What Sarah Said
“And, you know, he who warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms, by ringing those bells and making sure that as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free. And we were going to be armed…part of his ride was to warn the British that we were already there that hey, you are not going to succeed, you’re not going to take American arms.”
What Paul Said
“Revere later wrote of the need to keep his activities secret and his suspicion that a member of his tight circle of planners had become a British informant. According to the letter, believed to have been written around 1798, Revere did provide some details of the plan to the soldiers that night, but after he had notified other colonists and under questioning by the Redcoats (emphasis added).” (Associated Press, referring to statements by Paul Revere)
What Your Propaganda Professor Says
Revere’s letter, to which the former half-term governor of Alaska appears to be attempting to allude, does NOT support her rambling, undiagrammable statements apparently cobbled together from verbal elements she overheard from a tour guide . It does not say that he himself fired shots and rang bells, nor even that he rang shots and fired bells. You may quote me on that. As for those arms he was supposedly warning them they couldn’t take, and which she wants to make the most revered item in the universe, they’d mostly been relocated already. If she believes that Revere set out to warn the Redcoats, perhaps she also believes the Beatles set out to bury John Lennon.
What the Media Said
“Experts Back Sarah Palin’s Historical Account.” (Boston Herald)
“You know how Sarah Palin said Paul Revere warned the British? Well, he did. Now, who looks stupid? (The L.A. Times – which even compared the public’s allegedly unfair criticism of her comments to the deliberately manufactured myth that Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet)
“Palin Did Not Misspeak On Paul Revere.” (Gateway Pundit)
“Mrs. Palin’s version of history was correct… the left does not revere history” (Washington Times)
The latter newspaper, founded by “Rev.” Sun Myung Moon, the cult leader who has repeatedly railed about what an evil country America is, really felt on a roll then, and launched into the following delusional and irrelevant tirade:
“Tea Partyers and others who look to America’s past for inspiration are appealing to the great national narrative that the left has rejected. In essence, we have become two peoples: one with a vision of America as an exceptional country with a heroic history, and another believing the country and its people are burdened by a multitude of original sins and populated by groups who are owed continuing and endless debts because of that corrupt past.” (You can deduce all of that from an inept politician’s bungling of history???)
What Sarah Probably Will Say Again (and Again, and Again)
“We should ignore the lamestream, leftist media’s criticism of what it is that we say in an interview if we believe what it is that we say. Don’t let them, in a 24-hour news cycle, make us change our positions.”
Remember that. Ignore criticism if you believe whatever you say.
POSTSCRIPT: Kudos to Forbes, a right-leaning publication, for being candid about this embarrassing woman.
The Propaganda Professor 
Very nicely deconstructed, Professor. You might also enjoy the Word of the Week from The Solipsistic Me this week, looking at the definition of “history” with our Sarah as an example.
Thanks. You have a perceptive and eloquent blog there.
“I am never wrong,
Even when I am crazy…”
Thus spake the North Wind
A big thanks, CheeseFlap –
Always a pleasure hearing
from your succinct pen
As much as I dislike Palin, I have to admit that when I heard her say that she had tons of foreign policy know-how because she could see Russia from her house, and then bristled with antagonism after being asked what kinds of magazines she reads, I actually felt a little sorry for her.
When she becomes unfocused, probably as a result of political stage fright, we might not get to see that she could be smarter than she appears—as those of us who have had bad cases of stage fright can sympathize with. I just don’t know HOW intelligent she actually is? judging from her disjointed reasoning, probably no more than the average bear—just like most of us. However (as the journalist pointed out) when she is proven wrong she only doubles down and refuses to admit to a mistake, which is probably quite a politician-like thing to do. But it’s also something very unintelligent to do.
If we were still discussing history at a fourth grade level, she would still make perfect sense when mythologizing Revere as a Patriot asserting the right for us to bear arms while shooting guns and ringing bells. I still immediately access a mental image of Revere whipping the behind of a speeding horse, and hollering loudly while indicating that the invasion was defined by the number of lights in a church tower—being (one if by land or two if by sea). As far as my remembering that he was briefly captured and then lied to the enemy about the prowess of the colonists—not so much I’m afraid!
One sometimes feels painfully aware of her attempts to play the role of a pundit while clearly failing to understand the significance of the things she comments on—just like a fellow school child might be painfully aware of how tongue tied the kid who went before him became, when stumbling through a speech in front of the class. But then again, even at that age most of us would have been able to easily refudiayt her inaccuracies.
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