Ouch, what a thing to read on the 4th of July! During the Russian-American summit, President Obama claimed that the goose quill used to sign our Declaration of Independence might have came from Russia.
It's bad enough that Obama left out severe human rights considerations in Russia in his talks with Russian President Medvedev, leaving it to Hillary Clinton to raise them off-stage at a closed civil society summit. Obama understandably was making good on the implicit deal with Russia at the UN Security Council on Iran sanctions; he was also paving the way for the $4 billion Boeing deal with Russia and the $1 billion Cisco investment and other big IT embrace of Russia's new high-tech city Skolkovo.
All nauseating in their way when you think not only of the human rights cover up, the moral quagmires, but the dubious claim that the jobs these deals will generate will actually go to Americans — when they are more likely to go to Russians in Russia, and Russian expats in America (oh well, at least the tax benefits might be had).
But what's really sick-making — and so unnecessary merely for a reset! — is this curious claim that Obama inserted into his speech at a meeting with American businessmen June 24, meant to suck up to the Russian visiting president and make a totally specious claim about Russian involvement in U.S. history.
In his speech, published on the White House web site, Obama claimed that the goose quills used to sign the Declaration of Independence may have came from Russia:
Some have even wondered whether our Declaration of Independence may have
been signed with goose quills from Russia.
Um, I've never wondered that, and it was never taught in school — and even with the politically-correct curriculum one finds in the schools today, which can develop lines like the role of the Iroquois compact, said to be a prototype of the Constitution.
Maybe that's because what other sources say who are less giddy about the Russian-American reset — or uninvolved with it at all — is that the goose quills came from Thomas Jefferson's own geese, which he raised himself on his Monticello farm.
What makes leftists and liberals spasm out so when they deal with the Russians, making stuff up like this to get all squishy and Kumbaya? Who put this crazy thing into the president's speech? Why would Obama even accept such a Russophile rural legend that serves to undermine even the native tool of American democracy?
It's also on the Kremlin website, and will now enter into "official lore".
I can just hear the leftoids on the blogosphere justifying this made-up goose story by explaining how numbers come from Arabs and paper comes from China so we are all One. Nobody came up with this goose quill shill before the reset, however.
An overlooked propaganda sidebar on the Medvedev trip involved a visit by
Mrs. Medvedeva to a coopted Russian Orthodox emigre church, and
Vekselberg, one of Russia's wealthiest oligarchs and a sponsor of Skolkovo, making a dramatic gift to help the
upkeep of Fort Ross, a Tsarist-era Russian colony for the fur trade in California. Says Obama in his speech, preceding the quill-shill:
In fact, before coming to Washington, President Medvedev visited
California and Silicon Valley to explore new partnerships in science and
technology and in venture capital. And while there, he pledged
Russia’s support to preserve the historic Fort Ross in Sonoma County —
an enduring reminder of the early Russian settlements and trade that
brought Russian goods to our young nation.
Thus the quills supposedly were brought by Russian traders to California and then brought by… pony express to Philadelphia? How did that work?
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