John Hayward, formerly Doctor Zero, has some fun at the expense of hapless liberals over the recent Paul Revere kerfuffle in a piece today at Human Events:
Sarah Palin is generally a forthright individual, judged by either absolute standards, or the sliding scale applied to politicians. That’s why recent evidence of devious behavior on her part is so disturbing.
I can believe she was thinking only of her intended audience when she told the Tea Party to “party like it’s 1773.” Of course liberals have no idea when the original Tea Party occurred, and raced to demonstrate their deplorable ignorance of history by attacking her for saying it. She didn’t know they were going to make fools of themselves. She was thinking about the Tea Party enthusiasts she was speaking to, not ignorant lefty bloggers and talking heads.
But this time… this time was on purpose. She knew exactly what she was doing when she said Paul Revere “warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells, and making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that were going to be secure, and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed.”
She knew that lefty bloggers and media talking heads would walk right into it. She knew they are as ignorant of the Revolution as they were of the Tea Party, and remember nothing about Paul Revere except “one if by land, two if by sea.” She knew damn well they wouldn’t be able to resist the opportunity to stick their noses in the air and arrogantly inform their audiences that she needs to go back to school and take high-school history over again.
I believe Hayward may very well be correct here. Think about it. Governor Palin was up in New England last week touring these historical sites. Whenever I tour historical sites, the guides, usually park rangers, have their prepared narratives about the sites I’m visiting. They will often sprinkle their scripted presentation with little nuggets and anecdotes that are not particularly well known, and which often deviate from conventional wisdom. I admit that I didn’t know much about Paul Revere other than a vague recollection from grade school that he took a ride on his horse one night to warn the Colonists that ”the British are coming, the British are coming”. As it turns out, this was historically incorrect, and Revere’s adventures were significantly distorted decades after his death by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his now famous poem.
This, in my experience, is exactly the kind of little known tidbit of information one would receive from guides when touring historical sites. For that reason, I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility that Governor Palin, upon hearing this from a guide last week, mischievously endeavored to set up a trap not unlike the one liberals fell into when she told Tea Partiers to “party like it’s 1773”, as Hayward suggests. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but having followed Governor Palin and her sense of humor for nearly three years now, this seems more than plausible, even likely. She’s essentially toying with them like a cat toying with a recently caught mouse. The funniest part is many of them still don’t realize it. Read Hayward’s entire piece here.
(h/t Josh Painter)
