Paul Revere's ride: Should Sarah Palin's confusion about US History matter in a Presidential bid?

I don’t know about that, but i’m reminded of dear old Ronnie Reagan. On a visit to England while he was still president, he addressed Princess Diana as Princess David!! It was at a royal dinner if memory serves. He was a character, but also a fine commander in chief was he not?

Of course it should matter. A President needs to have a coherent understanding of what is going on around the world and in history. History helps us make better decisions. If you think we wanted the Brits to know our plans for war, what kind of leader would she be in leading the US to war now?

Hey. Maybe she should have warned Bin Laden before the attack on his compound. It’s only fair, right?

@ucme Yes, Reagan was a fine commander in chief. He led us to a war where we completely invaded the communist island of Granada, one of the most serious threats to freedom in the known world!

I was a history major in college, so I’ll just say that an understanding of how we got to where we are today is vital. An ability to speak correctly and extemporaneously about our history is also important.

Sarah Palin is a dolt.

I found that this line from a Slate.com blog really rang true for me:

But honestly, the problem here is less that Palin and all the other Tea Party fools who say blatantly incorrect things don’t know their history. It’s that they don’t know their history while wrapping themselves up in the cloak of it, and claiming to be the sole inheritors of the legacy of the American Revolution. When you do that, you should understand why the people you exclude from this inheritance are going to point it out when they actually know history better than you do.

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(I’ve decided that Bachman and Palin skipped American History class together.)

She’ll never be president, I have too much faith in the intelligence of America as a whole, not just Alaska lol.

@wundayatta Make that Grenada & you may have a point.
Although, to be fair, I was referring to his efforts on the economy & such like.

@Blackberry I lost that faith when Dubaya got elected for a second term.

Stop giving her shit about this. I failed 5th grade history too.

Of all the possible reasons I have for her not to be president, this is actually pretty low down on the list. I think her inability to make in through an entire term as governor and her deep seated need to do anything for the limelight are far, far bigger issues than this.

Oh my…

@johnpowell

Are you thinking of a run for President then? You should be a shoo-in!

I like my leaders endowed with a certain level of intelligence and education, and failing that, then at least some respect for the truth. The fact that she’s running her ‘campaign’ but denying it’s a campaign because she’d have to leave her soap-box job at Fox tells me she’s not just insulting me with her lack of intellect, but she’s insulting my intellect as well.

I’m seriously starting to whether whether she’s not just wasted at every public appearance. Think about it: that’s the most plausible explanation beyond utter mental retardation.

@johnpowell : I for one would expect the people I vote for to have passed fifth grade history.

If you have a dim and uncertain notion of the past you will have an equally dim and uncertain vision of the future.

I don’t think she got it wrong.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110605/us_ac/8588011_how_sarah_palin_got_it_right_about_paul_revere_warning_the_british_1

@bkcunningham She didn’t get it right, either. He did set out to warn the colonists, and only told the British when they captured him because he was a big sissypants. That’s a bit different than the implication of her statement that he just set off to warn the British and not the colonists in the first place.

Sorry @MyNewtBoobs, she did get it right. Most of the colonists were British. None were Americans at that point. But that is beside the point. She was correct.

“I observed a Wood at a Small distance, & made for that. When I got there, out Started Six officers, on Horse back,and orderd me to dismount;-one of them, who appeared to have the command, examined me, where I came from,& what my Name Was? I told him. it was Revere, he asked if it was Paul? I told him yes He asked me if I was an express? I answered in the afirmative. He demanded what time I left Boston? I told him; and aded, that their troops had catched aground in passing the River, and that There would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the Country all the way up. He imediately rode towards those who stoppd us, when all five of them came down upon a full gallop; one of them, whom I afterwards found to be Major Mitchel, of the 5th Regiment, Clapped his pistol to my head, called me by name, & told me he was going to ask me some questions, & if I did not give him true answers, he would blow my brains out. He then asked me similar questions to those above. He then orderd me to mount my Horse, after searching me for arms.”

http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2011/06/so-now-all-these-people-will-apologize.html

@bkcunningham : Your own quotation disproves your point in your statement that none were Americans: “There would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the Country all the way up.”

