anothers gain.

Behold, we know not anything;

I can but trust that good shall fall

At last far off at last, to all,

And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?

An infant crying in the night:

An infant crying for the light:

And with no language but a cry.

(Lord Alfred Tennyson, "In Memoriam," section LIV)