Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 11, 1995 TAG: 9509110033
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
And all of you Republicans now slapping your thighs and giggling ought to remember that George Bush once fell under the impression that Pearl Harbor was bombed in September instead of December.
Actually , Bill and George were probably the victims of speechwriters who got history wrong. This keeps me awake at night.
(I also stay awake because of barking dogs; nightmares in which I'm running down a hotel corridor in my boxer shorts; and a real zinger in which Sigourney Weaver decides we weren't meant for each other after all. After which I say something like: "Well, we'll always have Paris."
(The Sigourney dream is the worst. It happens about 4 a.m. and that's the end of that night's sleep. At least I don't meet her when I'm running around partially nude in a public place.
(This, however, may happen any night now.)
But back to our speechwriters. I'm not suggesting they're involved in a conspiracy to revise history. They can't revise something they don't know anything about.
If I were president, I'd call them in and say: "Listen, guys, the people in Peoria caught it right away when you said Alexander Hamilton wrote the Declaration of Independence. Your next assignment: American History 202."
The president should consider auditing the course himself.
Unless steps are taken, the terrible day may come when Lincoln will give the Gettysburg Address at Allentown.
Or the speechwriters will have Thomas Jefferson building a modest cottage at Crozet, Va., and founding the University of Maryland.
The American people have responsibility here, too. A poll, for example, showed they were largely ignorant of Dwight David Eisenhower.
I would assume that many of them think Woodrow Wilson was in the sporting goods business. Or that Theodore Roosevelt was responsible for digging the Erie Canal.
Give them time and the first thing you know they won't know anything about Sigourney Weaver, or Kim Basinger or Michelle Pfeiffer or Lana Turner.
I can't go on. The mere thought of ignorance like that appalls me.
Next time we meet, we'll be discussing the causes of the Mexican War, so be sure to do your assigned reading.
by CNB