The sordid ephemera of politics have spread even to our most innocent cultural products: children’s books. During the past election season, there was “The Tea Party Coloring Book for Kids,” from a Missouri publisher whose owner said that he started receiving death threats after the book got national coverage, with one caller claiming that he’d like to put him in a “chloroform headlock.” And then there was “The Liberal Clause: Socialism on a Sleigh”—written by David Hedrick, who lost in the Republican primary for a House seat in Washington—an illustrated chestnut wherein Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and a dour-looking approximation of Harry Reid (along with special guests Stalin and Mao) conspire to attack freedom and spoil Christmas.

Entering the fray this week is Obama’s own children’s book, “Of Thee I Sing,” in which he uses the stories of famous Americans—Jackie Robinson, Georgia O’Keeffe, George Washington, etc.—to illustrate life lessons to his daughters. (Obama submitted the manuscript before taking office, and the profits from the book will be donated to the Fisher House Foundation, a fund for the children of soldiers who have been disabled or killed.) Sounds harmless enough, but a sitting President (or, as we’ve seen, a former one) can’t seem to publish a book without upsetting a large number of people.

Cue this week’s literary smackdown. In one corner is Fox Nation, a news and opinion Web site run by Fox News, which on Monday ran this headline about Obama’s new book: “Obama Praises Indian Chief Who Killed U.S. General.” (The site has since defanged the headline, “for historical accuracy” as an editor’s note puts it, to “Obama Praises Indian Chief Who Defeated U.S. General,” but the hyperlink remains: “http://nation.foxnews.com/media/2010/11/15/obama-praises-indian-chief-who-killed-us-general.”) Potential responses upon reading this headline: Outrageous! Unpatriotic! Anti-military (that profits-for-military-families thing aside)! Just another example of Obama’s America-last worldview! But what’s really going on here? The short Fox Nation post quotes a story from USA Today that noted among the characters that Obama features, “his most controversial choice may be Sitting Bull, who defeated Custer at Little Bighorn….” (Defeated Custer’s army, that is, rather than killed Custer himself—hence the Fox Nation correction. And even the new headline is a stretch, since the military victory is credited to Crazy Horse and Gall, rather than to Sitting Bull.)

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That was it: A headline, which was later changed, in which Fox Nation made a relatively true statement that, without context, communicated a generally false overall message. Misleading is probably the right word, since Obama has clearly not written a book for kids about American military embarrassments. (In an odd juxtaposition, the permanent sidebar feature on the Fox Nation site shows a photo of two men in full headdresses under the words: “Fox Nation Salutes: November Marks Native American Heritage Month.”)

This leads to the other corner, occupied by commentators on the left, who seized upon this relatively minor Webisode as more evidence of Fox News’s evil, insidious fear-mongering. Jay Bookman’s post for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is a good example of this position:

You see, Fox readers have been pre-programmed to believe that Obama is anti-American and “anti-colonial,” and once such a meme has been implanted, even the most far-fetched of examples can be used to re-incite and reinforce it.

Over the past few days, there’s been plenty of mutual sneering, from those who think that Obama’s book celebrates an enemy combatant, and those who see the Fox Nation headline as misreporting current news and misreading history.

And here’s where the smackdown devolves into a free-for-all. Few things are as insufferable as fights in Web comments over the “meaning of history,” and this battle begins to lose its literary pedigree as you make the disheartening trip down the threads on various sites. Most opinions can be divided into two camps:

Custer deserves a large portion of credit for the Confederate’s defeat during the 3rd day of Gettysburg, which largely changed the course of the war. Obama should have avoided such a controversial figure, but we are talking about a guy who honored Indonesian veterans more than our veterans this past Vet’s Day. A disgrace.

Or:

Get a life Custer was a butcher, who killed women and children without a second thought. He deserved what he got, too bad it was no sooner.

Some interesting matters have been discussed, though, such as: Can we call Sitting Bull an American at all? Would he have accepted such a title, and do his descendants recognize it today? The source material, meanwhile, is as apolitical and careful as the response has been vitriolic. Obama presents Sitting Bull as a non-denominational healer:

Sitting Bull was a Sioux medicine man

who healed broken hearts and broken promises.

It is fine that we are different, he said.

“For peace, it is not necessary for eagles to be crows.”

Though he was put in prison,

his spirit soared free on the plains,

and his wisdom

touched the generations.

The story may lack historical nuance, but this is a children’s book after all, where metaphor and analogy normally trump particulars, and for good reason. We’ll keep an eye out to see if any of the other figures in “Of Thee I Sing” spark similar controversy.

And the winner is: No one, in this case. This smackdown reveals the pettiest elements of our politics, wherein partisans simply see in the other side exactly what they expect. I’ll give the last word to Johnny Cash, and his barbed and hilarious “Custer,” from the 1964 album “Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian.”