Many of our political leaders are historically illiterate.
This is especially concerning given that some of these politicians have been around since the dawn of time. They’ve lived through much of the history they now seem to know so little about.
While heaping praise on Biden’s decision to nominate the first black woman to the Supreme Court, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer decided to spread misinformation. Luckily his misinformation was just a rant on the Senate floor and not on Spotify. Otherwise, Neil Young might have had some words for him.
“Until 1981, this powerful body, the Supreme Court, was all white men. Imagine. America wasn’t all white men in 1981, or ever. Under President Biden and this Senate majority, we’re taking historic steps to make the courts look more like the country they serve.”
Critics pounced on Schumer’s remarks — and rightfully so. He completely omitted Thurgood Marshall’s historic career. Imagine. Marshall spent 24 years on the Supreme Court after being nominated in 1967.
Even for a progressive sellout like Chuck Schumer, omitting the first black Supreme Court justice while grandstanding about diversity was impressively tone-deaf.
While it is clear that Senator Schumer and his writing staff have no grasp of basic history, do they not have access to Google? A quick internet search would have come in handy when Chuck’s flunkies were drafting up that doozy.
Later that day, the Senate majority leader tweeted, “Sorry that I misspoke earlier today. Of course, I remember the dedication and legal excellence that Thurgood Marshall brought to the Supreme Court.”
Of course.
On the same day, another ancient Democrat, President Joe Biden, managed to expose his own lack of expertise on some consequential history.
While Biden may have given up on reciting the Declaration of Independence (“you know, the thing”), he has not given up reinterpreting the Constitution.
While in New York City, Biden delivered a variety of perplexing remarks on combating gun violence. The comment that garnered the most attention involved cannons.
“There’s no violation of the Second Amendment right,” he said. “There’s no amendment that’s absolute. When the amendment was passed it didn’t say anybody can own a gun, any kind of gun, and any kind of weapon. You couldn’t buy a cannon when this amendment was passed so there’s no reason why you should be able to buy certain assault weapons. But that’s another issue.”
Joe Biden is not great with timelines or facts. After all, this is the same man who once told Katie Couric that FDR went on television after the stock market crashed in 1929.
Now President Biden is taking creative liberties with the Second Amendment.
The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler fact-checked Biden’s remark and awarded the president four Pinnochios. Kessler also pointed out that this is not the first time Biden has spewed this bogus claim.
“We have no idea where he conjured up this notion about a ban on cannon ownership in the early days of the Republic, but he needs to stop making this claim,” Kessler wrote.
Even more importantly, Kessler drilled down on the president’s habit of playing fast and loose with American history: “Every U.S. president has a responsibility to get American history correct, especially when he’s using a supposed history lesson in service of a political objective.”
One of Biden’s political objectives with regard to guns is a new ban on assault weapons. If he had any real hope of doing that, he would focus more on understanding the Second Amendment’s history and less on cannons.
Chuck Schumer could also try to learn about the Supreme Court’s history and its justices before lecturing everyone else on the historic nominee Joe Biden is about to usher in.
The old expression goes, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” These men have lived through more history than I have, but have they learned anything? If the answer is no, then perhaps these septuagenarians can heed another overused bit of advice: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
I don’t know which seems less likely — politicians learning anything or politicians shutting up.
Either way, if they insist on droning on and on, they should at least hire some speech writers with a modicum of intelligence who can help them pretend they know America’s history.
