Please: Keep your germs and your lying double-quotation marks to yourself

Of the many things that drive me crazoid -- and this one is right up there with getting sneezed on -- is the morphing of one statement into a, shall we say, more politically useful statement and then, just as a finishing touch, the nailing of double-quotation marks to the beginning and the end. Voila --custom-made propaganda!

So when I spotted this by Tom Barrett (an ordained minister) in Conservative Truth….

“America is not worth dying for!” So said Cindy Sheehan in April of this year at a rally in support of Attorney Lynne Stewart, who was convicted of aiding and abetting terrorism.

….I did some research to find a contemporaneous transcript of Sheehan's remarks from a suitably rightwing source. And, praise the Lord, it turned out to be David Horowitz's The Discover Network. This is the money quote:

I’m going all over the country telling moms: “This country is not worth dying for. If we’re attacked, we would all go out. We’d all take whatever we had. I’d take my rolling pin and I’d beat the attackers over the head with it. But we were not attacked by Iraq.

Naughty, naughty Mr. Ordained Minister. Sheehan did not say "America is not worth dying for."

Then I fired off an email that I hope is worthy of Miss Manners in its stern yet controlled disapproval.

Your recent article, "America is not worth dying for" should not present that statement as a direct quotation attributable to Cindy Sheehan. According to various contemporaneous transcripts, the statement is: "This country is not worth fighting for." Now, transcript readers and videotape viewers may disagree as to whether Sheehan is referring to Iraq or to America, but Sheehan definitely did not say "America." To draw your own inference from the statement, modify the statement, and then present it as a direct quotation is, charitably, sloppy writing/editing or, less charitably, lying.

Sincerely,
Grace Nearing

I know, I know. It may seem like such a little thing. But when people tinker with double-quotation marks, they're also tinkering with the truth.