From pseudo-journalist to pseudo-historian: Bill O's Lincoln book banned from Ford's Theatre

Plus: The New Yorker's Ben McGrath reports from State College, PA

Note the respective type sizes of the two co-authors. Now who do you suppose did most of the work? I can believe Bill O supplied more than his share of the already-discovered mistakes. Hey, it's what he does.

by Ken

Posted this evening on the Washington Post's website is a report by Steven Livingston, "Bill O'Reilly's 'Lincoln' book banned from Ford's Theatre because of 'mistakes,'" revealing that O'Reilly's Amazon-best-selling Lincoln tome has been banned from the Ford's Theatre bookstore because of what Livingston characterizes a serial disregard for historical fact."

For a purported history of the assassination -- an "unsanitized and uncompromising ... no spin American story," as the authors put it, "Killing Lincoln" is sloppy with the facts and slim on documentation, according to a study conducted by Rae Emerson, the deputy superintendent of Ford's Theatre National Historic Site, which is a unit of the National Park Service.

Other Lincoln experts also have sounded off. In a review published in the November issue of "North & South -- The Official Magazine of the Civil War Society," historian Edward Steers Jr. cites many instances where the book strays from documented history, then asks, "If the authors made mistakes in names, places, and events, what else did they get wrong? How can the reader rely on anything that appears in 'Killing Lincoln'"?

Well, jeez, what would you expect from Bill O? As a make-believe journalist, he has made a career of blending ignorance, obfuscation, and flat-out lies. When he puts on his make-believe historian's cap, what's likely to be different?

Livingston elaborates on the kinds of errors already revealed in the unfootnoted book. Not that it matters.

The sales of “Killing Lincoln” attest to the fact that TV celebrity and strong storytelling trump accuracy. Since its publication the book has been riding at the top of the bestseller list, and soon after its release O’Reilly signed a contract to write two more books, one of which will be another presidential history.

Well, if America has a previously undetected burning need for make-believe history, I suppose there could hardly be a better man for the job than Bill O.


MEANWHILE IN STATE COLLEGE, PA --


The New Yorker's excellent reporter Ben McGrath filed a blog report today, "Game Day at Penn State," on the Nebraska-Penn State game, anticipated in many quarters with an expectation bordering on dread in the wake of the convulsions from the university scandal.

"Luckily, it's a noon game," Lexi Belculfine, the editor-in-chief of the Penn State Daily Collegian, told me yesterday, handicapping the odds for another student riot following this afternoon's game against the new Big Ten rival Nebraska. Noon, meaning early, with less time for Yuengling to amplify the widespread local discontent over the firing of head coach Joe Paterno, or displeasure with the national media that has descended on State College, PA, to document (and perhaps to stoke) the anger . . . . . . .

Ben reports that "roughly six hundred media" were credentialed for the game, as against the normal State College complement of 450 "or fewer." And he notes, "The mood on campus has calmed considerably since Wednesday night."

Yesterday afternoon, I watched a procession of girls delivering baked goods to the Paterno family home, north of the stadium, amid snow flurries. Last night, some ten thousand people assembled on "Old Main," the campus quad, for a candlelight vigil in support of "the victims." Seldom have so many college students seemed so sober on a Friday night at 10 P.M.

The game itself seems to have been uneventful in a non-football sense, but also unsuccessful for the home team, which trailed by ten at the half and despite "a late surge," including two possessions in the final two minutes, bowed to Nebraska 17-14.

After the game, Ben reports, interim Penn State president Rodney Erickson, addressing the media, said, "We really have been through a very tough time. On Monday morning it will be back to classes."

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