When you go to a national park or historic site or whatever, there’s always a gift shop with appropriate gift items. Ford’s Theatre in Washington, where a prancing confederate teabagger actor killed America’s greatest Civil War president, has just such a gift store. You could buy an Abraham Lincoln plush, we imagine, or maybe a Mary Todd Lincoln goth hoodie. But what you won’t find is television idiot Bill O’Reilly’s new book about the Lincoln Assassination — because it’s so full of ridiculous mistakes and errors and blunders and outright falsehoods that the historians fear some “regular non-Fox News people” might accidentally buy the book as a souvenir and then become mouth-breathing cretins.
Salon’s Justin Elliot reports on the hilarious historical scandal:
A reviewer for the official National Park Service bookstore at Ford’s Theatre has recommended that Bill O’Reilly’s bestselling new book about the Lincoln assassination not be sold at the historic site “because of the lack of documentation and the factual errors within the publication.”
Rae Emerson, deputy superintendent at Ford’s Theatre, which is a national historic site under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, has penned a scathing appraisal of O’Reilly’s “Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever.” In Emerson’s official review, which I’ve pasted below, she spends four pages correcting passages from O’Reilly’s book before recommending that it not be offered for sale at Ford’s Theatre because it is not up to quality standards.
So what did the blowhard jackass get wrong in his “million-selling alternate history textbook”? Oh, some basic stuff. All the scenes in the Oval Office are suspect, because the Oval Office didn’t exist at the time. There’s also a bunch of conspiracy theory and wrong dates, places, names, numbers, pretty much wrong everything … which is about what you’d expect from a Fox News report. [Salon/Washington Post]
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I guess the part about Robert E. Lee being on the grassy knoll tipped them off.
Or when Colonel Sanders burned Atlanta.
Thus inspiring his recipe for chicken "extra crunchy".
Or when dear Abe tweeted the Gettysburg Address to his followers.
First draft began with the phrase, "How now and brown cow"…
140 characters is not nearly enough. Needs bullet points and auto-content wizard to really get the point across.
I heard Abe didn't have health insurance.
Nor were there any chickens on hand for bartering.
Nor did he wear an onion on his belt, as was the fashion at the time.
Wait I thought it was the Hitler who burned down Atlanta with his army of Soviet Redcoats
No, that's from Glenn Beck's historical tome of the Revolutionary War – "We Fought the British to Defeat Socialism!'
I thought the main problem was when Lincoln commanded his forces to dump the body of Jefferson Davis off of the side of his carrier without releasing the photos.
Photos or it didn't happen!!
Wasn't Ford's Theater originally called Building #7? And didn't Booth have early CIA ties?
Sheesh…O'Reilly just showed a copy of a letter on his show from an official at Ford's Theatre indicating the reports are false and his book is on sale there. I just love when Olbermann and people here get caught believing any lie or inaccurate statement slamming a conservative. Wonder if Olbermann or any other liberal blogger will retract and apologize……hear the crickets??
Or the part about Jeff Davis crossing the Mississippi one fateful night to defeat the Louisianan Haitians.
Creole, baby, like when Robert Johnson tried to sell his Civil War era guitar on Pawn Stars.
Lies go in. Books get thrown out. How do ya explain that? (Besides good judgement)
Damn I should read the comments first. I was a little punchy on my snark.
FOX News?
This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
That reminds me of one of my favorite pieces of criticism, although I can't remember who wrote it, directed toward Marilyn Quayle's book Embrace the Serpent:
"This book makes you want to roll up a newspaper and hit it over the head saying 'Bad book, bad book!'"
No, word salad should be tossed.
Fuck it, we'll do it live
Dern you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, Lincoln was a republican, so I'm sure he was a tea bagger as well? Just sayin' (Fox logic and all).
Needz moar war on Christmas.
Needz MOAR war on EVUHTHANG!
