Scalia widely misquoted, never said 'We're not stupid,' rather, 'They're not stupid,' referring to young people buying insurance

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Original Politico transcript contained the inaccuracy, other sites followed.

3/28/12, "Scalia Widely Misquoted as “We’re Not Stupid”," speakwithauthority, RedState.com

"Once exchange that received a lot of attention from Tuesday’s Supreme Court session was between Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr., Justice Antonin Scalia, and Justice Elena Kagan. The transcript available at Politico records the exchange as follows:

"...20 JUSTICE SCALIA: We’re not stupid. They’re

21 going to buy insurance later. They’re young and — and

22 need the money now...."...

The problem is, that is not what Scalia said. Carefully listening to the audio reveals that Scalia said “These people [the young and healthy] are not stupid.” The Daily Caller, who has linked to the audio and originally repeated the same mistake (as evidenced by the URL of the Daily Caller link: “were-not-stupid/”,) has now corrected its transcript. But a Google search of the past 24 hours (as of 1:35 PM Wednesday) returns 3,830 hits on “we’re not stupid” and only 150 on “people are not stupid“.) Even Drudge as of late morning (see screenshot) still had “We’re not stupid…” linking to the Daily Caller story, although it had been removed as of this posting. This is a good example of how an urban legend can get started. We’ll see how well the media does today in correcting themselves."...

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Comments include

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"If you are going to make a correction, at least do it correctly

Scope (Diary) Wednesday, March 28th at 3:49PM EDT (link)

I just went back to the transcript posted at the SC site. What Scalia said was “They’re not stupid.” He never said “these people are not stupid.” It has the same meaning, but, if you are interested in the exact words, at least get them correct."

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"My correction was based on listening to audio

speakwithauthority (Diary) Wednesday, March 28th at 4:12PM EDT (link)

The transcript at the SC site might have “they’re not stupid,” but I listened to the audio at the Daily Caller:

http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/27/justice-scalia-to-obamas-solicitor-general-were-not-stupid/#ixzz1qNDNxAMl

At :36, I hear “people”, but you can draw your own conclusions. I am not alone. Several other sites have “people” in their transcripts as well."

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