Part of an otherwise forgettable speech*:
“I come from the land of Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln thought infrastructure was a pretty good idea. That’s part of why we got a Intercontinental Railroad system.”
Yeah, we also had adequate schooling, once upon a time. Which is why I know that it was a Transcontinental Railroad. And since we’re bringing up American history, I feel compelled to note that the only reason why the Pacific Railroad Acts** passed in the first place was because half of the Democratic party at the time was engaged in an armed insurrection against the legitimate government of the United States of America.
The President at the time, by the way? Abraham Lincoln. I almost didn’t add that, because I assumed everybody would know it already: but then, this article is more or less all about historical events that Barack Obama doesn’t actually know anything about. Better safe than sorry!
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: This is not, by the way, the first time that President Obama has made this particular gaffe. You would have thought that somebody would have sat him down and gently explained the difference between ‘trans’ and ‘inter,’ but apparently nobody in the Democratic party cares enough.
PPS: As far as I can tell, there ISN’T an actual railway line that you can take from North to South America. Stuff keeps getting proposed, but Panama is just the most obvious sticking point.
*I know, I know: I have to be more specific.
**Since the President of the United States seems to have a historical awareness that would, terrifyingly, be judiciously improved by a perusal of Wikipedia, let me take the time to link to the entry on the Pacific Railroad Acts. Mind you, if Barack Obama wishes to fund his future enthusiasm via the sale of bonds and the transferal of public lands to private entities*** – a denationalization of federal property, in other words – I suspect that he would actually find some support in Congress for that. It’s certainly a better way to handle things than raising taxes!
***Who were the ones that built the blessed thing, mind you. Without the government holding their hands.
I would note that Democrats then complained about Lincoln’s ties to the Railroads, much the way they complained about Bush’s ties to oil. Frankly, they seem to have bitched about Rail the way they bitch about oil. I would speculate that both industries were relatively high tech, and that rail had more money in it than slavery, much as oil has more money in it than crony farming of welfare.
It would appear that Obama has the opposite in mind:
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/19/obama-designate-national-monument-new-mexico/
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Mew
I don’t think you can even get to SA from NA by road. IIRC there’s a section of Panama that doesn’t have any roads.
Yup: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-American_Highway
Maybe Obama was confused from too many readings of Atlas Shrugged. After all, didn’t the existence of the Rio Norte Line mean that Taggart Transcontinental was essentially Taggart Intra-continental?