They didn't fire on Fort Sumter, they fired on the North Pole! Thousands of elves died in vain!
Lincoln was really more of a moderate liberal (moderate because, well, he was no flaming abolitionist), so definitely not a teabagger.
If slavery were still an issue today, what side do you think Bill would be on, the pro-States' Rights & pro-property rights side, or the Nat Turner/John Brown "Kill Whitey" side?
He'd be on the I-got-mine-so-fuck-you side, no matter where, no matter when. In this case, he'd be on the I-got-my-slaves-so-fuck-you side. If he was living high in Mao's China, he'd be all for the commie party and shooting down the librulz.
Who needs facts when you can just make shit up?
It was the claim that John Wilkes Booth escaped by knocking a tourist off his Segway and zipping off into the night on it that got people suspicious.
Mmm, I thought the bit about Booth going into a homicidal rage after binging on falafels was a mite tendentious, meself.
True fact: Motto of Ford's Theatre was Fuck it. We'll do it live!
Aside from that, how did you like the play, Mrs Lincoln?
Should have had Newt as his co-author because everyone knows that Newt is a well known historian.
He's such a well-known historian that he's the only one EVAH to make $300K just for teaching history. Unlike that Doris Kearns Goodwin poseuse.
So, the part about the newly freed slaves wanting "more motherfucking iced tea" wasn't true?
Imagine that.
Someone better lockdown the Lincoln wikipedia entry before BillO's fans "authenticate" his facts there.
So wait, are you telling me that Pres. Lincoln wasn't actually a staunch defender of states' rights?
"The states have a right to KISS MY ASS!"
–A. Lincoln (O'Reilly, 2011)
Well, I suppose that what O'Reilly gets for putting John Wilkes Booth on the "Patriot" side of the ledger.
You know who else was shot down at Ford's Theater?
Edsel Ford?
Gaston Chevrolet?
The Detroit Lions?
CATS?
Dee Troyt?
Jesse James?
Sparkly vampires?
Andrew Dice Clay?
Ford Maddox Ford?
John Dillinger?
Oswald?
The City of New York?
"Hey Joe"'s old lady?
Well, he did have that gun in his hand.
Yeah, where was he going with that anyway?
Walter Reuther, first, nearly at the Battle of the Overpass in Dearborn, and then finally at Black Lake in Northern Michigan?
Lincoln was congratulated for freeing the slaves while at the theater. "What the fuck are you talking about I ordered that drunkard Grant to leave the caves, not free the slaves. I'll fix that in the morning – thanks very much. Free the slaves – that would be some serious shit – you could start a REAL civil war with that kind of talk!!!" And there was much laughter all around.
Another juicy factoid revealed in the book: The Lincoln-Douglas debates took place at the Lincoln Center, where the President argued with Kirk Douglas about the fiscal implications of using old scripts from Sea Hunt as the foundation of our national environmental policy.
That is so wrong. Kirk Douglas wasn't in Sea Hunt. That was William Shatner.
Hey, I'm totally qualified to write a book now!
Sorry, but it was Lloyd Bridges in Sea Hunt. Used to watch it all of the time. They all do all have a certain kind of look, tho.
"Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffin' glue."
Hey, *I* was gonna say that.
And William Shatner in SeaQuest, if you want to put a fine point on it.
Jeez, it was a joke. OK, it wasn't a good joke…
I write shit Ford's Theater doesn't put it on the shelf. You can't explain it.
This is the kind of thing that gets your history license revoked.
OT, but your icon is really cute.
Some people say that "the truth" is a front for George Soros and was actually born in Kenya.
Did Wild Bill include the factroid that Teddy Kennedy drove the getaway car?
No, no ,no. Teddy killed Lincoln himself. At Chappaquiddick.
"… with the laser dot pointed squarely at his noggin, the President removed his coat to allow his Jet Pack the proper air to fuel ratio for take off. But he was too slow."
