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You may not have followed the story, but Senator Clinton has challenged Senator Obama to an unmediated Lincoln-Douglas debate. Fox, covering the story, put up this graphic. Fox News: Fair and Balanced. Also: Illiterate and Ignorant.
Via Wonkette.
[Update: Below, via commenter Alison, you’ll find video of the debacle.]
The Edge of the American West 
37 comments
May 1, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Bryan Klausmeyer
Embarrassing, but hardly surprising.
May 1, 2008 at 1:58 pm
bitchphd
Oh mah gawd.
May 1, 2008 at 2:04 pm
bw
if you scroll over the link you see that wonkette apparently can’t spell “moron.”
May 1, 2008 at 2:17 pm
bitchphd
If you hang out on the internets, you know that BW doesn’t get the joke.
May 1, 2008 at 2:26 pm
bw
why is it that people always are making “the internets” plural? and more often than not making a typo when they render “the” as “teh”? i admit it, bitch and teh internets have made me *their* bitch.
i feel like a moran.
May 1, 2008 at 2:29 pm
bw
and i still don’t get the joke. but i only watch the internets from across the street.
May 1, 2008 at 2:34 pm
drip
They should have used a picture of the Pink Lady herself, Helen Gahagan Douglas. That would have been funny.
Somewhat seriously, does anyone have an idea about how this happens? These things happen at FOX all the time. Are they mistakes? Inside jokes? Or is it just a blatant attempt to inflame the ignorant?
May 1, 2008 at 3:04 pm
bitchphd
Here’s what the morans joke is about. Internets is explained here. “Teh” is just silliness about a common typo, but sometimes people use it (as in “teh internets,” “teh cute,” etc.) to indicate that they know they’re being a little silly.
May 1, 2008 at 3:09 pm
bw
I just found the photo you linked to, but had never seen it before. As for the others, I was joking (indicated, I hoped, by my intentional use of “moran” at the end) but perhaps that didn’t come across. Thanks, in any case, for the schooling.
May 1, 2008 at 3:12 pm
ari
Bitch, PhD: Literalist. Who knew? Also, I was surprised that she was handing out so many trade secrets.
May 1, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Alison
The mistake is made infinitely funnier if you hear the Fox anchors talking about it before the picture actually goes up. http://thenewshole.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/04/29/959220.aspx“>
May 1, 2008 at 3:29 pm
bitchphd
Not so much a literalist as gullible. I tend to take people at their word, which is one reason why I’m so indiscreet myself.
It’s a strange blind spot for a literary scholar, but, hey.
May 1, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Colin
They both look like muslims to me.
May 1, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Colin
My mistake! The guy on the left is actually the young Karl Marx.
May 1, 2008 at 4:49 pm
silbey
It’s a strange blind spot for a literary scholar, but, hey.
Reconstructionism: The meaning is fucking EXACTLY what the author said it was.
May 1, 2008 at 4:54 pm
bitchphd
Nooo! I reject the intentional fallacy!
(But you made me laugh.)
May 1, 2008 at 5:39 pm
ari
Colin, I can’t help but notice that neither Lincoln nor Douglassssss are wearing flag pins. How can they possibily expect to win a debate without a flag pin?
May 1, 2008 at 5:56 pm
undine
Hilarious. And that Fox can’t spell “Douglass” or “Douglas” surprises you why, exactly?
May 1, 2008 at 6:09 pm
John Emerson
Douglass obviously won the debate. Why has nobody pointed that out?
Racists.
May 1, 2008 at 6:34 pm
eyeingtenure
… and though while the FoxNews interns’ lazy use of Google Image Search would lead first to mere and slight embarrassment, it was only the first in a long string of Election 2008 debacles that would lead to the collapse of the Murdoch-inspired news networks.
I propose a toast, that this future might meet us.
May 1, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Colin
Well, it’s hard enough having a name like Abraham.
May 1, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Rob_in_Hawaii
I really wish it HAD been Frederick Douglass debating Lincoln rather than that other guy. Would have put the whole issue into sharper focus.
May 1, 2008 at 7:07 pm
ari
Now there’s a counterfactual, Rob: Lincoln signs up to debate Stephen, but Frederick shows up. History hijinks ensue.
May 1, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Rob_in_Hawaii
I was reluctant to bring up counterfactuals, but since you did first, Ari, it probably would have played out like this: Frederick Douglass would have cleaned Lincoln’s clock; the South would have immediately seen the error of its ways and abolished slavery; and there would have been no Civil War.
May 1, 2008 at 8:21 pm
ixnaythemetier
Immediately replacing the institution of chattel slavery with large scale pony farming.
May 1, 2008 at 8:28 pm
ari
ixnaythemetier, stop stealing Ron Paul’s ideas, okay?
May 1, 2008 at 8:36 pm
chuanwei
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May 1, 2008 at 8:40 pm
ari
That theme is magical. Magical, I say.
May 1, 2008 at 9:10 pm
andrew
You guys are being uncharitable. No doubt Fox, in its insatiable desire for accurate historical research, had people reading this and they simply made an innocent mistake, so enthralled were they by the history.
May 2, 2008 at 6:34 am
charlieford
Kudos to FOX for not assuming “Lincoln” refers to George Lincoln Rockwell. (Yeah, don’t feel bad if you have to google that one . . .)
May 2, 2008 at 7:19 am
The Modesto Kid
This post made me realize I had no idea whatsoever, what Stephen Douglas looked like (other than that he was probably white) — Went and looked him up, turns out he was amazingly photogenic. (Note that whoever titled that jpg made the same spelling error.)
May 2, 2008 at 7:21 am
The Modesto Kid
photogenic
Short, though.
May 2, 2008 at 8:48 am
zz
Milburn Stone plays him in The Young Mr Lincoln (1939). Apparently John Ford quizzed him on set with the following questions: Who held Lincoln’s hat when he was inaugurated? and Who was the first person Lincoln spoke to after Ft. Sumter? Stone answered correctly “Douglas” and Ford let him play the part.
May 4, 2008 at 8:37 am
FoxNews on Lincoln-Douglass Debates « On the Tenure Track
[…] May 4, 2008 in The Way It WereTags: clinton, debates, douglas, douglass, education, embarrassing, foxnews, history, important, lincoln, murdoch, obama, science, social, stupid, u.s., u.s. history, why Proving the importance of a social science education, FoxNews ran a piece about the Lincoln-Douglass Debates. This is not a typo. […]
May 4, 2008 at 11:09 am
john p
Hah hah hah we can’t spell hah hah ah isn’t that funny?
May 4, 2008 at 11:30 am
Steely
That’s really bizarre.
May 4, 2008 at 12:34 pm
student
He was messing around with an intern?