@bkcunningham Sorry, but right because you slipped into a term that technically isn’t wrong but also isn’t correct in the spirit of things doesn’t really count. When we say “The British” in regards to the Revolutionary War, we do mean the enemy of the people who would become Americans. And if you want me to take your historical facts seriously, it damn well better be from a source more reputable than a random blog.

They were colonists of America (a country) under British rule @hawaii_jake. I think people are smart enough to not believe that Revere went riding through the cobbled streets yelling, “The British are coming. The British are coming.”

Of course it matters. It says the following:

1. She has the brain of a newt. Any American elementary school child can tell you about Paul Revere’s ride accurately.

2. She has no intellectual rigor.

3. She doesn’t know how ignorant she is (much more dangerous).

4. She has no governor on her tongue. She will say anything even if she doesn’t know about it thus setting up dangerous posturing. Can you imagine her dragging us into a war because of some idiocy like this that she insisted no sticking to?

Here @MyNewtBoobs. This is what I found that is better than the blog. I admit that was pretty lame. ;)

http://www.paul-revere-heritage.com/ride-account-modernized.html

News programs this evening reported something even scarier. The Tea Party people are trying to change the correct version on Wikipedia to Ms. Palin’s version. Unsuccessfully, but still. Tell an untruth enough times and people will believe it. Wasn’t that Herr Goebbels? ( to be honest, I’m not sure it was he, but the idea has certainly been used in propaganda and you can see many examples being used lately.)

@ucme Sorry, but you touched a nerve with that. I actually think Reagan was one of the worst presidents in US History when it comes to the impact he had. A great deal of our pain today comes from his Voodoo Economics and his selling of the hate-government, deregulate everything philosophy.

He was an enormously likeable guy. But great Commander in Chief? I can’t follow that. Republicans give him credit for single-handedly tearing down the Berlin Wall. Not true. The Pope, Lech Walesa, and leaders all over Western Europe played a role in that, as did the enlightened leadership of Gorbachev and the decay of authoritarian control of the pro-Soviet Governments in Poland and Hungary. No one person deserves all the credit. Reagan’s massive increase in defense spending probably helped bring about the fall of the Soviet Union sooner rather than later. They could not match it, and bankrupted themselves trying. Never mind it bankrupted us as well. Reagan tripled the national debt and started its former downward curve as a percent of GDP on the meteoric rise that now has us teetering on financial destruction ourselves. His great victory over the looming communist threat of Granada is laughable. His loss of Marine lives and instant retreat is not funny at all. The Iran Contra scandal and the fact he brokered a backdoor deal with Iran before becoming President should have brought him impeachment and trial for treason. It is treasonous for private citizens to broker deals with hostile foreign powers committing the US to a given course of action.

@wundayatta I’m sure that Paul Revere had a great deal on his mind that night, but warning the British was as far from his purpose as it’s possible to get.

@hawaii_jake As a history buff, I can imagine it hurts your ears to listen to such drivel as Palin gave in her novel account of Paul Revere’s ride.

@syz Great quote and link. Thanks.

@Blackberry Judging from her negatives in current polls, I am sure you are right. I don’t think she’s even running for president. Doesn’t pay nearly enough. She’s running for Fund Raiser in Chief.

@johnpowell Ha! I just bet you did. :-)

@MyNewtBoobs Those character flaws are of more concern to me too, but I do thank that to effectively lead the USA, you need a working understanding of our history. I believe George Santayana was spot on when he said, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” When it comes to what causes matins to win and lose wars, or to succeed or fail economically, the Presidency is no place for on-the-job training.

@cazzie I am no great fan of Roger Ailes, but I do think he has the integrity to have treated all his people by the same standards. When Huckabee and Gingrich told Ailes they were serious about running, he let them go to avoid a conflict with his network giving one primary candidate an unduly large soap-box. I am sure he had the same discussion with Palin, and she told him she’s not running. This is all just for show, ego gratification and of course, all that MONEY!

@Mamradpivo That may well be. If she’s putting on a mental retardation act, she’s a gofted actress. But I tend to think she’s crazy like a fox. I think it’s all an act to stay in the limelight and rake in the wealth while the getting is good.

@flutherother That’s an excellent quote. It’s as succint and to the point as the Santayana quote above.

