History BeamMeUpScotty / Politics

* UsefulNotes/WoodrowWilson's notorious endorsement of ''Film/{{The Birth of a Nation|1915}}'' (whose intertitles approvingly quote his writings on the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar and Reconstruction): "It is like writing history with Lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true." That Wilson was a white supremacist who worked to re-segregate the Federal government makes the quote plausible. However, evidence suggests that it's actually [[http://blogs.lib.unc.edu/ncm/index.php/2014/07/01/woodrow-wilsons-unintentional-rave-for-the-birth-of-a-nation/ an invention of a publicist for the film]]. While Wilson did host a White House screening of the movie, he actually criticized ''Nation'' as an "unfortunate production" and (correctly) anticipated that it would intensify racial resentment and violence.

* "When fascism [or tyranny] comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag." Some people add "and carrying a cross". This has been attributed both to UsefulNotes/HueyLong and to Creator/SinclairLewis, who did say (in his novel ''Literature/ItCantHappenHere'') that "the worst Fascists were they who disowned the word 'Fascism' and preached enslavement to Capitalism under the style of Constitutional and Traditional Native American Liberty." But it's very likely that the original quote came from Rev. Halford E. Luccock, in a 1938 sermon, speaking about the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_Committee#Dies_Committee_.281938.E2.80.931944.29 HUAC / Dies Committee]].

* London mayor Sadiq Khan never said terrorism was "part and parcel of living in the big city". In his original speech, he said that security preparedness to prevent them from occuring was "part and parcel" of his job as the leader of a major city. This statement [[https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/new-york-explosion-sadiq-khan-says-terror-attacks-are-part-and-parcel-of-life-in-a-big-city-a3347891.html then got paraphrased]] by [[UsefulNotes/BritishNewspapers British tabloids]], which was further [[QuoteMine Quote Mined]] by his opponents to make it sound like he was downplaying the seriousness of terrorism when in reality he was meaning the opposite. He also made this statement in response to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_New_York_and_New_Jersey_bombings 2016 Chelsea bombings]] in New York City, not in response to the 2017 London Bridge attacks as is sometimes erroneously reported.

** Bush never said anything remotely along the lines of “The problem with the French is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneur.” The quote is apparently an urban legend based on one [[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/french-lesson/ dubiously sourced article]]. Interestingly, it sounds similar to a real quote by President Ronald Reagan: “I’m no linguist, but I’ve been told that in the Russian language there isn’t even a word for freedom.” (There is—svoboda.)

** Even when the wording of the quote is accurate, it's still often cited (as in [[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/30/opinion/politics/bubble-politics.html this 2020 New York Times piece on political bubbles]]) with the false implication that she was surprised by Nixon's 1972 landslide victory.

** Even when the wording of the quote is accurate, it's still often cited (as in [[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/30/opinion/politics/bubble-politics.html this 2020 ''New York Times'' piece on political bubbles]]) with the false implication that she was surprised by Nixon's 1972 landslide victory.

* Bush never said anything remotely along the lines of “The problem with the French is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneur.” The quote is apparently an urban legend based on one [[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/french-lesson/ dubiously sourced article]]. Interestingly, it sounds similar to a real quote by President Ronald Reagan: “I’m no linguist, but I’ve been told that in the Russian language there isn’t even a word for freedom.” (There is—svoboda.)

* A common term in political punditry is the "Kinsley gaffe", which often gets defined as a politician making a slip of the tongue and inadvertently letting their true feelings on a subject come out. However, the origin of the term, a piece written by pundit Michael Kinsley in 1988, defined it much more narrowly: "A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth – some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say." In other words, the key point of a Kinsley gaffe is that it has to be something that everyone already knows, but would practically be career suicide for a politician to admit, like the need to raise taxes to increase government spending on popular programs.

** The ''Series/{{Rome}}'' TV series plays with this. Caesar tries to talk when he is dying but he can't. Later, when Brutus' mother joins those who are asking him to leave the city, Brutus asks: "You too, Mother?"

* A common term in political punditry is the "Kinsley gaffe", which often gets defined as a politician making a slip of the tongue and inadvertently letting their true feelings on a subject come out. However, the origin of the term, a piece written by pundit Michael Kinsley in 1988, defined it much more narrowly: "A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth – some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say." In other words, the key point of a Kinsley gaffe is that it has to be something that everyone already knows, but would practically be political suicide for someone to admit, like the need to raise taxes to increase government spending on popular programs.

* Henry Kissinger never said, "Who do I call if I want to speak to Europe?"

