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b_b · 4961 days ago · link · · parent · post: RutherfordGate: Historian Responds to President Obama’s Hayes Slur
People flagrantly and mindlessly follow misquotes and misattributions all the time. Its terribly annoying especially when the truth isn't typically all that hidden. My colleague has a poster outside her office that says "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" --Isaac Newton. I want to tear it off the wall every time I see it, because Newton was quoting others, who had used that phrase for (literally) centuries. But its become the conventional wisdom, as with the Hayes quote, and once enshrined, the truth doesn't so much matter anymore.