Quote undermines our trust

On Saturday President Obama appealed to the House Democratic Caucus to cast a "tough vote" for health care. The New York Times referred to the occasion as an "extraordinary session." The American people focused extraordinary attention on yet another tedious step in the legislative process. The session was not at all extraordinary in our witness of Mr. Obama again placing himself in special relationship to the president who saved the Union and emancipated the slaves. Unfortunately, our president both mischaracterized his deliberations and fallaciously attributed words to Abraham Lincoln when he said:"I have the great pleasure of having a really nice library at the White House. And I was tooling through some of the writings of some previous presidents and I came upon this quote by Abraham Lincoln: 'I am not bound to win, but I'm bound to be true. I'm not bound to succeed, but I'm bound to live up to what light I have.'"

According to "They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions," " ... honesty compels admirers of Lincoln to admit that there is no documentary evidence for the statement." No such honesty compelled our president. Perhaps excuses can be made for relating a quote attributed to Mr. Lincoln without citation on several websites. Conversely, false images created by our president undermine the public trust when exposed and we are asked to believe his claims that his 2,700-page health care legislation will not lead to apocalyptic consequences after all.

MIKE MALONE, Jackson