On ‘Last Week Tonight’ John Oliver discusses the overwhelming misuse of quotes by influential public figures (like Ben Carson), who either fake their quotes or simply don’t care about the authenticity of the quotations they use.
We’re not picking entirely on Ben Carson, as you will soon see, the epidemic of spouting gobbledygook and attributing it to great statesmen crosses political lines. John describes misquoting well, as “the karaoke of ideas.” However, while we’re talking about Ben Carson, John shows a clip of Carson languidly quoting Thomas Jefferson on gun control – in language Jefferson would not have used, and in words he frankly never said.
If disgruntled Republicans have made it this far, they will feel justified to see ‘idea karaoke’ from such disparate sources as President Obama, Mike Huckabee, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan who all attributed things to Abraham Lincoln that must have had him spinning like a top. If there were only somewhere we could go – somewhere we could check the authenticity of a quotation easily…I’ll get back to you on that.
While – as John suggests, we’re deciding whether to begin caring about the accuracy of quotes, or just let fly – Last Week Tonight put up a wonderful website where you may find the most preposterous quotes paired with a wide variety of people who are most unlikely to have made them. It’s great fun, go to DEFINITELYREALQUOTES.COM and be sure to quote what you’ve found there. You found it printed on the internet, after all.