President Obama stuck his foot in his mouth again. This time, when trying to make a point about how backward Republicans are.

Politico:

President Obama took aim Thursday at one of his Republican predecessors: Rutherford B. Hayes

Speaking about the need to develop new sources of American energy in Largo, Md., Obama used our 19th president to illustrate a failure of forward-thinking leadership.

"One of my predecessors, President Rutherford B. Hayes, reportedly said about the telephone: 'It's a great invention but who would ever want to use one?'" Obama said. "That's why he's not on Mt. Rushmore."

"He's looking backwards, he's not looking forward. He's explaining why we can't do something instead of why we can do something," Obama said. "The point is there will always be cynics and naysayers."

Oh really? That's not the way it happened at all. The curator of the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center issues a correction:

She then read aloud a newspaper article from June 29, 1877, which describes Hayes's delight upon first experiencing the magic of the telephone. The Providence Journal story reported that as Hayes listened on the phone, "a gradually increasing smile wreathe[d] his lips and wonder shone in his eyes more and more." Hayes took the phone from his ear, "looked at it a moment in surprise and remarked, 'That is wonderful.'"

In fact, Card noted, Hayes was not only the first president to have a telephone in the White House, but he was also the first to use the typewriter, and he had Thomas Edison come to the White House to demonstrate the phonograph. "So I think he was pretty much cutting edge," Card insisted, "maybe just the opposite of what President Obama had to say there."

As Ed Lasky notes, "Does anyone at the WH care about facts? Do they know how to Google?"

Evidently not.