A former co-worker of mine who has turned into something of a right-wing nut since he came into some money posted this quote on his Facebook page: “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.” He attributed it to Thomas Jefferson. I read it and for some reason decided to look it up, and sure enough it wasn’t Jefferson who said it at all. Gerald Ford uttered those words in an address to Congress on August 12, 1974.

My “friend” posted the quote as a continuation of an earlier discussion we had on political issues — a discussion that included some pointed criticisms of each others’ sources. As such, I decided to let him know that the quote was attributed incorrectly, and that he might want to do some fact-checking in the future before posting things.

He took the quote down, along with my comments, and re-posted the quote with the attribution, “a very smart person.”

I then asked why wouldn’t he correctly attribute the quote if I had told him exactly who said it, and added I guess Gerald Ford wasn’t sexy enough.

He removed the quotes and my comments again, and reposted it as “the smartest thing Gerald Ford ever said.”

Personally, I’m partial to this one, from Ford’s swearing-in speech on August 9, 1974: “…there is no way we can go forward except together and no way anybody can win except by serving the people’s urgent needs. We cannot stand still or slip backwards. We must go forward now together.”

The reason I bring this up is because it’s typical of the right-wing echo chamber. No need to look up sources. If you’ve heard it before, or if someone has sent it to you over the internets, just reprint it or say it to others.

I’ve been listening to Joe Lyles’ Limbaugh Lie of the Day (podcast available through iTunes and Zune) quite a bit recently and one of his shows from a few days ago focused on how the right-wing plays fast and loose with its hypotheticals and faulty statistics. Eventually the incorrect or inaccurate stories first heard on right-wing radio shows like Limbaugh’s get picked up by other talk shows or even network shows and repeated as truth and used as talking points against progressive causes.

Sites like Media Matters have been debunking the easily-told lies of right-wing hatemongers for a few years now, and it’s why they are so hated by so-called conservatives. It was so much easier to hoodwink the American public when there was no record of the initial lie, wasn’t it?

Lyles brings up the story about the woman who called 911 because her local McDonalds had run out of Chicken McNuggets and how Rush turned that into a hypothetical about how this could turn into a lawsuit and this is why tort reform is necessary. When the right-wing gets all frothed up, these stories that begin as hypotheticals become circulated as truth — as in “Next thing you know, the courts are cluttered up with lawsuits about McDonalds that don’t have enough chicken nuggets! Is that right? We need tort reform!!”

So on the LLotD titled “Limbaugh Engages in Hogwash Inflation,” Lyles goes on to play clips of Rush stating on December 22nd that $7-8 trillion has already been transferred from producers to non-producers since 1964. Then on January 15th, Rush notes that the amount of money transferred from producers to non-producers in the Great Society is “over $7 trillion.” OK, so that slight difference is perhaps innocent and forgivable. However, by the time Rush speaks at CPAC in February, he has this to say: “We have transferred something like $10 trillion, maybe close to $11 trillion from producers and earners to non-producers.”

So according to Limbaugh, it took us about 45 years to spend $7-8 trillion, then we spent another $3-4 trillion in just a few months. Wow. I guess things are worse out there than I thought!

It will be interesting to find out where these numbers appear next. Will it be on Hannity’s show? Savage’s? Will Limbaugh repeat them? Ingraham? Your next family barbeque? These easily-tossed figures start to make the rounds and there’s little to stop them once they’re out there. This is why it’s so frustrating talking to those brainwashed by Rush, and its perhaps why his listeners get so mad when you try to set them straight. They think they know the figures because they trust Rush implicitly, true facts be damned.

Hopefully, folks like Joe Lyles and his Limbaugh Lie of the Day will just keep hammering away, and eventually the truth will out. If we progressives can show that the de-facto leader of the GOP lies with regularity, it will be easier to reveal the whole party for the hypocrites and liars they truly are.

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The Limbaugh Lie of the Day is available through feedburner or directly from its home at Conceptual Guerilla.

Looks like Bristol Palin will be raising her baby, Tripp, as a single parent. According to Star magazine (OK, yeah, I know it’s only a tabloid), Palin and her boyfriend Levi are no longer an item and the wedding is most likely off.

Now, I don’t have any problem with that (and in fact it’s probably not such a bad thing after Levi proclaimed on his MySpace page that he’s a “f–king redneck” who “don’t want kids”), but I wonder if the 13% of respondents at CPAC who voted for Bristol’s mom to be the leader of the party going into 2012 will have a problem with it? My guess is they won’t. We’ll hear stuff like, “leave her kids’ personal life out of it,” even though quite famously, the new GOP leader, Rush Limbaugh, once made it very clear that kids of political figures are not off limits.

Gotta love the hypocrisy.

Well, perhaps I should give these Palin supporters the benefit of the doubt. I mean, the GOP leadership seems a little confused these days. Does Limbaugh *really* lead the party? Or does GOP Chairman Michael Steele? Or perhaps Gingrich? And then there’s all the confusion about the party platform. When Steele says that “abortion is an individual choice,” is he speaking for himself or for the party? It must be really tough to be a good Republican these days, especially when you’re getting different talking points from all these different leaders.

Rush Limbaugh.

Need I say more?

Perhaps I will. Surely someone as patriotic and conservative and all-knowing about our country’s history as Rush Limbaugh knows the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution?

Apparently not.

Here is a partial transcript from his CPAC speech:

We want every American to be the best he or she chooses to be. We recognize that we are all individuals. We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. [Applause] We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. [Applause] Liberty, Freedom. [Applause] And the pursuit of happiness. [Applause] Those of you watching at home may wonder why this is being applauded. We conservatives think all three are under assault. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you.

Now, I know Rush loves this country. I know he knows what the Declaration of Independence is. With so many errors and so much confusion apparent in the previous passage, I really hope Limbaugh hasn’t relapsed. Perhaps it’s a lot of pressure to have just been promoted to spokesperson for the Republican Party, but perhaps he should get into some Yoga classes or something?