It looks as if Mike Huckabee has decided that it is better to make up quotes for historical figures than to do the work necessary to quote them correctly. At least that’s what several media outlets have claimed recently.
So much for civic literacy, often a way of complaining about the quality of public education in the United States, especially when it comes to subjects such as history.
I do note that the book in question came out in 1998. It interests me that only now did someone decide to report this.
As before, I expect someone to say this is all part of my nasty partisan agenda to prove candidates of one party or another to be morons. All I can say is … I couldn’t do it without them. I didn’t stick words in their mouths … although they stuck words in the mouths of other people.
Crossroads 
Imagine the response if Hillary had ghosted a book full of spurious quotations!
If you have read anything by the “quoted” Americans, it is obvious the “quotes” are not 18th or 19th century.
I believe that generally the average American has a sincere reverence for the Founding Fathers, Lincoln, and other icons of our past. However, this reverence is not matched by a detailed knowledge of these same people. People like Huckabee play on this ignorance in order to advance their agenda (in his case he wants to be relevant), this sad lack of knowledge enables people of his ilk to aver these falsehoods virtually unchallenged.
“Four status updates and seven tweets ago….”. Lincoln
“Everything on the internet is false – including this” – Daniel Web-ster
“Hi, I’m Mike Huckabee for the David Barton School of Making Up History as You Go.”
Is Huckabee still running? – Abraham Lincoln
Just because a quote isn’t in the “Jefferson Papers” doesn’t mean there’s no source for it. You have contemporary newspaper articles and other people’s memoirs diaries and letters that mention his conversations.
It should be easy for anyone to document a quote. Right? So I’m waiting for someone to vindicate Huckabee.
This may take a while.
Some days I feel our public discourse would be immeasurably improved if people simply used citations.
It’s not hard to do! You don’t need any fancy academic training! And yet here we are.
People like Huckabee, in my opinion, have little respect for the past. If they did, they would try to get it right. Citations wouldn’t make them want to turn past figures into sockpuppets any less, but it would make it more difficult and their bs more readily apparent.
I found this interesting, “Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson, a top-tier contender, wrote on Facebook last night, “Are we sure political experience is what we need. [sic] Every signer of the Declaration of Independence had no elected office experience.”