Sarah Palin, Paul Revere, and Propaganda

Did you hear?  Sarah Palin is an idiot.  If you haven't heard that, it means you've been stuck on a deserted island for the last three years or so.  Across the Internet, across the blogosphere, across the cable news outlets, a story has brewed that rivals Dan Quayle's infamous potato disaster.  Ah yes, I remember that well.  Dan Quayle misspelled potato, and for weeks we heard discussion after discussion, joke after joke.  Because obviously none of us, nor those making fun of Quayle, have ever, ever made a mistake before.

So fast forward to today, where obviously people still never say anything wrong.  Ever.  In our speeches, our talks, our conversations, our off the cuff remarks, we nail it 100% of the time.  No doctoral thesis was ever so exact as our most casual dialogue with a friend at a ballgame.  I have to assume this, because the premise of the attacks on Palin, versus what actually happened, appear to be somewhat different.

The premise is this: Sarah Palin, who we all know to be a mindless dolt, completely flubbed up the story of Paul Revere.  Remember him?  If you've studied American History in the last couple decades, you could be forgiven for not knowing the story.  But despite a deficiency in our historical curriculum, apparently there are legions of Revere scholars out there ready to scoff at Palin's deplorable mauling of Revere's famous ride.

OK, that's what most headlines and commentaries are saying.  But now let's unpack this.  First, watch the video on The Upshot's page here, or watch it here on Mediaite, which shows CNN's Brooke Baldwin dumbfounded by Palin's take. 

Now, are you finished?  Did you watch them?  The one on Mediaite is best, for its shows that this was not a speech, or a prepared lesson, or a formal dissertation.  It wasn't even an interview.  It was an off the cuff response to something said or asked that I have yet to see on any of the videos covering this.  Was she asked something?  Did someone say something?  I don't know.  But it's clear that she is simply talking off the top of her head, giving a reason for being there in Boston with her whole express tour.  That's important, because the first attacks stories I saw gave me the impression that this was some formal response to a question in an interview, or something said during a speech.  It wasn't. 

Second, let's consider the subtitles.  Yes, subtitles.  Even though I can understand what she said, just about every attack story has included the subtitles, or text, or transcript (pick your favorite term) of what she said.  Here it is, in case you missed it:

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.

A couple of things.  First, take any talk or speech other than the most disciplined, well written and well delivered speech (like one of Palin's prepared speeches), and you can make just about anyone look bad.  I spent much of my life as an evangelical pastor preaching extemporaneously.  At the time, my messages could be rousing, and were often well received.  But when I listened to them, or watched a video, or worse, read a transcript it could be bone chilling.  Every pause, hiccup, um, uh, you know, was there to see.  That's true with all but the greatest speakers, and in casual conversation, maybe even them.  Take the next time President Obama is saying something off the top of his head, include every um and uh, and see how it makes him look.

Also, there is the big - BIG - issue that everyone is ultimately focusing on: that she said Revere came to warn the British.  Now, we all know that Revere would never have said 'The British are coming!" because the colonists at that time still considered themselves British loyal to the crown of England.  Most likely the Regulars, or the Red Coats.  But here, Palin seems to say Revere came to warn the British.   I figure that can go two ways.  When George H.W. Bush said, in a speech, that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1981, I saw several news stories and comedians making fun of it.  But it was so obviously wrong - the guy lived then and fought in WWII - I had a feeling he really didn't think it was 1981, that he actually knew it was 1941. 

Likewise, since the gist of Palin seems to be to use Revere's ride to make a point about warning against the potential future loss of our freedoms, and since I doubt she thinks that Revere was working for England, and that the Colonials were the baddies, I'm inclined to assume it was a verbal typo, she meant something more like 'he warned that the British', or something of the sort.  Of course technically, she would be correct, since we all know that the Colonists were actually British citizens, which is why he would never have said, "The Britihs are coming!" But that's probably giving Palin more credit than most will give her.  No, I'm willing to assume a mere mistake, one that people make when speaking over and over and over and over again.

Another thing?  Well, the other 'problems' are a bit fuzzy, since there really isn't anything else to jump on, even if you read that horrible sounding transcript.  The most hilariously 'Look at me!  I'm an idiot trying to prove how dumb Palin is by saying bone headed nonsense!' account is from Frances Martel over at Mediaite:

Palin’s version wasn’t exactly the official History Channel rendition of the tale, and she delivered it in a somewhat stumbling fashion, but the thing about the Midnight Ride is that it is precisely the sort of historic event where everyone seems to have it wrong. For one, Revere didn’t warn the British were out to take anyone’s arms, as he didn’t yell out “the British are coming!”, as the myth goes. He had to be quiet to not let the British know that he knew (sorry, but no bells either) they were coming– to seize weapons stores, actually– and history notes that his warning was likely something far less epic-sounding, like “the Regulars are coming.”

Wow, where to begin.  First, that Martel uses the History Channel as a standard of historical accuracy alone speaks volumes.  Second, we've already covered that Palin probably didn't mean Revere was warning the British.  Though if you notice, Martel doesn't take that interpretation, but seems to think Palin is falling back on the old 'The British are coming" version.  Uh oh.  Over at Outlook, they make it clear that Palin is saying he was warning the British!  Oh no.  Looks like we have a classic case of 'We know she's stupid so she must have said something stupid.  Now let's figure out what it was."

Then he says Revere would have been quiet.  Well yeah, to a point.  Perhaps, just maybe, Palin was using figurative language when she spoke of ringing bells and firing shots into the air.  Maybe she was just hoping to inspire more psychotic killers to go on rampages.  You never know.  I'm surprised someone hasn't come up with that spin.  No, there's just not much to see here.  She stumbled some, and bumbled a little.  They all do that.  We all do that.  Who hasn't, once or twice in their lives, gotten their tongues tied trying to say something? 

Could she have thought it?  Could she think that Paul Revere was really going out and literally ringing bells and firing shots in order to warn the British that the British were coming (meaning all the wrong things about the British in the process) to take away their First Amendment Rights?  Sure.  But unless she confirms that is what she meant, I'm going with she was trying to use colorful speech to apply the lesson of Revere's ride to our modern situation as she sees it.  She got a little tongue tied in the process, used common verbal tics that people who aren't trained in public speaking often use (and those who are sometimes use in casual conversation), and she misspoke about who Revere was trying to warn.

All in all, nothing more than Obama's um and uhs, Bush's 1981, or Dan Quayle's potato.  Maybe not the most eloquent speakers, but hardly a basis for dismissing their intelligence. Of course, if you already don't like them, it's all you need to justify your dislike.  If you like them, or try to be real about things, you see them as the simple mistakes and imperfections that they are.  And like most things, how you react to this probably speaks volumes for what you think about the subject in the first place.