Could Sarah Palin have been right on when she described her idea of the famous midnight ride of Paul Revere?Say what? Yep, I read it on, of all places, the MSNBC website. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43285196/ns/politics/ [Scroll to the bottom and click on "Show more text"]
WHAT DID YOU (AND I) LEARN ABOUT PAUL REVERE'S RIDE?
Pretty much the story as told by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, http://poetry.eserver.org/paul-revere.html
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, ...
"..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."
... 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.
... It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.... It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.... It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.... So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarmTo every Middlesex village and farm,---...
Do you remember anything else?
SARAH PALIN'S VERSION
The MSNBC site linked above quotes her as saying:
"He who warned the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms by ringing those bells, and makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed."
Say what? Did you ever hear that Paul Revere WARNED the BRITISH ??? And RINGING THOSE BELLS ??? And, we were going to be FREE and ARMED ???
Where did she get that from?
OK, if you go to that linked MSNBC site, scroll to the bottom and then click on "Show more text", you will read:
... Revere did give up some details of the plan to the British that night, but after he had notified other colonists, and under questioning by British soldiers ... Revere revealed "there would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the Country all the way up," ...
So, Paul Revere, in essence WARNED the British soldiers who questioned him after his ride, that there would soon be FIVE HUNDRED AMERICANS, ARMED and ready to protect our freedom.
And, during his ride through all those towns and villages, how did Paul Revere alert all those sleeping Americans? Did he go from house to house and wake them all up?
Of course not, he went to each Church, roused the keeper, and, by the sound of the Church bells, awoke and alerted everybody, informing them of the message he had received via the two signal lanterns hung in the Bell Tower of the Old North Church.
And, what was the main purpose of the British advance up through Medford and Lexington towards Concord? Well, it was to attempt to confiscate the stash of arms hidden there.
That explains this stanza in Longfellow's poem:
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.
Ira Glickstein
PS: Sarah Palin is mocked for the slightest error or apparent error. At the same time, our President, arguably the most academically intelligent leader we have ever had, can write "24 May 2008" (a couple weeks ago in Westminster Abbey) as the date and year when it was actually 2011. The President forgets the YEAR, which is certainly more important for anyone to know than the story of Paul Revere, and Sarah Palin gets busted for her short-hand answer about the REAL story of Paul Revere warning the British and sounding the bells. Media bias? You Betcha! Amazing! http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=302953
...
Ira, your 700 word analysis of political sniping about Palin misses her problems. All biases have their reasons. One reason we pick on Palin is explained by this cartoon. There are others.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Howard for confirming your elitist view that Sarah Palin is a total airhead.
ReplyDeleteShe said: "[Revere] warned the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms by ringing those bells, and makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed.
A mangled version of the Paul Revere story? "warned the British" I put that down as a simple slip of the tongue, meaning to say "British Colonists" as when President Obama said there were "57 states", "warning shots and bells" as a slip of the brain, meaning "the shot heard round the world" and the signal from the Bell Tower of the Old North Church as when President Obama wrote "2008" when he knew it was "2011". And the part about "takin' away our arms" was just gun-rights talk.
However, unlike some people who get their news from only one source that is friendly to their biases, I do have an MSNBC App on my iPad 2 (along with Drudge and Fox News and CNN and others). So, when MSNBC reported that Revere had actually been apprehended by a British patrol towards the end of his ride, and had warned them that he had "alarmed the Country all the way up" and "and I should have 500 men there soon" I realized that Sarah Palin had learned a more detailed version than I knew.
1) It is impossible to believe that anyone educated in the US would not know the standard Paul Revere story, at least at the level of the Longfellow poem. Therefore, Sarah Palin knew the story. She may have mangled it, but she had heard that story.
2) The fact she knew about warning the British was intriguing. I think of myself as being well-informed about American history and had never heard that part. There it was in a letter written in Revere's own hand!
3) As I thought the matter through, and read and re-read the history and the Longfellow poem, I noticed there was no mention of why the British were marching to Lexington and Concord. Did you learn why when that lesson was given to you years ago? I did not, nor, till now, did I even think to ask.
4) Palin said Revere and the others involved in his "riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells" did so to counter the British and show them "that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms".
