Food for thought regarding Palin's "gaff" about Paul Revere

[ForrestBlack]

Food for thought regarding Palin's "gaff" about Paul Revere "warning the British" ... Revere (and William Dawes and Dr. Samuel Prescott and others who don't usually get credit) rode on April 18th 1775. The Declaration Of Independence was successfully voted on July 2, 1776 and officially accepted on July 4, 1776 (and actually officially signed on August 2, 1776) so at the time of the ride, Revere was warning the British subjects that the troops were coming. Not saying she's brainiac the invincible or even that she didn't misspeak or that she didn't look uncomfortably addled, but the knee-jerk scoffing at the supposed 'obvious' inaccuracy is making my teeth itch.

[Cafe_Post_Mortem]

That is an interesting take, but her statement taken in context was that Revere was warning the British army, not the British colonists and rebels.

He who warned, uh, the … the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringin’ those bells and, um, by makin’ sure that as he’s ridin’ his horse through town to send those warnin’ shots and bells that, uh, we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free … and we were gonna be armed.

But personally I think it was less of a gaff and more about trying to make a local legend fit her narrative. He snuck around through the night to quietly tell his co-conspirators to ambush the national army just doesn't have the same vibe shootin and yelling defiantly through the streets does.

[One Eyed Cat]

It looks like she was off the cuff: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/wash...-our-arms.html

I would call it a gaffe. The dramatics seem to be Palin attempting to improvise. I don't believe it is necessarily indicative of anything beyond that. Gotcha! politics have become a method of distraction. I don't support Palin, but I hope this doesn't go much past a few Leno jabs.

OEC

PS: I did find the comment on Palin making Bachmann look like Longfellow funny. Longfellow took a lot of literary license himself. His odes were a major reason Revere became "the rider" we now tend to ... revere.