Debatable history

Never Trumpers are at it again.

This time they accuse the president of getting history wrong, claiming he said Canadians burned down the White House in the War of 1812.

Trump nay-sayers say Canada wasn't a country, so it couldn't be a war with the U.S.  Naysayers do accurately say British troops did the burning.

But history shows the British burning of Washington DC was in retaliation for an American war party burning a Canadian town.  And while it was British regulars who actually invaded and burned Washington, it was Canada's governor general who called for the tit-for-tat retaliation.

More importantly, however, Trump didn't say Canadians burned the White House. Not by any accounts I've seen.

What Trump reportedly did was ask a rhetorical question, one that played into a widely held belief among Canadians.

“Didn’t you guys burn down the White House?” is what CNN and the CBC say he said.

Canadians, it seems, have the curious notion they, indeed, were the ones who burned down the White House.

Don't take my word for it. They even have a song that celebrates their touted act.

And the video below, featuring the song, is apparently widely used in Canadian history classes.