The part about Booth being an ACLU card-carrying commie liberal who voted for Obama was a bit of a stretch.
Haha, they didn't carry cards back then! Stone tablets.
Al Franken said Abe Lincoln was shot because the guy sitting behind him couldn't see over his hat.
That's probably not in Bull O'Really?'s book, huh?
I thought *every*body knew that. I mean, it's really annoying.
I hope there are many erotic passages in the book because Bill is a master of vivid depictions of the sexual act.
You mean with lines like, "Say baby, put that pipe down and get my pipe up." This is an actual quote from one of his sick fuk audio books that I accidentially listened to one time.
Why did you keep accidentally not hitting "Stop" on the player?
Hahah – good one! Actually, I was listening to the Stephanie Miller radio show and they played that clip to make fun of Bill-O.
I learned a lot. Who knew that Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address came from Roger Ailes' talking points?
The scene in the book where lincoln dies just before he reveals the location of the buried treasure is NOT believable. For one thing, he never kept a live parrot perched on his shoulder, and he never said, "Arrgh, aye, mateys."
Fourteen men on a dead man's chest–but enough about necrophilia.
Sorry, we don't serve Necros here at teh Wonkette lunch counter.
Maybe when O'Reilly said that Lincoln cut taxes right after the Peninsular Campaign, embraced states' rights and market-based strategies for ending slavery, had definitive proof that Jeff Davis was hiding weapons of mass destruction in Charleston Harbor, and that John Wilkes Booth was a Muslim who had once been editor of the Harvard Law Review, that he had done a little further than the historical record warranted. But then those sissy scholars in their ivory towers are always yelling about facts — O'Reilly tells history from his gut, you liberal simps. Get used to it!
Abe was the OG GOP.
O'Reilly tells history from his gut, but the story doesn't come out of his mouth.
Silly, everyone knows that Jeff Davis hid the WMD at Oak Ridge. Charleston Harbor is where Stonewall hid the U-Boats.
It seems highly unfair to hold someone from FOX to a standard that requires them to be factual and accurate.
So, does this mean there is no truth in Bill's claim that Lincoln gladly produced his birth certificate before being sworn in?
Or that before being elected president, he was mostly known for his skill with a loofa?
He says he was born in a log cabin, but I want to see the axe before I make my decision.
“… lack of documentation and the factual errors within the publication.”=WTF?!
Fun Fact: Lincoln was the first president to let big party donors spend the night in the Lincoln Bedroom.
#WINNING
Joshua Speed Libel, yo!
This bores me, I am going to go out and get a loofah sandwich. I can't wait till I get home from work tonight, I plan to take a long, hot shower and falafel the grime off my skin.
The Oval Office–how'd it get there? Who put it there?
I know. I know. Charles McKim (McKim, Mead & White) designed it for Teddy Roosevelt.
What do I win?
An autographed copy of “Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever.” Woo hoo.
Needs more gals on velvet swings.
William Howard Taft, believe it or not. Nathan C. Wyeth did the design. More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oval_Office
Because when Taft sat around the Oval, he sat AROUND the Oval.
…and they say Mary Todd Lincoln was nuts?
compared to current Republicans candidates, Mary Todd Lincoln was like an Aristotle
It was really the conspiracy fun facts that didn't sit well with the Park Service. Stuff like Booth shot Lincoln in a theatre then hid in a warehouse, while Oswalt shot his load during phone sex with producers then his wife hid in the arms of a Long Island Policeman.
Your move, Keith Olbermann!
"ridiculous mistakes and errors and blunders" – isn't that Billo's nickname? Also – I want to know if there are any loofah's in the book.
Laugh now, libtards. Billy-O's book about Pearl Harbor is gonna crush it.
Germans?
Especially the part about him falafelling Pearl in the shower.
Those damn pineapple-chomping Hawaiians. I knew we should have kept a better eye on them. Obama bombed Pearl Harbor! The Baby Barack went back in time to do the dirty deed!
