To her supporters, Hillary Clinton counts as one of the most brilliant, best-educated women on the planet, so how can they justify her sloppiness in an embarrassing misquotation of Abraham Lincoln?
On July 24th, the Senator from New York presented her long-awaited "American Dream Initiative" -- a series of policy proposals meant to activate her liberal base-- to the "National Conversation" of the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council) in Denver. At the conclusion of a very, very long speech, she meditated: "This is a Democratic agenda for the 21st Century. But as we were working on it, I find myself thinking about a 19th Century president, Abraham Lincoln, who I secretly believe would be a Democrat were he here right now....Lincoln understood that who we are in the world begins with how we live at home. And during the darkest days of that war he said, my dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth."
The phrase "the last best hope of earth" is familiar, of course; it's even provided the title for Bill Bennett's excellent new book of U.S. History, AMERICA: THE LAST BEST HOPE. But Mrs. Clinton (who provided the text with exactly the punctuation cited above) altered, in fact butchered, the 16th President's noble words.
Lincoln didn't "dream" of an American restoration ("my dream is of a place and a time where America will once again..."). He understood that even in the midst of a bloody conflict of national survival, the nation remained "the last best hope of earth." The actual quotation (from the President's Annual Message to Congress on December 1, 1862) declares: "We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth."
If nothing else, compare this spare, dignified prose to Hillary Clinton's flabby effusions "my dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen..." Lincoln didn't care so much how America was seen. He cared about truth, reality. He meant to "nobly save" the "last best hope of earth" not to restore America's image in France, or Belgium, or the Upper West Side, by a resoration of Clintonian rule.
This may seem like a small matter, but imagine if President Bush, or Dan Quayle, had sloppily, stupidly misquoted Lincoln in a carefully prepared, high profile address. Wouldn't we hear constant harping over another Republican "gaffe"? If nothing else, Hilalry's inability to quote Lincoln accurately should lead to serious questions about her preposterous claim (her "secret belief" as she charmingly put it) that the first GOP president would be a Democrat were he alive today.
Meanwhile, to purge the foul aftertaste of Senator Clinton's rhetoric, it might be worthwhile here to provide a more substantial citation from the great Lincoln address she distorted .
"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
"Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation... We -- even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free-- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just- a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."
No, Lincoln didn't go to Wellesley or to Yale, but even more than the junior Senator from New York, the man knew how to write. And to lead. And to build a Republican Party that still "holds the power, and bears the responsibility."