Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski scores another in its systematic review of the walking exaggeration that is failing presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.
Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s 1998 book Kids Who Kill is full of spurious quotations from leading American political figures, mostly the country’s founding fathers.
A number of the quotations, such as those from Washington and Jefferson, have been routinely debunked by libraries of the past presidents but still regularly find their way into books from conservative figures. Other quotes, debunked by prominent historians, seem to be used for the first time in the book.
The book was co-written with evangelical author George Grant in response to a mass shooting in Arkansas. The book links that shooting to the decline in America’s moral culture. The quotes, from figures such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henry, are often used to reinforce Huckabee’s moral viewpoint.
Huckabee make stuff up? Say it isn’t so.
Why just the other day he claimed credit for the Arkansas Times scoop that set off an investigation and indictment of Arkansas Democratic legislators. Suffice it to say Huckabee has never been a source for us except in his petty harassment of us and rich stories about his cadging of freebies, abuse of power and self-importance.
From Buzzfeed:
“Thomas Jefferson asserted that the ‘chief purpose of government is to protect life. Abandon that and you have abandoned all,’” writes Huckabee in one part of the book on abortion.
However, according to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, “this quotation has not been found in the writings of Thomas Jefferson.”
There’s more, much more. Fake quotes. Misattributed fake quotes.
Was it Ben Franklin who said, “boycott rainbow-colored Doritos.”
Patrick Henry who said, “Give me Kim Davis or give me death!”