Originally Posted By tiggertoo Nice Weekly World News headline to start things off. Of course, I mean exposed as the pseudo-historian we already knew he was. Do anyone think his sycophants will listen? ...yes, I jest. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/30/AR2010093005267.html" target="_blank">http://www.washingtonpost.com/...267.html</a> *snip*"Glenn Beck, the conservative television and radio host, is an amateur historian. Very amateur. One day, he rhetorically asked his Fox News viewers: "Why did we buy Alaska in the 1950s?" A good question -- because "we" purchased Alaska in 1867. Another day, he gave his version of European history: "We have the Age of Enlightenment, 1620 to 1871, uh, 1781. This was a time when people said, 'Wait a minute, wait a minute, we can think out of the box.' This is coming out of the Dark Ages." That was thinking outside of the box, because the Dark Ages ended in about 1000 AD, six centuries earlier than Beck claimed."*snip* More at the link!
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt I won't even bother clicking the link. The snippet you posted was enough. "What a maroon." -- Bugs Bunny
Originally Posted By Donny Just so it is said I know we bought Alaska in 1867 but Alaska became the 49th US state on January 3, 1959
Originally Posted By ecdc I know I rant about history on here all the time. I had planned to get a PhD and teach, but that fell away. So I'm no expert, but I still care about this stuff a lot. It infuriates me how everyone in this country thinks they're a historian. Do people feel comfortable speaking so authoritatively on brain surgery or Art Deco? I'm glad you read David McCullough's latest, but you're not a historian. History is a valuable discipline, and like any area, it requires patience and expertise. Real historians spend entire careers trying to master one or two topics or a few decades of time. So listening to an ignoramus like Beck, who's probably read four or five right-wing screeds on "history" (including Jonah Goldberg's laughable "Liberal Fascism") is beyond absurd. He's a clueless idiot, and he knows jack about our Founders or much of anything else. I'm sure he's never spent so much as 30 seconds in an archive, transcribing a document.
Originally Posted By Mr X ^---I LOVE that that's all you Cons can come up with (after nearly two years in office!) in some feeble attempt to equate President Obama's accidental switch of 57 instead of 47 to Bush's LONG career of idiotic mis-statements and malapropisms.
Originally Posted By Donny President Obama Quote "In the midst of civil war, we laid railroad tracks from one coast to another that spurred commerce and industry." Fact check= Obama would have been justified in saying that a transcontinental railroad system was "planned and begun" in the midst of the Civil War, which started in 1861. The Pacific Railway Act provided for the transcontinental railroad and was signed in 1862. Workers on the Western end, the Central Pacific line, spiked the first rails in 1863. But construction on the Union Pacific line, which would start in Nebraska and connect to the Central Pacific in Utah, didn’t begin until after the war, at which point the Central Pacific was still working in California and had made it roughly to the Sierra Nevadas. The two lines were not to meet until the famous "golden spike" ceremony of May 10, 1869, four years after the war had ended <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/2009/02/fact-checking-obamas-speech" target="_blank">http://www.factcheck.org/2009/...s-speech</a> Hey Mr.X how about this ?
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Originally Posted By tiggertoo RE:8 Actually, I don't even think Obama was even that far off since track WAS being laid from coast to coast in the midst of the American Civil War. Though, if we want to get REALLY technical, the Atlantic coast had plenty of railroads through to Chicago, and thus didn't require any railroads built on that coast. Shame on you, Obama.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***Hey Mr.X how about this?*** Grasp at straws much? You call that a gaffe? Geez, you might as well at least go for a real one. The "cling to guns and religion" thing was pretty bad. His special olympics joke was definitely cringe worthy? But saying "we laid tracks in the midst of the war" rather than "we began laying tracks"???? Puleeze.
Originally Posted By ecdc There's of course a difference between misspeaking, which we all do, including the President, and being factual incorrect on numerous occasions, like Beck. So equating them is disingenuous. Of course, since Donny thinks Beck is just like Dr. King, it's only a matter of time until he tells us Beck is just like President Obama.
Originally Posted By Longhorn12 The fact that he listed a specific year as the start of any "age" is a major faux pas in History...not that he would know that.
Originally Posted By tiggertoo ecdc: <<I'm sure he's never spent so much as 30 seconds in an archive, transcribing a document.>> You gave me a flashback. When I was researching a thesis on hydraulic mining and geomorphologist (it's a word) Grove Karl Gilbert, I spent weeks in the National Archive in San Bruno, California State Archives, and USGS office in Sacramento digging up arcane USGS and CDC (California Debris Commission) documents trying to reconstruct the historiography of his treatise "Hydraulic mining in the Sierra Nevada." It was eye-blurringly tedious, but rewarding work. I agree with everything else you said too.
Originally Posted By tiggertoo I'm pretty vague on pre-Enlightenment European history, but how can anyone miss the Renaissance?
Originally Posted By tiggertoo Edit: "Hydraulic mining in the Sierra Nevada" should be "Hydraulic mining debris in the Sierra Nevada".
Originally Posted By hopemax > I'm pretty vague on pre-Enlightenment European history, but how can anyone miss the Renaissance? < Beck, obviously, has gaping holes in his life experience, like riding Spaceship Earth.
Originally Posted By tiggertoo Just to clarify something: I do not consider myself a historian either. I wasn't trying to set myself up as anything other than a guy who has experienced what it would be like to do serious research. It was the catalyst that made me I want to continue my education and attain a PhD.
Originally Posted By ecdc That's awesome - I'm jealous. I've done long term research for publishing on Mormonism - tons of hours in the LDS archives, Utah State archives, U of U, BYU, and Utah State. I did my thesis on Cecil B. DeMille's involvement in the placement of Ten Commandments monuments across the country from 1954-56. So I know a bit, but I'm no professional historian either. I'm a bit weak in the Colonial era, better in the Civil Rights era, etc. It's how it goes. But I know enough to know that history is complex, nuanced, and tough to pin down. People like Glenn Beck want their heroes and villains clearly labeled, which rarely works in real history. History is about people. People are complicated. They change their minds. They act and react emotionally. Anyone who's ever been married or had a relationship knows people are tricky and emotional So I hate it when simpletons like Beck insist entire years or decades of time are just one way, of a Founder was one way, etc. End soapbox.
