During his State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, President Obama quoted Abraham Lincoln as follows:
I'm a Democrat. But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more. That's why my education reform offers more competition, and more control for schools and States. That's why we're getting rid of regulations that don't work. That's why our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a Government program....Charles C. Johnson at Big Government got the actual Lincoln quote from distinguished professor Harry Jaffa of Claremont McKenna College, who was able to recite it from memory. The full quote is easily found on the Web, and presumably could have been located by President Obama’s immense royal retinue, if they had been interested in anything other than propaganda.
Here is what Lincoln actually said:
The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities.Obama didn’t merely paraphrase Lincoln’s words. He completely inverted their meaning.
