My rather long Monday column covers the ideological and platform shifts of the parties from 1860 to present day, and how Republicans like Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck are lying about it.
While I was reviewing some of my Civil War volumes about the latter half of 1862 and the Emancipation Proclamation, I happened to check out a clip from Sunday's edition of This Week with George Stephanopoulos. For the sake of manufacturing sensationalism and balance, I suppose, they invited Ann Coulter to be a panelist and, predictably, she screeched, lied and generally went bananas.
But one thing in particular grabbed my attention given Saturday's historical connection: she reiterated a common fallacy on the far-right that conservatives were responsible for freeing the slaves. You've probably heard this from other pundits like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.
It's a big myth. Of course.
Yes, a Republican president freed the slaves. Yes, Democrats from the South were the instigators of secession in the name of slavery. So, in a broad sense, the Republican Party can ballyhoo the fact that its first president, Lincoln, issued the Emancipation Proclamation. However, conservatives had little or nothing to do with it... Continue reading here.