** W is reported to have told French President Jacques Chirac on the eve of the Iraq War: "Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase His people's enemies before a new age begins." No American of French official has ever confirmed that he said this, so the quote is probably apocryphal.

* Nancy Pelosi is often misquoted as saying, "We have to pass [the Affordable Care Act] so that we can find out what's in it", implying that she hadn't read the bill. This misquotation changes a rather important pronoun and, with it, the entire meaning of the quote. Pelosi's actual remarks were, "You've heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other. But I don't know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket. Prevention, prevention, prevention—it's about diet, not diabetes. It's going to be very, very exciting. But ''we have to pass the bill so that '''you''' can find out what is in it'', away from the fog of the controversy" (emphasis added). "You" here means the American people; Pelosi was arguing that there was so much misinformation and scaremongering surrounding the bill that people wouldn't understand what it actually did until after it went into effect. This has, in fact, largely ended up being VindicatedByHistory, as the Affordable Care Act has become significantly more popular in the years since its passage, and Republicans' attempts to repeal it in 2017 have been greeted by nationwide outrage and protests, to the extent that, thus far, all of them have failed.

** The first is mostly ParodyDisplacement, but even correctly attributing it to Marilyn French overlooks that the quote comes from a fictional character in her novel ''The Women's Room'', and [[WordOfGod does not represent French's personal views]].

** Several supposed "Bushisms" including "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. DistinctionWithoutADifference It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it", and "The future will be better tomorrow" were actually said by [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush his father]]'s vice president Dan Quayle.

* Nancy Pelosi is often misquoted as saying, "We have to pass [the Affordable Care Act] so we can find out what's in it", implying that she hadn't read the bill. This misquotation changes a rather important pronoun and, with it, the entire meaning of the quote. Pelosi's actual remarks were, "You've heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other. But I don't know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket. Prevention, prevention, prevention—it's about diet, not diabetes. It's going to be very, very exciting. But ''we have to pass the bill so that '''you''' can find out what is in it'', away from the fog of the controversy" (emphasis added). "You" here means the American people; Pelosi was arguing that there was so much misinformation and scaremongering surrounding the bill that people wouldn't understand what it actually did until after it went into effect. This has, in fact, largely ended up being VindicatedByHistory, as the Affordable Care Act has become significantly more popular in the years since its passage, and Republicans' attempts to repeal it in 2017 have been greeted by nationwide outrage and protests, to the extent that, thus far, all of them have failed.

** Presidential Counselor Kellyanne Conway infamously gaffed by referring to the the non-existent "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Green_massacre Bowling Green massacre]]," misremembering a full-blown terror attack when what actually occurred was the arrest of two Iraqi refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky, in 2011 for allegedly trying to send money and weapons to Al-Qaeda. Some people mistakenly believe Trump himself made the gaffe.

** Speaking of Friedman, he never said "There's no such thing as a free lunch" - Robert A. Heinlein said it.

** Several supposed "Bushisms" including "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. [[DistinctionWithoutADifference It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it", and "The future will be better tomorrow" were actually said by [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush his father]]'s vice president Dan Quayle.

* Jean-Paul Marat never demanded "100,000 heads", despite routinely being portrayed as doing so in fictionalised portrayals of the French Revolution, most notably 1989's ''La Revolution Française''. He did routinely call for beheadings, but the 100,000 figure actually comes from his assassin, Charlotte Corday, who proclaimed that she had killed "one man to save 100,000."

* Helmut Kohl's most famous quote (for the HehHehYouSaidX subtext) ''Entscheidend ist, was hinten rauskommt'' ("The crucial thing is what comes out at the end") is commonlly quoted wrong as "Am wichtigsten ist..."

* UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini (or his {{ghostwriter}}, philosopher Giovanni Gentile) never said that [[UsefulNotes/PoliticalIdeologies fascism]] was "the merging of the state and corporate power" (or, in some versions, "the corporation") and that it was more accurately called "corporatism" - meaning that big business was in control of the state. In fact, [[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fascism-corporations-corporatism-dictionary/ according to]] Website/{{Snopes}}, while something called "corporatism" was in fact a key tenant of fascism, it was essentially a more modern take on a medieval-style guild system, with only one association per economic sector controlling the whole economics of that sector, no competition (those associations could exclude businesses from dealing in said sector), and those associations being led by government or Fascist Party officials - in effect, the opposite of what the former quote implies (and very different from what modern capitalism is at least supposed to work).

