Makes you wonder how often glaring inaccuracies like this go unchecked whenever liberals gather to talk politics.
Fortunately for the public record, Republican House member Tom Cole of Oklahoma was on hand during yesterday's This Week with George Stephanopoulos when Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison tried to pass off his preferred version of history in lieu of the real thing.
Asked to comment about Democratic National Committee internal documents and emails posted by WikiLeaks that show the DNC's bias in favor of Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders, Ellison segued to disparaging GOP nominee Donald Trump and claiming that Southern segregationist George Wallace was a previous Republican presidential nominee --
STEPHANOPOULOS: Keith Ellison, you're a supporter of Bernie Sanders. What should happen?
ELLISON: Well, I'm with Bernie on this. I mean, we're focused on getting rid of Donald Trump, making sure he is not the president of the United States. I agree with Bernie, I'm disappointed to read about it, but at the same time, you know, we do have the worst Republican nominee since George Wallace. We have somebody who is so dangerous in a number of ways, not the least of which is his attacks on the press and his pulling press credentials. The First Amendment says freedom of the press, he attacks the press regularly. So I'm really kind of focused on the job at hand, but I am disappointed, but I'm not surprised, but at the same time, you know, I just have to keep trudging on, organizing people to turn out the maximum number of votes to defeat Donald Trump.
Instead of pointing out Ellison's whopper, This Week host George Stephanopoulos asked a question of GOP Congressman Tom Cole. The conservative Oklahoman wasted no time and pounced --
STEPHANOPOULOS: Just the beginning here in Philadelphia. Congressman Cole, you just came from Cleveland, the Republican convention. Was it a success?
COLE: Well first I want to correct my friend -- George Wallace was a proud Democrat and ran for the Democratic nomination. He was on that stage down there a couple times.
ELLISON: Thank God he got rejected and lost!
COLE: Well, that's fine but let's be clear on the record as to whose party he belonged to.
That would be yours, Congressman Ellison ...
Notice how Stephanopoulos, a longtime Democrat operative masquerading as an unbiased journalist, nods and gestures toward Ellison as Cole sets the record straight, which suggests that Stephanopoulos was also aware that Ellison was wrong about Wallace. Hard to believe Stephanopoulos would have let Cole off the hook for a similar gaffe.
Wallace ran as a Democrat candidate for president three times, in 1964, 1972 and 1976, and spoke at the '72 convention from a wheelchair after he was shot and left paralyzed by a would-be assassin three months earlier. In the 1968 presidential campaign, Wallace ran as a candidate for the American Independent Party and won five states in the deep South, the last time a third-party candidate has tallied any electoral votes. Wallace also served four terms as governor of Alabama over a generation-long span from 1963 to 1987 and was elected each time as a Democrat.