Used to be you'd publish books because you were a noted historian, Bill; you don't get designated a noted historian just because you publish books. Some logical fallacy must've fallen out of your skull and onto the page while you labored over this barf sandwich. Next time stick to Pinheads for Dummies: self-portraiture might be easier to render accurately in your case.
But it ought to be noted that Bill is a noted asshole.
Well, according to Bilious Billo, Honest Abe was a total socialist who had the temerity to free a bunch of poor black folks, thus creating the welfare morass we're in today. Lincoln (D), obvs.
The passage where "Lincoln dined on $16 muffins that morning' does raise a question or two.
"Ol' Honest Abe stared leeringly at Mary Todd, who was cleaning his hat. 'Crazy in the head; wild in the sack,' Abe thought.
She noticed Abe's five-dollar stare. 'Penny for your thoughts, dear.'
He laboriously dropped his britches. 'One penny? How about a whole roll?'
'And then some,' Mary Todd cooed.
Abe advanced like Meade into Gettysburg: 'Say baby, put down that stovepipe and get my stovepipe up.'
And that's why the Lincoln Bedroom has come to be known as Sex Mountain."
Did you know that Abe Lincoln was so tall that dropping his trousers took 6.2 minutes?
You can look it up.
You know, I'm willing to bet that there was more historical accuracy in my little passage above than in the whole of O'Reilly's book.
just wait until BillO write a book about the heroism of Bush when he finally found and killed Osama bin Laden
Bush was kinda like a seal… all trained up and shit.
Didn't we just cover the swag discussion in another thread? Cheap, tasteless crap that the Park Service doesn't want the responsibility of foisting onto its patrons.
Hey, that's capitalism you're talking about there, get the cheapest, crappiest product, then sell it a grotesque mark-up, and you profit margin will be the best evah! I mean, just imagine if Shakespeare WAS written by an infinite number of monkeys? Aside from the bananas, where's the overheads?
…“because of the lack of documentation and the factual errors within the publication.”
Well, if THAT is going to be your standard, sure! Why not just ban ALL Teapublican publications! That sort of censorship is not what America is all about! OK, it should be, but it isn't.
F*ck accuracy. Let the markets decide!
Freedums of the Press!
Too bad. I rather liked the part where Newt's time machine kids arrange a daring rescue and a shirtless Reagan jumps out of an apache attack helicopter with a machine gun in one hand and says, "Hasta la vista, southern democrats."
Quit raggin' on Bill – his diet just doesn't allow him any more to reach his computer – he has to do everything by Dragon Naturally, and that doesn't allow for research…
BILL O'REILLY'S
book about abraham lincoln.
Lincoln: favorite drink? turpentine.
Will Bed Bath and Beyond stock his line of loofa/falafels?
Yep. They're called Loofalafels.
I used to play the loofalafel in high school. I was second chair.
You were in the Whoville marching band too?
I hope you cleaned up afterwards.
You know who else wrote a book "lacking in documentation and full of factual errors?"
God?
Um, Hitler?
Herman Cain's book only had one factual error: the title.
Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky?
Stephen Colbert?
Charles Murray?
Dan Brown?
I am planning to do my part by reshelving this in the fiction section at all of my local bookstores as well as the library. I suggest you all do the same.
While you're at, could you put the Catholicism books in the true crime section where they belong? Thanks, you're the best.
Too bad. I loved the part where Lincoln freed the slaves from Obamacare.
The facts stop here.
The Ron Paultards are engaged in a Texas Steelcase Death Match with Bull O'Really's book over at Amazon.
Turns out Bull said something nasty about Mr. Paul – so they hate him.
Also turns out they think Abe Lincoln was a complete jerk (I did not know that). So they are unloading on Bull's book. With some 1,100 "reviews."
Sweet!
Watching RWNutbags Nom Each Other < — My dream holiday entertainment.
