Video at link. I got this from one of my Facebook "friends".
Posted on 06/03/2011 12:48:34 PM PDT by Incorrigible
Jim Newell— It's been at least a few seconds since we last checked in on Sarah Palin's Tour de Grift, which stopped yesterday in Olde Boston Towne. Her bus visited such historical sights as Paul Revere's old shack, where Palin explained the colonist's famous "midnight ride" before the 1775 battles at Lexington and Concord.
The Internet is aflame in scholarly debate over this interpretation:
He who warned, uh, the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure 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.
Perhaps we should all brush up on our history of such events should we ever get trapped like this, but this may include some inaccuracies. Revere did not warn the British army to step off by ringing bells in their faces and shooting warning shots at them. That would have been counterproductive. Instead, he notified the appropriate colonists in an alarm system chain to give advance warning for protecting the rebel arsenal in Concord.
Sarah Palin would've shot all those Lobsterbacks good, though, one by one.
Video at link. I got this from one of my Facebook "friends".
Who said this? Sarah Palin?
Ahem. Well, this is quite baroque!
Ugh...
As long as I can ask Obama on what Hill was the Battle of Bunker Hill fought?
Here's what happened the night of April 18th, 1775:
The atmosphere was tense, word of General Gage's intentions spread through Boston prompting the patriots to set up a messaging system to alert the countryside of any advance of British troops. Paul Revere arranged for a signal to be sent by lantern from the steeple of North Church - one if by land, two if by sea. On the night of April 18, 1775 the lantern's alarm sent Revere, William Dawes and other riders on the road to spread the news. The messengers cried out the alarm, awakening every house, warning of the British column making its way towards Lexington. In the rider's wake there erupted the peeling of church bells, the beating of drums and the roar of gun shots - all announcing the danger and calling the local militias to action.Source: Eyewitness to History, Battle at Lexington Green, 1775
The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
1807-1882
Written April 19, 1860; first published in 1863 as part of “Tales of a Wayside Inn”
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”
Then he said “Good-night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,-—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;=
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,-—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
Right...and at least she didn’t do to Monticello and ask who that bust of George Washington was...a la Clinton and Gore !!
Unfortunately any good that come out of the tour will be diminished by a stumbling version of a pretty famous story. Or at least the media will play this up pretty big. Another ‘gotcha moment’.
bvd... that is the best post of the day.
To be fair, we’d need to hear the audio.
“W”. Mrs. Palin’s words completely describe the events of the night, up to the battle at Concord.
There's video and audio at the Gawker site. The text is accurate. Though I'm wondering if she's just relating what she heard during the tour.
There's no identification of the news source so I'm wondering who was capturing the video.
The audio is at the link.
I love Sarah Palin, and agree with almost everything she stands for, but this is more than just a gotcha moment. This is just inexcusible for anyone potentially seeking the presidency. If Biden said this, we’d be rightly all over him (and he has a track record of being even more clueless on our history). These are the types of unscripted moments that are having me cool to Sarah and warm more and more to Herman. I can see more of these gaffs being detrimental to her as her potential campaign gears up.
Now... wait a minute...
what’s going on there? you can’t just post that with no explanation!
Look alikes are showing up at Palin rallies.
Seriously, if they weren’t side by side to compare build, I really wouldn’t be able to tell her from the real one!
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