29 Jul 2016 2:12 pm
It's desperation time.
The fact is, no one is really sure where the quote came from, but what they do know, and what the Weekly Standard pointed out in that 1995 article, is that it did not come from Alexis de Tocqueville.Hillary Clinton accused of plagiarizing a line in her DNC speech.
Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton spoke at the Democratic National Convention Thursday evening, but one very small line in her speech caught the attention of a Republican official.
"It comes down to what Donald Trump doesn't get: America is great — because America is good," she said in her DNC nomination acceptance speech.
But the "America is great — because America is good" part was flagged a critic.
Sean Spicer, who works for the Republican National Committee, tweeted that Clinton lifted the phrase from political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville.
De Toqueville, a 19th century French aristocrat who wrote "Democracy in America," is credited with the phrase, "America is great because she is good."
But that line isn't anywhere in de Tocqueville's book.
Instead, a Weekly Standard article from 1995 says the line appears to have first been used in a book on religion 75 years ago.
The author attributed the phrase to de Tocqueville's book, but as the article notes, "The author may have mistaken his own notes for a verbatim quotation, a common problem in the days before photocopiers."
Still, it's a phrase long been used by U.S. presidents, including Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and even Bill Clinton.
THE TOCQUEVILLE FRAUD
America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.
These lines are uplifting and poetic.
They are also spurious.
Nowhere do they appear in Democracy in America, or anywhere else in Tocqueville.