Sarah Palin’s new book, America By Heart: Reflections On Faith, Family and Flag, repeats the debunked myth that George Washington, at his first inauguration, added the phrase “So help me God” to the oath of office. The myth was started by Washington Irving and repeated by Rufus Wilmot Griswold in his 1854 book The Republican Court, or, American Society in the Days of Washington.
Washington Irving told the story of how he was present at the first inauguration.
Submitted by -David Drumm (Nal) — guest editor
However, Irving was barely 6 years old at the time and had observed the proceeding from 200 feet away. There’s no way he could have seen, let alone heard what happened. There is no other report or evidence that George Washington said what Irving claimed.
But that’s enough for Sarah Palin, who is well-known for believing in myths.
Newdow v. Roberts, a federal lawsuit filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, sought to enjoin the Hon. John Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, from adding the phrase, “So help me God,” to the Presidential oath of office. The dismissal was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit in 2009 as moot, and due to lack of standing for future inaugurations. Roberts did add the phrase, “So help me God” to the end of a flubbed oath.
From Peter R. Henriques, Professor of History, Emeritus, at George Mason University:
One of the most widely held myths about George Washington is that immediately after he took the prescribed oath to become the nation’s first President, he solemnly added the words, “So help me God” and thus began a tradition that has been followed ever since.
…
In fact, an examination of the historical evidence demonstrates that claim [that Washington added the words, “So help me God”] is almost certainly false.
H/T: Talk To Action, Chris Rodda, American Creation, History News Network.
-David Drumm (Nal)
Gramby: Palin has problems with the Bush wing of the republican party now that the party has moved so far to the right that the Bush people are the liberal republicans.
Gramby,
No. I meant exactly modern liberals. Logic and reason never go out of style even if Neocons can’t grasp it through their foggy lust for war profiteering and theocracy.
spectacle \ˈspek-ti-kəl also -ˌti-kəl\, n.,
1a : something exhibited to view as unusual, notable, or entertaining; especially : an eye-catching or dramatic public display b : an object of curiosity or contempt (made a spectacle of herself)
Spectacle? Yep. Qualified or competent? Not a bit. Electable? Only if the polls are rigged.
“According to the latest NBC News/WSJ poll, Palin’s approval rating has fallen to 29%. Her disapproval rating is 43%, and 24% of those surveyed are neutral on her. Only 13% of those surveyed have a strong approval of her. She is down from her 30% approval rating in March, and her 32% approval rating last December. Palin’s negative rating has gone from 45% in March to 43% now. Most troubling for Palin’s potential political future, only 4% of respondents aren’t sure about her.
The news gets even worse for the Republican Party and the candidates that Sarah Palin is endorsing. Only 8% said that a Palin endorsement would make them more enthusiastic about a candidate, and 15 said they would be comfortable with a candidate that Palin endorsed. Fifteen percent said that they would have reservations about a candidate endorsed by Palin, and a whopping 37% said that a Palin endorsement would make them very uncomfortable with a candidate endorsed by Palin, and 21% answered that her endorsement made no difference.
Palin is not only personally unpopular, but her endorsement creates a negative stigma around Republican candidates as they head into the general election. Sarah Palin has become the GOP version of Johnny Appleseed, as her endorsements are spreading negativity about Republican congressional candidates all across the land. This is not to say that candidates in Republican primaries aren’t helped by Palin. They are, but the very same Palin endorsement that helps them in the spring could be an anchor around their necks with the electorate at large in November.
To put this into context, since March, when she first got involved with the Tea Party, Palin’s approval rating has fallen by 8 points and her negative rating has increased by 2 points. The more Palin tries to raise her profile, the less popular she becomes. This is not the trend line of future presidential nominee, and especially not a future president.
Sarah Palin is now as popular as fellow Republicans like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. She is the political equivalent of fool’s gold, and Republicans in both 2010 and 2012 would be wise to turn her down. Sarah Palin is capable of leading the Republican Party straight down a path of defeat and irrelevancy. She isn’t even popular enough to help her fellow Republicans outside of primaries, so there is no way that she has the popularity needed to be elected president.” – http://www.politicususa.com/en/palin-rating-crash
our should be out
Buddha is Laughing:
you are confusing the liberals of the enlightenment with the current batch of lefties who use neither reason nor logic but base their ideas on the worn our superstitions of the mid 19th century in a religious like belief and fervor.
I have news for all of you, she is going to run for president and she is going to win.
When you wake up on the 3rd of November 2012 or 2016 it will be to a newspaper, radio or tv proclaiming a Palin victory.
