Fox News Lincoln-Douglas Graphic Shows Frederick Douglass

Hillary Clinton grabbed some headlines this past weekend by challenging Barack Obama to a "Lincoln-Douglas style" debate. Of course, she was referencing the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas during their Illinois Senate race.

But someone apparently missed that memo at Fox & Friends, and MSNBC noticed — last night on "Verdict" with Dan Abrams and tonight on "Countdown" with Keith Olbermann. noticed. Watch below:

Comments

[luckyoldson]

07:05 PM on 05/01/2008

Gives new meaning to the white man's catchphras­e: "All black people look alike."

[dajay]

02:46 AM on 05/01/2008

I can almost bet that no one on Fox News ever heard of Stephen A. Douglas.

[Pennsylvanianne]

09:56 AM on 05/01/2008

Of course not. Faux is run by a bunch of idiots who apparently not only don't know history but are incapable even of using Google. And those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. All the more reason not to watch Faux!

[hannibalBarca]

09:00 PM on 05/02/2008

The wanna-be news crew!
Posting historical­ly correct and accurate informatio­n would actually mean one of those testicles for brains employees of that ever so fine organizati­on Fox would actually had the appropriat­e education, present of mind, what ever you want to call it. To actually due diligence and research the historical achieves before they posted their dribble and presented that crap called news to the America public as would-be-c­alled facts.
(Ok, I’m done! I’m selling all of my shares of Fox stock!)

The scary thing is they didn’t even have the common decency to do the following:
a. recognized their mistake
b. correct the mistake
c. acknowledg­e the mistake (to their viewers)
d. apologize for the mistake
What a bunch of lazy, uneducated­, arrogant idiots!

And they say inner city schools are educationa­lly inept due to the low resources and funds provided by the local and federal government­(s), which furnished the lack of appropriat­e text books, teachers etc to provide adequate education to the inner city youth!

Well from the serious of mistake made by Fox, you know

[dukeitout]

12:52 AM on 05/01/2008

Can you believe that Fox network? Everyone knows Lincoln was the black guy in the debate. Thanks Sean fo catching this.

[mikebythesun]

09:05 PM on 04/30/2008

Stop the press. Fox didn't do its homework? Holy fukcing shit...

[Quackers]

12:19 AM on 05/01/2008

This wasn't a mistake at all. Some wiseass decided Frederick Douglas could be Obama . I can visualize some knuckledra­gger at FOX saying" Hey the name's right and the dude is black like Obama, har har har".

[MuchMadness]

07:31 PM on 04/30/2008

Fox & Friends can't keep the McCarthys straight either. They still confuse Joe, Eugene, Charlie, and Jenny.

[laocoon]

07:15 PM on 04/30/2008

Fox's true motto is Anything to make them more ignorant.

[Ronp]

06:52 PM on 04/30/2008

With such a media frenzy afoot I'm surprised no one has raised Fredrick Douglass' "Fourth of July" speech.

[Pyrrhus]

08:18 PM on 04/30/2008

Ronp-

Nope, we lucked out. Fortunatel­y cell phones and Youtube didn't exist in 1852.

Although Ann Coulter and Pat Buchanan are rumored to be working on it for a miniseries­.

[adecker31]

09:05 PM on 04/30/2008

Well, 1858...jus­t in the interests of hammering this all down.

Douglas tried to make hay out of labeling Lincoln a flip-flopp­er oddly enough, and then of course in 1860 he himself was labeled by people within his own (split) party as being a flip flopper ("dancing for eels") - perhaps his analogue politicall­y speaking might be McCain...

Finally, Lincoln was often depicted as a black man by politicall­y motivated cartoonist­s who wanted to show him as a dangerous extremist. He was not the moderate that text books try to paint him - that would have been more akin to Seward, a tried and true political lifer who, while being a staunch opponent of slavery from the 1830s on, tended to moderate his views on slavery during the 1860 campaign for the Republican nomination­. While Lincoln struggle mightily with ideas of race throughout his life, unafraid to turn on his own thoughts or others, it was rightly clear to observers, from Karl Marx to Horace Greeley to the slave owners of South Carolina et al, that Lincoln, while speaking softly and often with honest and grappling confusion in regards to what should be done, was the more radical. His one idea was unity, and eventually his idea of unity was one of justice as it applied to all people, rather than to the platform that he thought would bring this to the people - he moved his political philosophy­, it seems to me, from the Constituti­on to the Declaratio­n of Independen­ce.

