This is a few months old (roughly a century and a half in Internet Years), but I really can’t let this slip by without posting a link to it.

Shikha Dalmia, on whom I have a sizeable intellectual crush, absolutely destroys insipid NeoCons who try to co-opt Adam Smith:

“Here are the problems: First, Stewart and Frum got the quote wrong—and in an identical way, suggesting that one lifted it from the other without actually bothering to consult the actual text. The exact quote is: “Defence, however, is of much more importance than opulence.” (Look it up yourself on page 465 of Volume I of the Liberty Fund edition.)

Two, they got the interpretation wrong. The operative word in the quote is “defence.” But America does not have a defense budget—it has an offense budget to maintain far-flung bases and military alliances whose original rationale became defunct decades ago. This is not what Smith was endorsing.”

(LINK)

I’m not going to spoil the punchling for you, so you should definitely go read the whole article. It’s a textbook example of how a skilled journalist can demolish a pillar of political bullshit.