5) So, right there in Revere's letter, near the beginning, it says "there was a number of Soldiers, composed of Light troops, & Grenadiers, marching to the bottom of the Common, where was a number of Boats to receive them; it was supposed, that they were going to Lexington, by the way of Cambridge River, to take them or go to Concord, to distroy the Colony Stores." Wow! There was a cache of arms hidden in Concord and informers told the British, and they were on a mission to, in Sarah's words to "be takin' away our arms.
Bottom Line: Sarah Palin is not any kind of historian, but, amazingly, she, in a few somewhat mangled words, passed right over the SURFACE story we all know, and got down to what Paul Harvey would have called THE REST OF THE STORY.
WHY the British were coming. To take away our arms.
THAT the British were warned by Paul Revere. Threatening them with 500 armed men who were on their way.
Oh, and what about the bells and the shots? Well, if you do a little research you will learn that, in Colonial Times, FIRE ALARMS were sounded by ringing church bells and firing shots. What better way to alert the sleeping Patriots than rousing the church keepers along the main road and having them ring those bells and fire those shots?
Ira Glickstein
Ira, I was only explaining why Palin has problems, that is, why she is perceived by many people and the media as not having the weight (gravitas) judgment, or experience to be president. Most Republicans apparently agree according to polls.
ReplyDeleteI was not stating my personal opinion of her. I think she is doing great job at whatever she thinks she is doing!. She probably has a higher intelligence and sharper wit than any of the current Republican potential candidates ― but intelligence is not enough
Howard wrote, about Sarah Palin: "She probably has a higher intelligence and sharper wit than any of the current Republican potential candidates ― but intelligence is not enough."
ReplyDeleteI agree with the last part completely. Our current President is certainly smart, perhaps with higher academic intelligence than many former presidents. But, as you say, raw intelligence is "not enough" when uninformed by real-world experiences of administering some level of government and/or as entrepreneur and/or executive of a business.
On the other hand, although I have high respect for Palin, and would strongly support her against President Obama in the unlikely event she gets the GOP nomination, she is not my first or second choice in the current Republican primary race. I've read her great book Going Rogue as well as an anti-Palin book Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin and have also read through part of the trove of Palin emails recently released by Alaska. Therefore, I think I know her about as well as anyone who has never met her in person. I think she will be most useful as "kingmaker" rather than candidate. I hope she continues to arouse our base and our Tea Party allies and, during the election, to get out the vote.
My favorite continues to be Mitt Romney (whose hand I shook when he spoke here at The Villages, FL, in 2008). I'm also impressed by Tim Pawlenty who did well in a tough interview today with Chris Wallace and Gary Johnson who has some interesting ideas and was on the most recent Stossel show. I guess I like fairly moderate Republicans who have done well when they were governors. They are also more electable than some of the candidates who are further to the right.
Ira Glickstein
HOW DO YOU KNOW OBAMA IS SMART.HAS ANYBODY SEEN HIS "IQ" SCORE?HAS ANY BODY SEEN ANY OF HIS GRADES FROM COLUMBIA OR HARVARD?HAS ANYBODY MONITORED THE THE RESULT OF HIS POLICIES.DO YOU KNOW HE CLAIMED TO HAVE CAMPAIGNED IN 57 STATES AND ONLY HAD TWO TO GO?WHERE IS THE EMPIRACLE EVIDENCE OF HIS INTELLECT?
ReplyDeleteERIC: Thanks for your comments. In the second comment in this thread, I mentioned "a simple slip of the tongue,... as when President Obama said there were '57 states', [and] a slip of the brain, ... as when President Obama wrote '2008' when he knew it was '2011'." So, you are correct, President Obama has messed up the facts more than once.
ReplyDeleteIt is a human tendency to judge others by surface appearances before we know them more deeply. Thus, factual errors, as you and I mentioned, may be counted against Obama for getting the year or the number of states wrong, or Congresswoman Michele Bachmann when she misplaced Concord in Vermont, or comments here on the Blog that are all in upper case and include spelling errors.
On the other hand, when we have a chance to hear and read more substantive words by a politician, or to converse with a person while bicycling dozens of miles with him, we adjust our evaluations accordingly.
As for Obama's native intelligence, although I disagree with many of his policies, and wish he had some real administrative and business experience, I don't have to know his exact grades from Columbia or Harvard to know his intellect is way above average.
I guess it is possible his admission and graduation from those prestigious colleges was due to "affirmative action" and his election as president of the Harvard Law Review was some kind of racial preference, but I prefer to believe he really deserved those honors and earned his degrees.