* The phrase "I'd rather die standing up than living on my knees". Many have been the people who have been quoted to its creation: Benito Juárez, Emiliano Zapata, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, etc[[note]]A renowned [[{{UsefulNotes/Romani}} Gypsy]] proverb says "Bury me standing, for I've been my whole life on my knees[[/note]]

** Lenin is often quoted as outlining the following strategy for global revolution: "First we will take Eastern Europe, then the masses of Asia. We will encircle the last bastion of capitalism, the United States of America. We will not need to fight. It will fall as a ripe fruit into our hands.” Problem is that Lenin never said this, or anything like it.[[note]]The America-centric nature of the quote should be a giveaway; Lenin and other early Bolsheviks considered the British Empire their main opponent, as it was the strongest capitalist power of the time. It makes much more sense in the post-WWII context it originated than Lenin circa 1917.[[/note]] The quote has been attributed to a speech made by Cardinal Francis Spellman in the 1950s, warning about the [[DirtyCommunists dangers of Communism]] during the UsefulNotes/ColdWar; it became a favorite of the John Birch Society and other far right groups, and was occasionally cited by UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan and other mainstream conservatives advocating a hardline against the USSR.

** "The fascists of the future will call themselves anti-fascists", often used to discredit people who calls themselves anti-fascists.

** Thatcher never said "Whoever thinks the ANC is going to run South Africa any soon lives in [[{{cloudcuckooland}} cloud cuckoo land]]". The actual quote was said by Thatcher's spokesman, Bernard Ingham, during a conference in 1987: "It is cloud cuckooland for anyone to believe that could be done." The "that" was a Canadian reporter's proposed scenario of the ANC coming to power in South Africa after violently overthrowing the white-led regime. Ingham was, therefore, entirely right, because the ANC never overthrew the regime by force of arms. Instead, the ANC became the dominant party in South Africa after the peaceful dismantlement of [[UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra Apartheid]].

** Si’ahl's actual speech (based on translations -- he spoke in his native language) was far more pessimistic than the New Age version.

** Bush also never told John Kerry "You forgot Poland" during their first debate in 2004. The exchange went like this:

** Several supposed "Bushisms" including "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it", and "The future will be better tomorrow" were actually said by Dan Quayle.

* Georgia Representative John Lewis gets flack for saying that the slave trade changed the migratory paths of sharks in the Atlantic. The bad part is that it was actually New Jersey Representative Donald M. Payne, Jr. who said it. The worse part is that the misattribution (along with other colorful exaggerations) could [[http://blog.encyclopediavirginia.org/2012/01/09/thrown-to-the-sharks/ have originated in a rather poorly worded reply in Yahoo! Answers]].

** Presidential Counselor Kellyanne Conway infamously gaffed by referring to the the non-existent "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Green_massacre Bowling Green massacre]]," misremembering a full-blown terror attack when what actually occurred was the arrest of two Iraqi refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky, in 2011 for trying to support to Al-Qaeda. Some people mistakenly believe Trump himself made the gaffe.
** Trump never denied the existence of the virus that caused the UsefulNotes/Covid19Pandemic, despite both Democrats and Republicans who thought he called it a “hoax”. While he did downplay its seriousness, comparing it to the common cold when it soon proved itself far worse, the “hoax” he was referring to was the accusation of Congressional Democrats that he was mismanaging the nascent crisis, soon after the (very real) Ukraine incident of 2019 failed to remove him.

->''"For 17 years, I thought I said the word 'strategery.'"''

* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_will_bury_you "We Will Bury You!"]] speech Soviet leader UsefulNotes/NikitaKhrushchev gave to a group of Western politicians in 1956. Partly [[LostInTranslation poor translation]], partly because West-East tensions were already increasing in this stage of the Cold War, the comment was interpreted as a direct nuclear threat against the United States. The complete quote is "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will dig you in" (Нравится вам или нет, но история на нашей стороне. Мы вас закопаем ''Nravitsya vam ili nyet, no istoria na nashey storone. My vas zakopayem.''), in reference to the common Marxist saying "The proletariat[[note]]working class[[/note]] is the undertaker [mortician] of capitalism". Khrushchev was actually expressing the communist theory that capitalism was [[BecauseDestinySaysSo historically predetermined]] to eventually be supplanted by communism. He meant that [[HilariousInHindsight the Soviet Union would long]] [[TheGreatPoliticsMessUp outlast the Western powers]], as in "we'll attend your funeral", not ''cause it''. "We will still be here when they bury you!" might be more to the point.