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Jewish World Review June 8, 2011 / 6 Sivan, 5771 That ‘twit’ knows her history --- and continues to outsmart the media By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The dimwit ditz has struck again. The anchors on the cable news shows could barely contain their glee as they reported on Sarah Palin's latest gaffe.
As the former Alaska governor emerged with her family from a visit to the Old North Church in Boston, reporters asked her if she knew who Paul Revere was.
"He who warned the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms," Ms. Palin responded.
"Of course, Revere was in fact trying to warning Samuel Adams and John Hancock about the approaching British army," said Sheila Marikar of ABC News. "Had he warned the people with whom America was at war, Palin's bus tour through the Northeast might have chugged through the Northeast on the left side of the road."
Ms. Palin is a "ninny pretending to be a leader of this country without having much understanding of history," said Rick Ungar of Forbes magazine.
Liberal snarking was interrupted when historians said Sarah Palin was right. Toward the end of his ride Paul Revere was detained by the British, and - as Mr. Revere said in his 1798 account- he warned them "there would be 500 Americans there in a short time because I had alarmed the Country all the way up."
"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 are marching down the countryside they hear church bells ringing - she was right about that - and warning shots being fired. That's accurate," Boston University history professor Brendan McConville told the Boston Herald.
This isn't the first time liberal snark about Ms. Palin's alleged historical ignorance has backfired. At a Tea Party rally in Nevada last October, she cautioned that it was too early "to party like its 1773."
"OMG, will this blithering idiot ever shut up?" said liberal blogger Markos Moulitsas (Daily Kos). Surely everyone knows the American Revolution began in 1775. Gwen Ifill of PBS was among the snarkers.
Ms. Palin was speaking at a Tea Party rally. She knew - as her critics evidently did not - that the Boston Tea Party took place in 1773.
Ms. Palin should expect no apologies. To acknowledge they have falsely maligned a person with whom they disagree politically requires a fundamental decency most liberals lack.
The visit to the Old North Church was part of a bus tour the Palin family took of historic sites in the Northeast. Coverage of it illustrated the eagerness of journalists to say something critical of Ms. Palin, no matter how flimsy the pretext.
The tour began with a visit to the Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally over the Memorial Day weekend. MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell reported, incorrectly, that Ms. Palin hadn't been invited to attend.
The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan wondered why Piper, the Palins' youngest daughter, wasn't in school. (Had he done a little checking before mouthing off, Mr. Sullivan would have learned summer vacation for students in Alaska already had begun.)
MSNBC anchor Martin Bashir asserted the American flag painted on the Palin bus might be illegal. This was both ridiculous, and a criticism Mr. Bashir has never made of President Barack Obama, who displays the flag prominently in his campaign materials (as do most other politicians).
What really frosted journalists was Ms. Palin's unwillingness to give them an itinerary of her bus tour. Some complained this endangered their lives by forcing them to chase after her bus. These journalists were trying to demean her, but it was they who came off as whiny and petulant.
"Palin hasn't conducted a listening tour so much as much as a lesson for observers to see how the media treat her, and the spectacle belongs solely to them," said Web logger Ed Morrissey (Hot Air).
The spectacle was because journalists suspect the bus tour is a precursor to a presidential run by Ms. Palin. If so, it was shrewd of her to use it both to embarrass her critics in the news media, and to overshadow the formal entrance into the race of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who likely would be her most formidable opponent if she does run.
If liberal journalists were more introspective than they are, they would reflect on why it is that a woman they regard as so stupid seems to outsmart them so often.
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JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration.
© 2009, Jack Kelly |
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