MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes tried to rewrite history on Tuesday, describing the late segregationist Gov. George Wallace of Alabama as a Republican. Wallace was a Democrat–as were most Jim Crow-era leaders.

Hayes was trying to draw a parallel between the recent National Security Agency surveillance scandals and the extensive efforts by the U.S. government to spy on civil rights activists and black radicals in the 1960s.

The federal government then, too, was governed by Democrats.

As Rich Lowry noted recently, Democrats are often at great pains to blame Republicans for their own sordid racist history. And often, they succeed.

Wallace, who later recanted his racist politics, has been a favored symbol of the left and the media lately to describe Republican opposition to President Barack Obama’s agenda, such as his immigration reform policy.