In all his interviews on TV (including the one with Bill O'Reilly) he demonstrated that he was smart, well-spoken, and had an excellent command of facts and reasoned argument. And, for me at least, those intellectual qualities came through even though his underlying assumptions were misplaced, due to his experiences in life, his far-left friends and associates, and his work as a community organizer.
Yes, many of his conclusions are starkly at odds with mine, but, I can understand how his (wrong) assumptions lead, via a reasoned path, to his (wrong) conclusions.
I look forward to further comments by you on this Blog because I support a wide diversity of opinion here.
Ira Glickstein
IRA,PARROTS CAN BE "WELL SPOKEN".IT DOESN'T FOLLOW THAT THEY ARE INTELLECTUALLY ADVANCED.I'M A SIMPLE GUY,I BELIEVE THAT INTELLIGENCE IS DEMONSTRATED BY THE ABILITY TO OBSERVE EVENTS, ANALYZE THE CAUSE AND EFFECT OF THE OBSERVED EVENT AND THEN COME TO LOGICAL CONCLUSIONS.I DON'T THINK THAT OBAMA HAS HAD AN ORIGINAL THOUGHT IN HIS ADULT LIFE.HE OPERATES ON EMOTION(SOCIAL JUSTICE)RATHER THAN INTELLECT.A VERY BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF HISTORY AND HUMAN NATURE WOULD HAVE INFORMED HIM THE HIS STIMULUS WOULD NOT WORK AND THAT HIS COLLECTIVIST LEANINGS HAVE FAILED EVERY TIME THEY HAVE BEEN TRIED.IF HE KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT AMERICAN HISTORY HE WOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT THE PILGRIMS ALMOST STARVED AND FROZE TO DEATH DURING THEIR FIRST YEAR IN AMERICA DUE TO THEIR COLLECTIVIST POLICIES.IT WAS ONLY AFTER THEY ADOPTED PRIVET OWNERSHIP THE FOLLOWING YEAR THAT THEY BEGAN TO THRIVE.AS YOU STATED,OBAMA WAS RAISED,NURTURED AND MENTORED BY FAR LEFT LEANING ADULTS.
ReplyDeleteIF OBAMA REALLY HAD INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY AND ABILITY HE WOULD NOT BE LEADING OUR NATION OVER AN ECONOMIC CLIFF.HE WOULD NOT BLINDLY ACCEPT THE PRECEPTS AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES OF HIS MENTORS.
RONALD REAGAN STARTED ADULT LIFE AS A LIBERAL AND UNIONIST.HE SAW THE RESULTS OF LIBERAL POLICIES AND BECAME A CONSERVATIVE AND FREE MARKET SPOKESMAN.
HE ANALYZED THE CAUSE AND EFFECTS OF LIBERALISM AND CAME UP WITH NEW THINKING THAT LED HIM TO CONSERVATISM.HE HAD AN OPEN MIND AND BASED HIS ACTIONS ON OBSERVABLE RESULTS RATHER THAN EMOTIONAL HOPES.
ERIC
ERIC, I think you are making the same error - looking at only surface appearances and only through your personal political viewpoints - as those who judged Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and others on the right as intellectually lacking, or worse, simply because their world view did not coincide with that of the main stream liberal establishment.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a young engineer, I was sent by my IBM manager in New York to work on a project with a Texas aircraft company. I was immediately struck by the fact the Texas engineers did not interrupt me when I was speaking, that they seemed to wait too long to reply when I was done, and, when they did speak, it was (for me) at a painfully slow pace. Now, when I was brought up in Brooklyn, the only people who spoke and acted like that were stupid, or mentally handicapped, or both. Well, it did not take me too long to realize that these guys were just as smart and knowledgeable as I was - perhaps more so - and that I was wrong to judge them by Brooklyn standards.
I think you do yourself a disservice if you believe President Obama and the whole liberal establishment are "parrots" or merely emotional about social justice, or ignorant of history, or lack intellectual curiosity. If our GOP takes that view, we will never regain the Presidency and the Senate, nor will we keep the House. These folks are as smart as we are, and as well educated. They just have a different viewpoint of the world that leads them to - in our opinion - misjudge human nature and market-based economy and the right role of government and so on.
Ira Glickstein