Dan Rather, call your office

How hard can it be to check a quote?

It's rather shocking to see how often quotes are simply not attributed at all.

I don't mean simply by name--a name is often or even usually used. But it's only the name, leaving you to guess where and when it was said. "George Washington" and "Alexis de Toqueville" may as well be "insert attribution here"--although in Toqueville's case it's a little easier to guess where they're thinking it must be.

It's rather more shocking to see how often they are simply erroneous.

Here's a great one, "A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury . . ." blah, blah, blah.

Wonderful idea. Remarkable precision with which it is repeated. And yet no one other than hack circulators of semi-clever office joke material has ever said it. Too bad. It's a great concept. Probably true. Or as my good friend Dan would say, absolutely true.

So this guy has a plausible column, plausible point, nice title and tie in, and he throws it all away.