@bkcunningham Thank you for one more proof that in American politics today, right = wrong, and in right-wing circles, everything is reversed. The only constant is the spin to make down = up, no = yes, massive deficits = fiscal responsibility, and opression of minorities = equality. Here is the actual history as written BEFORE Palin needed it spun into a fairy tale to cover for her ignorance. It is an ugly comment on a party that insists on wraping itself in the flag that it is willing to disparage a fine patriot like Paul Revere to save someone like Palin. This isn’t the Party of Ike that I once belonged to.

@Sunny2 Yep, I noticed that the Wikipedia page had to be locked. Sad. It’s all so like an authoritarian country where history gets cleansed to fit the dear leader’s needs.

@ETpro I agree, history should be part of what any president knows. But I also think that if she was a great candidate except for this, and a few hours later she issued a press release saying that she was wrong, and had since learned a bit more, and she was going to share it with us all so that we could all be further educated about Paul Revere, then I don’t know that it would be a big deal. But I can really only care about so much with Sarah Palin, and her larger flaws take up most of that, so it’s hard for me to get worked up over this.

According to this book, which I read last year in all its faithfully footnoted detail,

The alert reader will note what Paul Revere did not say. He did not cry, “The British are coming.” Many New England express riders that night would speak of Regulars, Redcoats, the King’s men, and even the “Ministerial Troops,” if they had been to college. But no messenger is known on good authority to have cried, “The British are coming,” until the grandfathers’ tales began to be recorded long after American Independence. In 1775, the people of Massachusetts still thought that they were British. One of them, as we shall see, when asked why he was preparing to defend his house, explained, “An Englishman’s home is his castle.” The revolution in national identity was not yet complete. (pp. 109–110)

@MyNewtBoobs Amen to that.

@Jeruba That is absolutely true, as the link here explains. But let’s compare what Paul Revere actually did, as explained there, to what Palin said he did, ”...ringing those bells and firing those warning shots”. Granted the American colonists at the time considered themselves British, but no American today talks about the British fighting the British at Concord. And the stuff belching out of the vast right-wing noise machine now, making it look like Revere was a coward who caved under British torture, is disgusting right-wing revisionist history., Nothing could be further from the truth. See @bkcunningham‘s links for the spin it’s being given.

@ETpro, are you under the impression that I was defending her offensive display of unconscionable ignorance?

@Jeruba I know you better than that. But I want to ensure that partisans like @bkcunningham who are doing just that do not succeed on your coattails.

@ETpro Hey, that’s okay. It was up for debate anyway, it being a question & all.
Maybe his presidency suffers from “Thatcher syndrome” lauded in history by some as a fine leader, but actually hated by the majority of voters at the time.

@ucme Thatcher is lauded by history as a fine leader? Man, I have got to stop taking my history from stand-up comedians…

@MyNewtBoobs Oh but she is though, much as I detest the woman & everything she stood for. She was of course favoured by a vote enhancing war falklands & the fact she was a woman. I wasn’t at all speaking from a personal standpoint, other than the part where it says “hated by the voters at the time!” Yeah, that’ll be me!

I feel like Eddie Izzard has really lead me astray here.

Nah, more like Kenny Everett.

@MyNewtBoobs Thatcher is a Marmite politician – you either love her or hate her, and there’s still a significant element in Britain who adore the woman.

@meiosis I’ve never had Marmite – what does it taste like? But that is a nice analogy.

@MyNewtBoobs You poor thing, you’ve been cruelly deprived. It’s hard to describe – very savoury and salty (and very lovely). On toast, or in a cheese sandwich, mmmm mmm mmm. My better half, however, thinks it’s the vilest stuff she’s ever tasted. She described it as a yeast infection in a jar (it’s a waste-product of the yeast used in the brewing process)

@meiosis Well, there’s an English Tea House near me that carries proper Cadbury and PG Tips and a few other English items, I’ll see if they have it next time I swing by.

I detest marmite as well, a happy coincidence.

@ETpro, if you read the links I gave, it says pretty much the same thing the link you provided says.

To those concerned about a possible Palin candidacy, this APC News Poll should provide some comfort. Just about ⅔rds of Americans say they would never vote for Palin. Even 40% of registered Republicans would not give her the nod if she were their party’s standard bearer.

