[PW] Watt Quote

[Erica Cathers]

Looks like the debunking is true:

See this Washington Post retraction of February, 2005, here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1491-2005Feb5.html

"Correction to This Article
A Feb. 6 story incorrectly quoted James G. Watt, interior secretary under President Ronald Reagan, as telling Congress in 1981: After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back. Although that statement has been widely attributed to Watt, there is no historical record that he made it."

There is supposed to be a retraction in Editor & Publisher by Bill Moyers about his use of this or a similar quote, but since our library doesn't subscribe I couldn't get in to read the article. Maybe someone else can pull it up to check?
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000797041

BTW, got to those links via an interesting but rather flame-y discussion on Metafilter, here:
http://www.metafilter.com/39889/Bill-Moyers-Theocrats-and-ideologues-in-charge-of-US-government

Erica Cathers
Gloucester City Library (NJ)
------------------------------------------------------


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jay Lake" <jlake at jlake.com>
To: <list at project-wombat.org>
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2007 12:59 PM
Subject: [PW] Watt Quote


> Hey guys --
> 
> In 1981, Reagan's secretary of the Interior, James Watt, supposedly said 
> to Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of 
> the imminent return of Jesus Christ.
> 
> I think I remember this being reported at the time, but it has been 
> debunked in a correction end note here:
> 
> http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/27/scherer-christian/index.html
> 
> Is that debunking true, or did Watt in fact say something of the kind?
> 
> Best,
> 
> Jay Lake, SFWA
> Portland, OR
> 
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