Michael C. Moynihan writes:
The Eliminationists quotes novelist Sinclair Lewis’s quip that fascism in the United States will come “wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.” In the days since the shootings in Arizona, an image of the Lewis quote superimposed on an photo of Palin has made the rounds on Facebook and a number of left-leaning blogs.
(…) the (rather unimpressive) line can’t be found in It Can’t Happen Here because Lewis never uttered or committed it to paper. It is, in fact, an Internet quotation; one spread far and wide by the dumb and partisan, despite an obviously murky provenance.
The phony Lewis quote also shows up in liberal journalist Joe Conason’s book (titled, of course, It Can Happen Here) on the coming of fascism in the United States—a threat that vanished, apparently, after the peaceful transition from Bush to Obama.
And for those keeping score at home, Chris Matthews, in a recent conversation about Sarah Palin on Hardball, told guest Richard Wolffe that “Huey Long wasn’t the most sane guy in the world, Richard, but he said that when fascism comes to America, it will call itself anti-fascism.” As you might have already guessed, the Long quote is also fake.