@ucme Ms. Thatcher won’t be getting any Great Leader awards from me. Her right = wrong leadership had a great deal to do with creating the mailise that the UK is suffering through today.

@bkcunningham No link to anything remotely historical says what Palin said, though: namely that Paul Revere “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, as he is riding his horse through town, to send those warning shots and bells…”. It is true that when captured and questioned in Lincoln, short of Concord, Revere did make it clear to his British interrogators that the colonists were NOT going to willingly turn over their arms. In fact, he exaggerated the threat of armed resistance quite a bit, hoping to discourage British General Gage’s mission to confiscate arms. But as to ringing bells and firing warning shots, that simply didn’t happen, so any link that says it did is bogus. And links that tell the real story then claim that’s what Palin really said are also bogus. I posted the video clip of her actual statement. These days, you can no more get away with rewriting “the YouTubes” [sic] than you can history. Fortunately, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott managed to escape the roadblock, warning other patriots. Before the night was out, there were as many as 40 riders warning of the British move. Prescott did make it through to Concord and warned the militia there in time for them to frustrate General Gage’s plans. Prescott, being a medical doctor, was able to offer British troops reasonable explanation for his midnight ride. He said he was on his way to deliver a baby. But Revere’s bravery in breaking through a British checkpoint in Cambridge and then feeding his British captors disinformation once taken in Lincoln gave him the top billing in our history books.

It isn’t that proximity gives me any historical credentials in the matter, but I am very interested in this episode of American history because I live just a few steps away from the Old North Church, the building whose bell tower was used to send the “One if by land, two if by sea” lantern signal to warn the patriots of General Gage’s motions.

@ETpro Okay, once more for the bewildered among us ;¬}
I don’t rate her at all, quite the opposite. As I stated, I hated everything she stood for. There is however no denying that, to some she was considered a great Prime Minister.
Don’t shoot the messenger eh? :¬)

@ucme I hope I didn’t sound like I was shooting the messenger. I wouldn’t do that even if you were the most ardent of Margret Thatcher suporters. I just expressed my disagreement with those who claim she was such. And a final word on whether Palin got the history of Paul Revere’s ride right on not, there is this article in today’s Slate, explaining how here supporters have been trying to rewrite online historical accounts to “update” them and thus vindicate Palin’s great command of US history. Only that’s working in reverse. You don’t rewrite history books to match each new account someone comes up with today.

@ETPro, you wrote, “But as to ringing bells and firing warning shots, that simply didn’t happen, so any link that says it did is bogus.”

I keep coming across documents (original language, modernized language, original manuscript) that indicate the British were traveling with prisoner Revere when, along the way, they heard shots being fired. Revere explained such shots as warnings by the colonists to prepare for imminent battle.

Specifically:
When we got within about half a mile of the Meeting House we heard a gun fired. The Major asked me what it was for, I told him to alarm the country; ... I asked the Major to dismiss me, he said he would carry me, let the consequence be what it will. He then ordered us to march.

Then he describes a second round of shots and being released with a tired horse, presumably to slow his departure:
When we got within sight of the Meeting House, we heard a volley of guns fired, as I supposed at the tavern, as an alarm; the Major ordered us to halt, he asked me how far it was to Cambridge, and many more questions, which I answered. He then asked the sergeant, if his horse was tired, he said yes; he ordered him to take my horse. I dismounted, and the sergeant mounted my horse; they cut the bridle and saddle of the sergeant’s horse, and rode off down the road.

—

I’m not expert at history. But Paul Revere’s midnight ride is a fascinating tale, and much more complex than the stylized version most of us have been taught.

I also couldn’t care less about Palin or what she said, intended, or spun. I’m just curious your take on this aspect. And I don’t trust Wikipedia at this point, even less than usual.

Just a thought but if people applying for citizenship of the USA have to sit a civics test shouldn’t those running for President also be tested ?

Personally, the “ringing bells and firing warning shots” seems like a fairly inconsquential part of it, which could even be construed as figurative language (if she’s capable of that~). Yesterday a historian on NPR stated that Palin was basically right in theme, even if the specifics were off.

