Harper’s has a story detailing the attempts of fundamentalists to “clarify” history, primarily (it seems) through the use of quotations:

Federer, leaning over the back of his seat as several pastors bent their ears toward his story, wanted me to understand that what Jefferson – notorious deist and author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom – had really meant to promote was a “one-way wall,” designed to protect the church from the state, not the other way around. Jefferson, Federer told me, was a believer; like all the Founders, he knew that there could be no government without God. Why hadn’t I been taught this? Because I was a victim of godless public schools.

“Those who control the present,” Federer continued his quotation of 1984, “control the past.” He paused and stared at me to make sure I understood the equation. “Orson Welles wrote that,” he said.

You see, I too can take quotes out of context.

Via Arts & Letters Daily.