Bill O'Reilly's New Abe Lincoln Book Banned by Place Where Lincoln Was Shot
How many more indignities must Bill O'Reilly suffer as he tries to peddle his published wares to the discerning public? First the acclaimed television host and author had to witness U.S. soldiers burning his Pinheads and Patriots and boasting about it, and now Ford's Theatre is banning his new Abe Lincoln book for being wrong about everything.
Ford's Theatre, as you might recall from fourth-grade history class, is the Washington, D.C.-based theater palace where John Wilkes Booth fatally shot Lincoln back in 1865. As reported by Salon's Justin Elliott, the theater has banned Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever, a new book O'Reilly wrote with fancy American writer Martin Dugard, "because of the lack of documentation and the factual errors within the publication," in the words of Ford's deputy superintendent Rae Emerson. In addition to lacking footnotes, the book includes factual inaccuracies (for example, it says that Lincoln held meetings in the Oval Office, when that office didn't exist until 44 years after Lincoln's death) and its portrayal of assassination conspirator Mary Surratt is so fantastical that it might as well say she was captured by authorities while trying to board a plane at Dulles. The book even calls her "bloated"! Speaking of indignities. For more details on the factual error stuff, Salon has posted Emerson's full review.
Even though O'Reilly's book is a rectangle-shaped poop-pile, it's still on the best-seller list and he's still going to get paid wheelbarrows full of money to write more poop-piles in the future—including another presidential history. Look, he wouldn't write these things if people didn't care what he thought.
Update: The Washington Post clarifies that the book isn't available in the museum bookstore, but is for sale in the gift shop.