“He who warned, uh, the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringing those bells, and um, makin’ sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed.”
Sarah Palin and her family visited the Old North Church and apparently wanted to dazzle her fans with her knowledge of American history. The above is Sarah Palin’s version of Paul Revere’s ride. I guess they don’t have history books in Alaska because she sure is off the mark.
Sarah Palin now tells us she didn’t mess up. From USA Today:
Sarah Palin defended her account of Paul Revere and his midnight ride, insisting that his warning essentially represented a message to the British that the revolutionaries weren’t going to back down.
“I didn’t mess up,” the potential GOP presidential candidate said this morning on Fox News Sunday. “I answered candidly and I know my American history.”
It really isn’t that Palin doesn’t know squat about the American Revolution. If she were president she would have an entire staff of educated people around her to make up for her woeful ignornance. It is, however, her arrogance and inability and unwillingness to do something about these weaknesses that makes her an unfit candidate.
She did garble what she was trying to say, that’s for sure. I don’t see how she was right. She didn’t know what she was talking about.
You know, she would be so much better off to just talk about cradle of democracy and liberty, etc. And if she does make a mistake, (she is only human) just say yea, I blew that and go on with it.
The self centeredness and defiance make her a very unattractive candidate when one gets past the ‘hottie’ notion. To those of us not interested in hottie, she just comes across like an arrogant AH.
Bachmann profits from comparison to Palin. Bachman at least has walked the walk, taken in a passle of foster children, etc. I hate her politics but that doesn’t transcend to viseral hate of her as a person.
cargo – she was not right. Paul Revere did not ride with bells ringing, and shots being fired to warn the British that the Colonists were armed and waiting – that is not true, and that is what she said. I really do not care that she got it wrong, but she should just fess up and say, I was confused, not try and rewrite history. It does bring up a good point – why would Paul Revere tell the Brits that the Colonists were waiting in Concord – kinda sounds like a traitor thing to do.
@Pat.Herve
Boston University history professor Brendan McConville said, “Basically when Paul Revere was stopped by the British, he did say to them, ‘Look, there is a mobilization going on that you’ll be confronting,’ and the British are aware as they’re marching down the countryside, they hear church bells ringing — she was right about that — and warning shots being fired. That’s accurate.”
Take it up with him.
Sorry, Moon, but my “nice try” came AFTER reading that comment by the Boston U. professor plus a couple of similar comments elsewhere. To tell the truth, I couldn’t remember all that stuff; and I have been along almost that entire ride, from the Revere House to the Old North Church to Lexington to Concord Bridge and back again. In fact, I clean forgot that part about Revere being captured by the British. I’ll bet dollars to donuts that just about everybody else here and in the media, including Steven Colbert himself, wouldn’t have known those facts without going into the history books. What makes me laugh is that all the critics were the ones inadequately informed — including myself at first blush, blush, blush — and yet that didn’t mean a thing when it came to laying into the gal. Thank God she didn’t say something really bad, like maybe that they speak Austrian in Austria.