She will clean the floor with Obama or the candidate for 2016. The average man/woman in the street love her and republicans and other conservatives will vote for her just to piss off the left.
You are going to have a very hard time beating her the second time around. Short of her being a closet child molester or serial killer she is going to win and big.
It will be interesting to watch the character assassination unfold and the total disregard the people will pay to it.
You guys are almost gone, just go away and die quietly (not literally just figuratively) so you can spare the country and yourselves the embarrassment of getting beaten by Sarah Palin.
It will be a grand spectacle.
“I am continually fascinated by the ease with which the left uses
outright lieslogic and reason to advance their assertions of universal truth. Maybe not so surprising when you don’t build a philosophy on myth, superstition, and delusion.”Mespo727272:
“I am continually fascinated by the ease with which the religious use outright lies to advance their assertions of universal truth. Maybe not so surprising when you build a philosophy on myth, superstition, and delusion.”
I would change your paragraph to:
I am continually fascinated by the ease with which the left uses outright lies to advance their assertions of universal truth. Maybe not so surprising when you build a philosophy on myth, superstition, and delusion.
The thing that rankles me is that this and other distortions in Palin’s book go largely unreported (except here, of course) as the “error” it is and is therefore accepted as fact. The words fact and Palin are rarely appropriate in the same sentence.
mespo,
In her case, I’m pretty sure the books in her house are used primarily for leveling tables and stopping doors. The Patron Saint of Delirium would never discuss bona fides because abstinence is the only way to address teen pregnancy.
Bdaman – They missed the obvious reason. Check out the actual NYT list & you will note that every one of those bound toilet paper packets has an astric by it. That means very large bulk sales. People are not surfing over to Amazon or wondering into B&N to pick up a copy at 30% off. Deep pockets are buying them by the truck load, often at less than wholesale prices.
One Publisher, Rigerny, has done this repeatedly to get its own works on the list. Olbermann et al have to actually sell a million individual copies to have a million seller, the assclown posse just asks daddy warbucks to do it for them.
BIL:
“St. Sarah the Easily Confused”
*********************
LOL
Tell me, do conservatives actually read books, or merely put them on coffee tables to prove their bona fides?
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/12/tea_party_nation_founder_its_a_wise_idea_to_only_l.php?ref=fpa Sarah Palin’s “populist” Tea Party founder only wants property owners to be able to vote.
Mornin Buddha
“At the end of the ceremony, George Washington slipped on the One Ring and vanished, leaving the good people of Hobbiton confused and murmuring,” said St. Sarah the Easily Confused.
During a Norah O’Donnell report, on Friday’s Today, about how well books written by the likes of Sarah Palin, George W. Bush and Glenn Beck are selling, the New York Times’ Jenny Schuessler rationalized the only reason conservative books are outpacing liberal ones is because “conservatives have some really strong media personalities” like Beck and Bill O’Reilly ” that have a platform that they can promote their books from.”
There’s just one flaw in that piece of logic, something O’Donnell failed to point out, liberals including her fellow NBC colleague Keith Olbermann, who has a nightly “platform” on MSNBC, routinely put out books that flop. At the time of publication of this article Olbermann’s Pitchforks and Torches, just released in October, is currently ranked at 3,997 on Amazon.com.
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/geoffrey-dickens/2010/12/03/today-nyt-editor-feebly-tries-explain-away-success-conservative-bo#ixzz179KyPQg0
Yep…Ever notice that the most apparently pious people are also the most insecure about accepting their eventual nonexistence and require a constant lathering of their faith as insulation against the truth of it?
Also lying, or any other act perpetrated by the faithful while doing “God’s will” is never considered evil. Religion all too frequently causes a loss in the ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality.
“thus began a tradition that has been followed ever since”
Maybe Palin listens to Hank
Ed Rollins To Sarah Palin: ‘You’re No Reagan’
The Huffington Post | Nick Wing Posted: 12- 3-10 02:21 AM
“CNN contributor and former Reagan campaign director Ed Rollins has a clear message to Sarah Palin: “You’re no Reagan.”
Rollins wrote in a Wednesday op-ed for CNN that the former Alaska governor is seriously overstepping her bounds by attempting to draw comparisons between her and the one-time California governor-turned-president”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/03/ed-rollins-sarah-palin-reagan_n_791116.html
I am continually fascinated by the ease with which the religious use outright lies to advance their assertions of universal truth. Maybe not so surprising when you build a philosophy on myth, superstition, and delusion.