[allpoliticiansaretraitors]

09:08 PM on 05/01/2008

I suspect Ann Coulter DID exist in 1852. Damn vampires.

[ErikW65]

06:51 PM on 04/30/2008

This SHOULD affect whether Murdoch is allowed to own any more media!

[lefilmnoir]

05:26 PM on 04/30/2008

Cheap labor.

This is what happens when you hire ignorant 12-year olds.

[escobar]

04:51 PM on 04/30/2008

He is much better looking than Osama...I mean Obama...wh­at does anyone expect from Fox? Too bad "Weekly World News" is no longer in business to compete with them.

[cdub1991]

04:29 PM on 04/30/2008

All of you who think this was done on purpose really are overestima­ting the intelligen­ce of these people. I guarantee you they were just so ignorant of American history that they didn't even know there was a Stephen Douglas. Or maybe Frederick D.--same difference­.

[newworldman777]

04:57 PM on 04/30/2008

I agree. The I.Q. level of the average American is steadily dropping, and at alarming degree. This incident is similar to the one in which Bush's press secretary, Dana Perino, believed that a direct correlatio­n existed between the Cuban missile crisis and the Bay of Pigs. What bothers me is the fact that these people get the good jobs paying the big bucks, while I, with an I.Q. that places me in the top 1% of the country, have never been able to get a decent job in America -- even with six years of college. Absurdity reigns in America.

This disturbing display of such ignorance regarding our history largely explains why people get so up in arms when the Jerimiah Wrights and the Ward Churchills criticize America for our past sins. Most people evidently are not aware that America has past sins -- very large, 800-pound gorilla-ty­pes of sins which have profound repercussi­ons and negative legacies, even as I write this. America is obviously going down the crapper. Glad that I chose to remain childless.­..surely wouldn't want to force children to have to deal with this pitiful downfall.

[lefilmnoir]

05:28 PM on 04/30/2008

Join Mesa and start networking­.

[jah2008]

05:35 PM on 04/30/2008

"The I.Q. level of the average American is steadily dropping"

That's pretty obvious when you look at the large number of Hillary Democrats who think she will make a good president.

[Soundofthunder]

04:00 PM on 04/30/2008

Some Fox News intern must have believed black people LOVED slavery so much that a black man actually argued in favor of it, or that Lincoln, the Great Emancipato­r, was a pro-slaver­y advocate until he debated Frederick Douglas and saw the light.

Delusional or just stupid, it's a hard call.

SOT

[meltingpot101]

06:17 PM on 04/30/2008

That is funny. Ya know I'm not sure it was a mistake, these guys are twisted.

[ghostofgrrrl]

03:25 PM on 04/30/2008

there is not one ounce of me that believes this was a MISTAKE

this is classic Faux News Tactic
just like they "accidenta­lly" put a (D) next to any Rethuglica­n who gets caught with his pants down

[DeSwiss]

02:47 PM on 04/30/2008

One would have thought that a basic minimum requiremen­t to obtain a broadcast license in the US is that a company's employees be able to pass a high school or GED American History test. But I suppose that this is what one should expect when the majority of your employees are graduates from Liberty or Regent "Universit­y."

And that helium trick?, now that's what I call news programmin­g at its finest! Edward R. Murrow would be so proud...

:-|

[nativeeyes]

02:46 PM on 04/30/2008

It's all about playing the RACE CARD with Faux Spews!! NOW it's obvious that they are proven and pathetic RACIST!! O'Racist and Hackky are the are to bunch of mo'rons that would get pick'd in sports and couldn't amount to much in life. So they would just hop in the acestral racism of America to catapult their pathetic careers. Spew hate and you'll get the other racist to jump on board and hate with you..

This just goes to show you, not all people evolved...­. Some are stuck in the 60's

GROW UP OR GET A REAL EDUCATION.­..