Lincoln the Republican

Directions

From a post by OpinionJournal.com’s editor James Taranto (original post date 10/10/12):

This is from a Reuters [news service] report on a screening of Steven Spielberg’s new Lincoln movie:

…Spielberg said he had deliberately sought to avoid such entanglements by asking for a release date after the elections. “Lincoln” is due for limited release November 9 and timed for the Hollywood awards season.

“Don’t let this political football play back and forth,” the Oscar-winning director said he urged distributors, noting the “confusing” aspect in the film that shows how U.S. political parties back in Lincoln’s time “traded political places over the last 150 years.”

In contrast to today, the Republican party to which Lincoln belonged was founded by anti-slavery activists and Republicans were often tagged “radicals.”

Note that that last paragraph, which implies that today’s GOP [Republican party] is pro-slavery, is not a quote. It evidently reflects the opinion of reporter Christine Kearney. (The bit about how Republicans then “were often tagged ‘radicals,’ ” and that is “in contrast to today,” is also weird. [Liberal] commentators today are constantly tagging Republicans as radicals.

Of late news organizations have been trying to re-establish their authority by publishing “fact checks” of things politicians say. A better approach would be for them to check their own stories more carefully and stop casually throwing in brazen and obnoxious falsehoods.