Decius wrote:
]Jeremy wrote:
]] But let me not join the summarizers. Invest a
]] half-hour in reading this moving exposition of the noble
]] goal of American foreign policy.
]
] How about joining the misquoters.

First, allow me to gripe about the Memestreams interface for a moment. I dislike the fact that a reply takes text that I had italicized, indicating it to be an excerpt (perhaps paraphrased) from the document, and attributes it directly to me (as in "Jeremy wrote"). As you can see from by viewing the source, the end-italics markup tag is still present, but the begin-italics tag is gone.

Second, you are too quick to suspect Safire of foul play. To me it seems like a simple misunderstanding. As a New York Times columnist, he provided a pointer to an NYT-hosted copy of FDCH's version of the transcript, which includes a section marked "excerpt missing." This is the section from which the allegedly-phantom quotes are drawn. If you go to the NED web site, you can find the full transcript (as well as a video stream), which includes the missing section and includes the statements that Bush made on the topics in question.

RE: The Age of Liberty