WASHINGTON — The Obama White House is drawing ridicule for appending the official online biographies of nearly every president over the last century, in order to link President Barack Obama’s accomplishments to the former commanders-in-chief.
The Obama team went into the pages of US presidents dating back to Calvin Coolidge to add “Did you know?” fact boxes to the end of their bios. Those additions were used to plug a host of Obama administration initiatives.
For instance, the following line was added to the official bio of Ronald Reagan, “In a June 28, 1985, speech, Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multimillionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule.”
The White House defended itself, saying, “No biographies have been altered. We simply added links at the bottom of each page to related whitehouse.gov content, which is a commonly used best practice to encourage people to browse more pages on a site.”
The additions do include links, but each one touts an Obama administration policy or practice in the process.
The changes also link Harry Truman’s call for civil rights to the Obama administration’s push to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell.” And they link Jimmy Carter’s creation of the Department of Energy to Obama’s push for an “all of the above” energy approach today.
The only post-Coolidge president whose page is so far untouched is that of Gerald Ford.
Conservative blogs and publications ripped the White House for the move, even starting a Twitter hashtag #ObamaInHistory to mock him.
The Republican National Committee launched a Tumblr page called “Obama in History — World Changing Events You Didn’t Know Obama Played A Part In,” which goes on to show pictures of Obama standing with historical figures ranging from Einstein to Elvis to The Beatles. It also shows Obama at the Berlin Wall and Stonehenge.
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