He Shouldn't Quit His Day Job...Actually No, He Should

Today President Obama once again waded into historical analysis when he compared the GOP energy policy to Rutherford B. Hayes supposedly not seeing the point of the telephone and flat-earthers of the sixteenth century.  A recap from the speech today:

President Obama got a laugh out of a Maryland audience on Thursday when he mocked the Republican Party in a speech, comparing their skepticism of alternative energy to the “Flat Earth Society” in Christopher Columbus’ day and President Rutherford B. Hayes’ apparent dismissal of the telephone. But while Obama thinks the GOP is in need of a science lesson, he may need to bone up on history himself.

In mocking the GOP, Obama cited an anecdote about Hayes in which, upon using the telephone for the first time, he said, “It’s a great invention, but who would ever want to use one?”

“That’s why he’s not on Mount Rushmore,” Obama said. “He’s explaining why we can’t do something instead of why we can do something."

One problem:  It was in Hayes' presidency that the first telephone was installed in the White House (along with the first typewriter and public display of the newly-invented phonograph).  Here is Nan Card, curator of the manuscripts at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center with more:

While often cited, Card said Obama’s cited quote had never been confirmed by contemporary sources and is likely apocryphal. A contemporary newspaper account of his first experience with telephone in 1877 from the Providence Journal records a smiling Hayes repeatedly responding to the voice on the other line with the phrase, “That is wonderful.” You can read the full story here.

“He was pretty technology-oriented for the time,” Card said. “Between the telephone, the telegraph, the phonograph and photography, I think he was pretty much on the cutting edge.”

Also, another interesting point to note is the oft-cited flat earth claim which Obama repeated in his speech.  I guess it's supposed to indicate the enlightenment of the current age as compared to the barbaric, savage, racist, immoral past of our ancestors.  But the claim is one hundred percent false.  John Hinderaker from Power Line explains:

In fact, it was well known by educated people in the 15th century that the world was round. Not only that, they knew that the circumference of the Earth was around 25,000 miles; this had been calculated by the ancient Greeks, using triangulation. So when Columbus tried to raise money for a voyage in which he proposed to reach the East by sailing West, he had trouble because everyone knew that going West was not only an unknown route, but was the long way around the globe.