From Newsbusters:

George Washington was the father of our country.

Eh! No big deal. Barack Obama is better…at least in his own mind. Such was the laughably absurd claim of President Obama on 60 Minutes last Sunday. What? You didn’t see it? That was because 60 Minutes conveniently left it out of its broadcast. If you want to see Obama engage in this latest bit of over the top braggadocio you can only see it at the online 60 Minutes Overtime which has a video of the entire interview. You can catch Obama’s excessive praise of himself at the tail end of the interview starting with Steve Kroft’s question just before the 55 minute mark:

KROFT: Tell me, what do you consider your major accomplishments? If this is your last speech. What have you accomplished?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, we’re not done yet. I’ve got five more years of stuff to do. But not only saving this country from a great depression. Not only saving the auto industry. But putting in place a system in which we’re gonna start lowering health care costs and you’re never gonna go bankrupt because you get sick or somebody in your family gets sick. Making sure that we have reformed the financial system, so we never again have taxpayer-funded bailouts, and the system is more stable and secure. Making sure that we’ve got millions of kids out here who are able to go to college because we’ve expanded student loans and made college more affordable. Ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Decimating al Qaeda, including Bin Laden being taken off the field. Restoring America’s respect around the world.

The issue here is not gonna be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln — just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we’ve got a lot more work to do. And we’re gonna keep on at it.

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In keeping with the many dozens of gaffes that Obama has made over the years, Verum Serum found another one from last February that has, with the help of the Old Media, slipped under the radar. Just more proof that Obama’s constant gaffes go unreported by the Old Media while they search high and low for the same sort of misspeaking from Republicans and conservatives.

Apparently the smartest president in history thought that Abe Lincoln built an intercontinental railroad in the midst of the Civil War.

Listen, Abraham Lincoln helped build the interstate, er the intercontinental railroad in the middle of the Civil War because he understood this was going to be important.

For being the smartest person in human history, Obama sure can be a dope sumtimes, kain’t he?

Sorry, Mr. President, but the fact is that there was no intercontinental railroad built by Abe Lincoln. Lincoln did have a hand in assisting America’s first transcontinental railroad to get built.

Even so, it was not finished until years after the Civil War and years after Lincoln’s assassination.

Now, as VS notes, this was just a simple slip of the tongue. It is easy to mix up “inter” with “trans,” to be sure. Not really a big deal, truthfully. I am sure he meant transcontinental.

But the left’s “gotcha” machine is in high gear for anyone that might be considered a Republican or a conservative. The left’s handmaidens in the Old Media are keeping a sharp eye out for anyone on the right side of the aisle who might perpetrate a misspeak or two.

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The face of TV and politics changed forever on this date in history. It was 50 years ago this evening that John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon held the first of their 4 debates. It was clearly the most remarkable of their debates—perhaps the most remarkable of all presidential debates.

Kennedy was seen as calm, cool and collected on TV. He was well tanned and healthy. Nixon was fighting illness, he refused a request for makeup and looked sweaty and worn out. Those who watched the broadcast of the first ever televised presidential debate declared Kennedy the winner, those who listened on the radio gave the nod to Nixon. Thus, the political world changed forever.

70 million people watched first of the Great Debates that night that was simulcast on each of the network.  More than half of the voters who watched on TV said that the debates influenced their decision on who to vote for in 1960.

Still, in spite of his performance, Kennedy won by only 112,000 votes and there were serious questions about voter fraud, especially in Illinois where under the Mayor Richard Daley the phrase was coined, “vote early and often.” (more…)

When I was at CPAC a few weeks ago, I decided to stay an extra day and do the Washington tour. Now as someone who lives in Los Angeles, it is simply shocking to me how much history is within walking distance of the Washington monument, say.

At the Air and Space Museum, you can see John Glenn’s FRIENDSHIP 7 capsule and a replica of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module (you can tell it’s a replica, and not one of the built but unflown actual LMs, because the Lunar Module is so fragile it cannot support itself on its own legs in the Earth’s gravity field.)

Just a few blocks away is Ford’s Theater, and across the street, the Peterson House where Abraham Lincoln spent his final eight hours of agony. To go from that dingy, cheap little flophouse and then to the marble temple at the far end of the Mall produces a profound reaction in the human heart. But nothing I saw affected me as did the Declaration of Independence. I expected to be filled with reverence and awe. Instead, I was overwhelmed with despair.

My friends, the Declaration of Independence is gone: irreparably faded. And I fear that the ideals so boldly pronounced in that document are also fading from the pages of society. A few years ago, they opened the Super Bowl telecast by having players from both teams simply read lines from the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, and the switchboards were flooded with thousands of irate calls protesting this “right-wing propaganda.” (more…)