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The quote cited below sounds like the kind of verbal slip-up that occasionally escapes from the lips of politicians and other public figures: An idea that seems reasonable in thought (i.e., just because something is the best or greatest doesn't mean it can't be further improved) comes out expressed in wording that, when taken literally, can be interpreted as meaning just the opposite of what the speaker intended to say. This phrase about changing the greatest nation in the history of the world wasn't uttered by Barack Obama, however, or by any other candidate. It was a political in-joke poking a little fun at Hillary Clinton and John McCain (and politicians in general) which was posted to the National Review Online (NRO) blog The Corner by Mark Steyn on 28 January 2008: Perhaps because change (as in Yes, we can change) was one of the predominant themes of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, and perhaps because Steyn's blog post was entitled Barracking Barack, within a few weeks the I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it was being mooted on the Internet as something actually said by the Democratic candidate. In his syndicated column of June 7, 2008, Steyn mentioned the erroneous attribution of the quote to Barack Obama and expressed incredulity that reporters were actually taking it seriously: In February 2012, some newspapers (including the San Jose Mercury News) announced they were dropping the Decodaquote puzzle feature from their pages after one of its cryptograms encoded the above-referenced quote and attributed it to Barack Obama. Last updated: 18 February 2012
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