More “gotcha” questions about American history.
There’s the possibility that defending all of the stupidity that comes out of Sarah Palin’s mouth will have such a draining effect on the right-wing that they’ll be too spent to continue on until the November 2012 presidential election. The other possibility is that the marks that have already contributed to her latest Tour de Grift will be all tapped out during the important final stretch. Both seem unlikely when you consider how much cash her preferred demographic has handed over to charlatans like Pat Robertson and Newt Gingrich over the years. One difference between these two and Palin is that I’m quite sure both of them are familiar with the story of Paul Revere’s midnight ride to warn the early Patriots that the British were coming.
Add elementary American history to the list of things Sarah Palin doesn’t feel compelled to read.
-mg
June 3rd, 2011 at 8:14 pm
You can just see the little propaganda wheels turning. “Gotta stay on message gotta stay on message something about guns and liberties and freedom and ooh that didn’t sound right but if I say enough about liberty then the point will be made and I can just accuse them of gotcha journalism anyway.”
I’m sure she knows the story, and just got so caught up in trying to score points that she made a fool of herself. No sympathy from this corner, though.
June 3rd, 2011 at 11:44 pm
The woman is powered by resentment of those smarter than her who laugh at her stupidity. Ergo, she will never run out of energy.
June 4th, 2011 at 7:47 pm
She’s so lucky this hit the airwaves on a Friday.
June 5th, 2011 at 1:49 am
Funny story, according to Paul Revere himself he did actually, technically warn the British that the Americans were armed. Only after he was captured but he did tell them that there were going to be at least 500 Americans armed waiting for them.
Though, you guys will probably dismiss it as her being accidentally correct. It may very well be that she actually knew about this.
http://www.masshist.org/database/img-viewer.php?item_id=99&img_step=1&tpc=&pid=&mode=transcript&tpc=&pid=#page1
June 5th, 2011 at 7:12 am
You guys are unbelievable sometimes. Is this what you want in life, ladk, to be a spin parrot? Some guy finds an obscure passage where Paul Revere can be said to be “warning the British,” and suddenly every Republican thinks it’s quite plausible that that’s precisely what Sarah Palin was talking about?
I’m sorry your bullshit detector got turned off.
UPDATE: A commenter at Balloon Juice nails it:
June 5th, 2011 at 7:39 pm
I just said it’s one possibility. I never said that’s what she meant. Wonderful me, the spin parrot.
And hell, you don’t know if she meant it that way or not for 100% either.
June 5th, 2011 at 8:07 pm
Are you 100% sure I haven’t slept with your mother?
Either way, what she said was still incredibly wrong. Your little tidbit has Paul Revere captured by the British telling them the Americans were going to kick their behinds. Every American history lesson, which Palin obviously never listened to, focused on Revere’s ride warning Americans that the British were coming. Palin’s version has Revere on horseback riding and ringing bells, telling the British that they weren’t going to take our arms?
Please, just stop it. Have some self-respect.
June 6th, 2011 at 11:14 am
If Palin was so factual, why are her wonderful followers trying to change history by adding this new knowledge of warning the British and ringing bells on Wikipedia?
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/38678_Palin_Fans_Trying_to_Edit_Wikipedia_Paul_Revere_Page
June 6th, 2011 at 12:20 pm
HW, I don’t think anyone is 100% sure you haven’t slept with their mother.
June 6th, 2011 at 1:01 pm
If your mother is also known as Sloppy Taco, that number drops way below 100%.
June 6th, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Please, just stop it. Have some self-respect.
Where did I defend her? I’m not out right saying that obviously what she meant.
Personally I think she’s stupid, but I love this. Keep it coming man. Keep it up, I love reading what you think I try to say.
June 6th, 2011 at 5:36 pm
“Where did I defend her?”
Every word up until you start denying that you’re defending her. Like I said, if you look at the actual words that came out of her mouth it’s still incredibly wrong.
Look, you want to have your cake and eat it too, great. If you think you can crouch under epistemological uncertainty while pushing the same line every crackpot Republican is using to claim Palin is completely exonerated, it may excuse you in your head but there’s “technically” nothing to distinguish you from those guys. You think she’s stupid? Great, then quit peddling excuses for her stupidity.