She might be a dolt, but frankly, this whole attack on her for this is overblown. Let’s get real and criticize her for all the other stupid shit she does (or that fucking voice, god!).

@incendiary_dan I had a lot of respect for that historian. He put it very well, and at the end of the interview and made a good point. Why is that no one was interested in hearing about the history until Sarah Palin made a perceived gaffe? and he went on to say he hoped to be on NPR more in the future talking about US history for other reasons.

@incendiary_dan The problem is, the way she’s right is the way Obi-Wan wasn’t lying to Luke when he said “Your father is dead”, with this sort of fingers crossed behind the back tone. From a certain point of view, you can see how it might not be technically wrong – but it’s pretty far from the whole truth, and if she meant for her statement to mean that once he was captured, he stood up to the British and let them know they’d have a fight on their hands, she sure didn’t phrase it in a way where that would be the conclusion anyone who heard her statement would come to. Which is the real crux of the matter – she entered into the political system without any real moral compass, counting on not-quite-lies and half-truths to somehow save her. It’s one thing for a politician to get corrupted by the system after years of being in it, but to never want to stand for honesty and truth and fundamental decency in the first place is a huge issue. And when I read the transcript, it seemed more to say that she wasn’t off much in specifics, but very off in tone.

@robmandu That’s an interesting historical note, but again, it doesn’t close to what Plain said. I posted a link to the video of her rendition of history. It has Revere riding through the streets of Boston firing warning shots and ringing bells. Sorry, but review what she actually said and come up with a spin of history to try to match that.

I thought it was amusing that she got the specifics screwed up, but it didn’t make me have a worse opinion of her. Biden screws up facts all the time and it doesn’t affect my opinion of his intellect. One thing he has in common with Palin is that he runs his mouth off in full gear before his brain has had time to warm up sometimes.

What I found disturbing was that she took time out to explain that she stood by the erroneous statement and refused to admit she made any sort of mistake. She proudly stood by it. I don’t want someone who will foolishly take a stubborn stand on things that don’t really matter in this way. She was firing warning shots and ringing bells for me when she did this. If she’s going to stand by this silly little statement, what would she do if she were in charge and made a major screwup? Do you really want someone who is very careless, stubborn and refuses to admit to any wrongdoing at all in charge of the country?

I heard some listener feedback on NPR today from Palin supporters thanking the public radio network for a fair, balanced story about this monumental Palin gaffe. Apparently they were referring to the interview linked above by @incendiary_dan. But we, of course, do not believe that Sarah was displaying her erudition in making her comments, even if someone well versed in the fine points of history can find a way of restating it that seems to match her story. Another responding listener said that she’d taught American history for 37 years and that no high school student of hers would have been marked correct for giving Palin’s answer on a test.

@MyNewtBoobs As much as I appreciate the Star Wars analogy as someone who’s been doing plenty of nerding out to Star Wars lately, it’s just not that far off from the historical truth. Fact is, the ride of Revere and his compatriots was intended in part to warn Gage from making a move against their stockpiled weapons.

@Jeruba High school history is notorious for being factually incorrect when it comes to accepting the popular narrative of Americanism. It can hardly be used as a measure. Were someone who teaches high level history courses in college to say that, I’d pay attention.

@ETpro, I really don’t care what Palin said.

What’s interesting is that now there are many people also making error when explaining the historical narrative of Paul Revere’s ride.

Your quip above stated with unequivocal authority that no “warning shots” were fired and “any link that says it did is bogus.” Paul Revere’s own account of the incident says he explained to his British captors that they did hear warning shots twice. ( Of course, he may have been dissembling to misinform/frighten them. )

Look, feel free to disagree with Palin all you want… that’s boring to me. I’d rather not talk about her in any context, on any subject, for any reason. Ugh.

Just let me know when you’ve got your own facts straight about Paul Revere’s ride. kthx!

Actually, for ultra-conservative voters it would be a good reason to support her even more.

They despise intellectuals. “See, here’s a down-to-earth woman. She’s like us normal guys. We don’t know much about history. Does it matter? Of course not. She’s one of us. If humans came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? Evolution is a joke. A monkey knows that! Let’s vote for her!”

@incendiary_dan Well, like I said, the facts aren’t the issue, the spirit of the thing is the issue, the lack of context is the issue.

