Watt's Happening

"After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back." - James Watt, US Secretary of the Interior (1981-83)

This quote has been making the rounds of the Internet the last few months garnering a substantial presence on left-wing blogs. If true, it would seem to be a heavy indictment of Mr. Watt, and of certain right-wing Christians. The other day, it showed up in a (rather controversial) Bill Moyers column.

The problem is that the quote is most likely fake. Jon of A Little Reason did the research on it, and his initial findings strongly suggest that it is a manufactured quote.

And to add a little to his research, a Usenet search produces no usages of this quote prior to November 2004. Archive searches of the New York Times and Washington Post websites turn up nothing at all. Nor does the "Search Inside the Book" feature at Amazon.com.

A Google search for the quote currently produces 547 results. I'm curious to see how far it will spread before it's nipped in the bud.