Reply #18: Our right-wing blowhards love your educational system...

[onager]

Well, they IMAGINE they love it, anyway.

Using your well-developed psychic powers, I bet you can predict their most often (mis)used quote before I even type it.

Here's a great example from Charlie Sykes, a radio bloviator in Wisconsin variously described as a "conservative pundit" or as a "cowardly, racist, thrice-married hypocritical right-wing POS." Sort of a Rush Limbaugh with only 1 brain cell instead of 2:

The Duke of Wellington once said that “the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton ” – reflecting his view that competitive sports shape a nation’s character.

We sure as hell should hope that’s not true about America unless, that is, we plan on going to war against an enemy who also values non-competitive, risk-free, self-esteem building play activities for its young...

Insert flags, drums, cheerleaders and marching bands as appropriate.

Warning, History Geekery ahead...

Except the Duke of Wellington never said any such thing. The quote wasn't attributed to him until 3 years after his death.

And Wellington disliked organized sports - which barely existed at Eton during his time there anyway. Ha! Suck on that, Charlie! Other Etonians remembered Wellington as a dreamy, loner sort.

He apparently didn't care much for Eton, either, remembering his time there as sad and lonely. His descendant, the Seventh Duke of Wellington, told TIME magazine that the Great Man had "no particular affection for the place."

Nobody ever uses his real quote about the battle of Waterloo: "Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won."

Proving, I guess, that much of the 19th-century media was just as lazy and dishonest as their modern descendants, the battle of Waterloo provided a slew of non-existent quotes.

My favorite is the commander of Napoleon's Imperial Guard, into whose mouth a journalist put the words: "The Guard dies but never surrenders." The commander himself always insisted he didn't have time for eloquent quotes, since he was busy seeing his troops cut to pieces and being surrounded by the British. He said his quote at the time consisted of just one word: "Merde!"