I suspect fewer people will get misconceptions about you that way.
June 7th, 2011 at 6:43 pm
HW- You have to realize this a no-win situation. Al Gore invented the internet regardless of the fact that he never said it and the comment used to imply it is just being taken to the extreme. With the GOP, you can take a comment word for word and in context, h#ll, even video in full context, and we are told that it is a lie. Palin can go out there and say that Thomas Jefferson bought Alaska (not the Louisiana Purchase) and it would be somehow supported in fact by her followers. She would go back onto Fox News and present it as truth. You can’t prove a Republican wrong with facts and figures. If it isn’t about God, guns, or gays then it is just gibber gabber.
June 7th, 2011 at 6:59 pm
I love this. Offering a plausible explanation that tenuous at best and recognizing that it’s that way is considered jumping up and defending someone.
June 7th, 2011 at 8:48 pm
What I love is ladk sounding the retreat while claiming to love it all the time.
Comment 4: ” It may very well be that she actually knew about this.”
Comment 6: “I just said it’s one possibility. I never said that’s what she meant.”
Comment 11: “I’m not out right saying that obviously what she meant.”
Comment 14: “Offering a plausible explanation that tenuous at best and recognizing that it’s that way is considered jumping up and defending someone”
See how you started out asserting it more strongly and then are running away from it? It’s moved from “very well may be” to “tenuous at best.”
June 7th, 2011 at 9:53 pm
Apparently, the “gotcha” question she was asked was something along the lines of…what interesting things have you seen today and what does it mean to you? She was wrong…even Wiener eventually fessed up to his errors. Her initially gibberish answer was less troubling to me than the complete lack of acknowledging a mistake after being easily proven wrong by 5th graders across America.
June 8th, 2011 at 7:11 pm
Palin knows her history, some of you don’t.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2011/06/06/sarah-palin-was-right-about-paul-revere
And there’s:
Revere’s own account of the ride in a 1798 letter seems to back up Palin’s claim. Revere describes how after his capture by British officers, he warned them “there would be five hundred Americans there in a short time for I had alarmed the Country all the way up.”
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.”
http://bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view.bg?articleid=1343353
And also there’s ….. Cornell law professor William Jacobson, who asserted last week that Palin was correct, linking to Revere quotes on his conservative blog Legalinsurrection.com, said Palin’s critics are the ones in need of a history lesson. “It seems to be a historical fact that this happened,” he said. “A lot of the criticism is unfair and made by people who are themselves ignorant of history.”
June 8th, 2011 at 10:13 pm
Love it. History is objective while climate science is subjective.
http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=13773745
The defenses of Palin are loose and sloppy, while breaking down her actual words reveal a host of mistakes. Not to mention the notion that Palin had any idea she knew what she was babbling about at the time is purely laughable.
Not that I expect any of this to sink into your skull, Thayer.
June 9th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
God can some of these guys not read their own c/p.
“there would be five hundred Americans there in a short time for I had alarmed the Country all the way up.”
that means he had alarmed THE AMERICANS. read the damn sentence. after Revere was captured, he told his captors “I warned the Americans that you’re coming.” his famed ride was not about warning the British. I know it’s hard, when you’re an idolater, to admit that your idol has no idea what she’s talking about, but she doesn’t.
June 9th, 2011 at 5:19 pm
Oh please, the truth is Palin was right, you liberals got caught not knowing history – you were exposed as being incomplete – and that just pisses you off.
June 9th, 2011 at 8:51 pm
There’s a bit of a technical problem here and that is what came out of Sarah Palin’s mouth bore absolutely no goddamn relation to the hastily assembled defenses given of what she said on the video.
Also, is she on something? She’s got that Xanax furry halo look going.
June 10th, 2011 at 8:39 am
Man, same thing as Dana’s blog, they just keep screaming SHE WAS RIGHT YOU ARE WRONG at you.
I’m thinking 2012 has them a bit frustrated. They may have to run this Palin turkey all the way…