President Barack Obama mocked Republican’s preference for oil exploration over green energy subsidies in Maryland on Thursday, calling them "flat earthers."
On top of the children’s tale about Columbus’s journey across the Atlantic, he invoked a litany of quotes from past political leaders criticizing novel inventions, such as the telephone and automobile.
"One of my predecessors, President Rutherford B. Hayes, reportedly said about the telephone: 'It’s a great invention but who would ever want to use one?'" Obama said in remarks in Maryland on Thursday.
It turns out that President Hayes never said the quote, according to New York Magazine.
(The curator of the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center) then read aloud a newspaper article from June 29, 1877, which describes Hayes's delight upon first experiencing the magic of the telephone. The Providence Journal story reported that as Hayes listened on the phone, "a gradually increasing smile wreathe[d] his lips and wonder shone in his eyes more and more." Hayes took the phone from his ear, "looked at it a moment in surprise and remarked, 'That is wonderful.'"