@MyNewtBoobs Maybe it’s because I was just gathering cattails in the hot sun in 92 degree humid weather, but I’m failing to grasp what you mean. Can you explain. The actual context of the remarks seemed surprisingly coherent for Palin, as far as I’m concerned.

@incendiary_dan I actually think it’s really hard to figure out what she’s trying to say, I had to read it several times to figure out what she was trying to say. But so here’s an example: If a kid comes home from being with their friends, and tells their parents they were studying, the parents will probably assume the kid means with textbooks and flashcards, of a subject taught in school. The kid, however, might have meant “We were studying… the effects of THC on our systems when inhaled”. Ok, technically, not a lie – but the kid’s still trying to pull a fast one, and I feel that that’s what she’s trying to do here. Saying “Oh, well, if you look at it this really weird way that no one would ever think to look at it because they’re just not that crazy, I’m technically right”. If a soldier today is captured and upon being tortured tells his capturers where the next battle will take place, the news doesn’t say “Private Johnson warned the Iranians of his unit’s location”, we say “Private Johnson was captured and tortured, and unfortunately confessed to the Iranian’s where his unit was.” To say the first was so very much have the implication that Private Johnson wasn’t captured and tortured, so much as he went AWOL, walked into the Iranian’s camp, and said “I wanna make a deal”. Revere’s original goal was to play defense, not offense, and Palin’s statement makes it sound like he’s either a traitor playing for the other side or playing offense from the get-go.

@MyNewtBoobs Are we reading/listening to the same interview? Everything I’ve seen seems to imply Palin using Revere as a pro-Second Amendment figure, which has some truth to it.

@incendiary_dan The one that ETpro posted, and the NPR interview you posted? I would think so.

@MyNewtBoobs Yea, where in either of those is he made to look like a traitor? I keep feeling like I’ve missed something here.

@incendiary_dan,
It can hardly be used as a measure.
Did you see me say something about a measure? I reported what I heard.

Are you trying to argue that if a high school teacher says it, it must be false? I don’t see any logic there.

@Jeruba No, I’m saying that high school history tests often look for false answers. As you can see from the book in the link I provided (I highly recommend it, by the way, one of my favorites) there’s a long history of high school history textbooks repeating information known to be false. This does not imply in any way that a high school history teacher is always wrong (I seriously don’t see how you’d get that, either).

@robmandu If you are going to rebut someone’s words, best take the time to read them accurately. I said of Palin’s account, “It has Revere riding through the streets of Boston firing warning shots and ringing bells. Sorry, but review what she actually said. Whether you care what Palin said or not, you cannot prove she was right and I was wrong in pointing out the error of her quote by ignoring what she said and changing the subject to something entirely different.

Yes, history does say that some Colonists along the way between Boston and Concord fired warning shots into the air to disuade the British troops from attempting to confiscate their arms cache in Concord. But Paul Revere did not ride through the streets of boston firing shots and ringing bells. There were numerous British checkpoints along the way. He was detained at one in Cambridge, but sicked one of the soldiers in the chin and broke free from the other. He was stopped and arrested in Lincoln. But other riders were able to reach Concord.

I just walked by the statue of Revere on his horse today. It stands in Paul Revere square, just a half block from my home. I can assure you that he has no rifle or bells in his hands. He would never have tried to attract a great deal of attention to himself on a midnight ride. That would have assured capture by the British maning checkpoints alopng the way.

@ETpro… ah, gotcha.

To be clear, I never, not once, attempted to defend Palin’s statements at any point along the way… regardless of your opinion that that was my goal. Nor have I ever made the case that Paul Revere was firing his own rifle and ringing handbells during his ride.

I was only curious to get clarification on a stance you made so clear earlier that appeared to be incorrect. I still think you’ve dodged my query a bit, but we’re probably close enough to call it done.

Thx!

@robmandu Thnks for clarifying. But since the question was specifically about Palin’s statement, I hope you can see how I would take it as about that.

@ETpro, maybe. Except I think if you go back and look at every quip I made in this thread, I specifically said Palin’s position was immaterial to me and that I wanted information specifically about your position. Ironic when you admonished me to “best take time to read [your words] accurately”.