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Bill O'Reilly, TV commentator, attempts to be a scholar in his new book, Killing Lincoln, but the text is so riddled with errors and inaccuracies that one of the bookstores at Ford's Theatre is refusing to carry it. Some of the most egregious errors include numerous references to Lincoln working in the Oval Office, which didn't even exist at the time he was president. (It was built decades later.) O'Reilly also gets his dates wrong several times, including the burning of the original Ford's Theatre, and repeats a theory dismissed long ago by true Lincoln historians that Secretary of War Edward Stanton was involved in the assassination plot. We won't mention the poor overall writing quality (O'Reilly has Lincoln "furl" his brow -- we presume he means "furrow." Unless he had a sail on a mast perched up there. Also, O'Reilly must have figured he is above the standard that all writers of research papers from 5th grade on up are expected to meet: he offers no direct citations for any of his assertions.
Read more here and here.
Read more here and here.
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