Which chapter does Lincoln take a shower with a falafel, while sexually harassing a subordinate by telegraph???
Like all the winger books (ordered by the pallet load by conservatard money people to hand out as gifts for subscribing to magazines or donating to think tanks) this one will provide a warm cozy feeling as it joins dozens of others at a pop in the fireplaces and burn barrels of the world. If they ship them to the soldiers over in Afghanistan soon, they can use them for heating and also for fuel savings while burning the shit barrels at the latrines with the kerosene. It may not be welcome at Ford's Theatre, but out in the Afghan hills where it's no doubt getting chilly, some fine literature will go well in the burn barrel or the shit barrel. At least it is combustable.
But he based it on a noted television documentary! It even starred Rex Hamilton!
I guess NPS felt the chapter where Lincoln loofah-bangs Mary Todd in the Ford theater bathhouse was inaccurate.
On the subject of right-wing propaganda about presidents. My daughter's school had a "book fair" at the local Barnes and Noble. Teachers display recommended books, and school gets a cut of what gets bought. Waiting in the kids section, I happened to pick up a book for lil' sprouts on president Reagan. I can see where the next generation of wingnuts will be coming from.
Full of little gems like "President Reagan wanted to cut spending when he got to Washington. But some programs – like school lunches and Medicare – were so popular that Congress wouldn't let him. So he couldn't cut as much as he wanted, and spending continued to grow, just at a slower rate." No mention of the absolute explosion of military spending, which made every other bit of discretionary spending look tiny. Page after page of stuff like that. Divorce from Jane Wyman? Bluff, noble Ronnie just wasn't ready for Hollywood people and their Hollywood ways. Iran-Contra? Ronnie victimized by rogue officer in the Pentagon (interestingly, the officer is not given a name).
To use the phrasing chosen by people who study scientific method, the Reagan Revolution has clearly entered it's "normal phase".
Ronnie divorced Wyman–who was one fine actress at the time–so he could marry Nancy–who was one lousy actress, but did carry the nickname Best Little Blowjob in Hollywood.
oh and those autopsy photos seemed rather suspect also
What does poor, maligned Bill think of this conspiracy to prevent two or three people from accidentally buying his book?
I hear several copies were snatched up by the library at Governor Perry's alma mater, Texas A & M. But most of them had to be discarded before they made it to the shelves–the corps of cadets had come through and colored in them. Then they had to close the library down–someone had checked out the remaining book.
"Bill O’Reilly’s Dumb Lincoln Book Banned By National Park Service." Well, it's a start, now if we can just ban the big dumb cunt himself.
This is a passage, quoted verbatim, from Chapter Six of O'Reilly's book:
The night before the play was a particularly amorous one for the Lincolns. Conceding to Mary's consistent pleas to "expand our horizons" and "experiment," Abe finally agreed to join Mary at one of the "D.C. Swinger" parties that Mary saw advertised in the "Personals" section of "The Washington Post-Herald-Times City Paper," an "underground" popular broadsheet in the nation's capital. The "swinger" party was held around the corner from the White House on L Street, and Abe and Mary were well-received at the party, which featured Democrats, Whigs, Republicans, Congressmen, businessmen, socialites, college students, Hill staffers, two Supreme Court judges, lobbyists, more businessmen and a particularly peculiar group of city men who liked to dress as women!
The party lasted for several hours, and as the night wore on, everyone took their clothes off and a wild, uninhibited orgy of sexual activity occurred. Mary and Abe slept in the next day, and most of the White House staff did, too, as they also attended the party." –from Bill O'Reilly's Lincoln book, Chapter 6, "The Secret Nightlife of Abe and Mary."
Fox Noos and Bill… We just make shit up and say it with authority. Works most of the time.
George Soros.
He did, however, carry around a lot of garlic to keep vampires at bay.
Which is all and well being that the war was between Team Edward and Team Jacob.
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