Be careful who you quote. It might come back and haunt you
Now that Ron DeSantis has failed miserably at trying to out-Trump Trump, he’s back in Florida, where he can continue to do battle with Mickey Mouse.
He’s still punching above his weight class.
That won’t keep him in the headlines the way it did when he had his eye on the White House. Now, he’s just one of 50 U.S. governors.
Picking cheesy corporate fights doesn’t get the national media to come and report on your every childish insult.
So, when Gov. DeSantis fired up Twitter (or X, or whatever they call it this week) he made a serious effort to seem prophetic as he announced his campaign had finally run out of steam.
He quoted Winston Churchill who (supposedly) once said: “Success is not final; failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.”
The problem is, Churchill never said those words.
The folks at the International Churchill Society scoured 50 million words by, and about Churchill, but they couldn’t find anything that matches DeSantis’ Churchill quote.
They did point people in the direction of a 1939 Budweiser Life Magazine ad.
“Men with the spirit of youth pioneered our America…know that success was never final and failure never fatal. It was courage that counted.”
Oh, Oh!
Not only had DeSantis signed off from his failed presidential campaign with a fake quote – there’s more.
It seems that one of the corporate entanglements DeSantis had before heading out on the campaign trail was with Budweiser.
He’d gone after (even threatened legal action against) Anheuser-Busch, Budweiser’s parent company after it teamed up with Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender influencer during last year’s March Madness promotions.
DeSantis sure loves Budweiser’s quotes. But he doesn’t seem to like its advertising choices.
That’s OK. DeSantis will have lots of time to change his political/comedy routine before he runs again for the presidency in 2028.
He can start dozens of corporate brush fires by then.
That’s his nature.
The subject of fake quotes is fascinating.
There’s even a website (Quote Investigator https://quoteinvestigator.com/) that attempts to find the origins of noteworthy quotes, as they’ve appeared over the years.
For instance: The phrase, “Nothing is certain, except death and taxes,” has frequently been attributed to Benjamin Franklin.
But Quote Investigator found nearly the same quote in a 1716 “farse,” written by Christopher Bullock – “’tis impossible to be sure of anything but Death and Taxes.”
Looking for something close to proof that Ben Franklin didn’t originate that quote? He was born in 1706. That Christopher Bullock quote appeared in 1716. That means, Franklin would have made that clever death and taxes quote when he was a tyke of 10 years old.
Some historic figures seem to have many fake quotes attached to their names.
Not only Ben Franklin but Dwight Eisenhower and Abe Lincoln are often misquoted – according to Quote Investigator.
Back on Feb. 12, 2017, the Republican National Committee had hoped to pay homage to Abraham Lincoln on his birthday.
The committee published an Abe Lincoln quote, to honor a guy who probably wouldn’t even recognize his Republican Party today.
But I digress.
Here’s that quote: “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
It’s easy to presume that Abe Lincoln would have made that kind of statement. If only because we think he was a walking, talking Gettysburg Address. We tend to think of him sitting around on his off days – just making up quotable stuff.
But he never made that quote, according to James Cornelius, curator of the Lincoln Collection at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.
Lincoln said a lot of stuff, I’m fairly certain. But not that!
So, the Republican National Committee took down the fake Lincoln quote. But not before lots of people saw it and copied it.
One of those folks who copied it was none other than that brand new U.S. President in February of 2017 – Donald J. Trump.
Figures.
Al Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 50-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.