Patterico's Pontifications

6/3/2011

Does It Ever Cross Their Mind That Sarah Palin Might Actually Know Something?!

Filed under: General — Aaron Worthing @ 5:38 pm



[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.  Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

I barely have to write the post this time.  Did you hear?  Sarah Palin is sooooo stupid.  She believed that Paul Revere warned the British.  Here, watch:

Think Progress sniffs:

As Mediaite’s Frances Martel notes, Palin’s version “wasn’t exactly the official History Channel rendition.” It’s hard to imagine why Revere would warn the British of anything, or why he’d do it with bells and gun shots.

And as you can see, so did Frances Martel.  So did Nicole Belle of the eponymous Crooks and Liars:

Can we all just breathe a collective sigh of relief that this is not the person one heartbeat away from the Oval Office?

And Gawker:

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 arm

Greg Sergeant:

Everyone has already had a grand old time mocking this video of Sarah Palin bungling her Paul Revere history, but I actually think it amounts to quite an eloquent statement. It’s as eloquent an argument as anyone could make that this woman really should not be treated by any of us as anything resembling a presidential candidate until it’s absolutely necessary — which is to say, until she actually runs for president.

And another two-fer, Steve Benen quoting another:

In case anyone needs a refresher, Tim Murphy explained, “This is actually the opposite of everything Paul Revere did.”

And Digby:

How can it possibly be that even one person in this country considers this person qualified for the presidency.

And I will break the embargo on linking to Politico, to quote Ben Smith:

Palin makes Bachmann look like Longfellow

Joe Gandelman, of the Moderate Voice:

DRAT! Why did I spend so much time studying history at Amity High School in Woodbridge, Connecticut when I could have made up my own version and gotten away with it.

Kathy from Comments from Left Field:

the news would be if she said anything about American history or foreign policy or ANYthing that made sense, right?

—————————-

Sidebar: You know where I am going with this, right?  Right?

—————————–

BooMan, who admits he doesn’t really remember very much of the history:

Paul Revere did not warn the British about anything.

Talking Points Memo’s Eric Lach:

Sarah Palin Offers Novel Take On Paul Revere’s Ride

Rick Ungar of Forbes Magazine:

While I had been led to believe that Revere’s historic ride was actually for the purpose of warning our forefathers that the British were coming, it turns out that his midnight ride, complete with ringing bells and warning shots, was really all about letting the English know that we were armed.

Andrew Malcolm of the LA Times just calls it a gaffe.  The Hill writes:

She makes history come alive, doesn’t she?

ABC’s The Note’s Sheila Marikar:

Perhaps this week’s lesson in the annals of American history was necessary for Sarah Palin.

USA Today:

Sarah Palin apparently flubbed details of Paul Revere’s famous midnight ride when she visited Boston yesterday.

The former Alaska governor, who may or may not be running for the GOP presidential nomination, thought Revere was warning the British army during the Revolutionary War.

Salon:

Sarah Palin treated her audience to a litte American history (“little” being the operative word)

Alan Colmes sniggered.  And Dennis DiClaudio writes:

Suck on that, history teachers! That’s how you tell a story about this great land that is called America! You may say that that’s pretty much the exact opposite of what actually happened in real life, but I say that you’re a not-real American and a possible traitor (and maybe a future tenant of Gitmo).

———————

I think that is just about everyone.

And gosh, isn’t that funny how stupid she is. Aren’t all those liberals clearly her superior in both intelligence and knowledge?

Um, really, you know where this is going right?

Well, Professor Jacobson points out that she was right.  Paul Revere did warn the British.

Oh, and I saved New York Magazine’s Dan Amira’s snit for last because it is now so ironic:

Many Americans think they have a solid understanding of the country’s founding. No taxation without representation, tea party, Boston Massacre, George Washington, all that jazz. But, not surprisingly, Über-patriot Sarah Palin knows more than the average American. In fact, she may have more expertise on the subject than anybody else. For example, yesterday she revealed some heretofore unknown facts about Paul Revere’s midnight ride. Did you know that he was actually warning the British, through the repeated ringin’ of bells?

But if you have been following this blog long enough, you know I already wrote the post months ago.  As I said here:

To pre-judge a person is to literally “judge before.”  Before what?  Before it is appropriate, before you have all the facts.  Of course normally we think of prejudice as being based on specific traits.  Racial prejudice is to judge a man by his skin color, rather than getting enough facts to judge him as an individual.  But it can be based on anything.

Take for instance, Sarah Palin.  Liberals have convinced themselves that Palin is a moron.  So when Sarah Palin told a crowd of Tea Partiers that it was too soon to “party like its 1773” liberals freaked out.  OMG, she is so stupid.  Doesn’t she know the American Revolution was in 1776? As well documented by Cuffy Meigs, Markos Moulitsas, Gwen Ifil (who moderated Palin’s debate with Joe Biden) and others mocked her in that fashion.

One guy, Steve Paulo showed enough introspection to wonder “WTF happened in 1773?!”  Well, hey, I was a history major, but I couldn’t rattle off every event of any year, 1773 or otherwise.  But I can google.  As of this moment the first link I get is this.  You only have to page down once to discover that in December of that year was the original Boston Tea Party.  You know, the event that the Tea Party is self-consciously invoking with its very name?  Yeah, that one.

This is frankly a textbook case of someone believing their own propaganda.  They have spent the last few years convincing themselves that Palin is stupid and uneducated and they have forgotten that this simply isn’t true.  She isn’t dumb.  She’s just a down-to-earth woman with a funny accent.  And if you keep acting like she is dumb, you’re going to keep making yourself look stupid.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

UPDATE BY PATTERICO: God help me, I think I agree with happyfeet on Sarah Palin . . . on this one: this didn’t really have that masterstroke kind of feel. I don’t think it’s right to lump it in with the “Party like it’s 1773” situation, where her critics did indeed look stupid even as they claimed she was. To me, she sounds kind of incoherent in this clip. But as Dennis Miller says: that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

234 Responses to “Does It Ever Cross Their Mind That Sarah Palin Might Actually Know Something?!”

  1. not-dumb is not the same as presidential

    I mean it didn’t used to be

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  2. who isn’t dumb is Ke$ha, for example

    not by a long shot

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  3. Palin said he was warning the British by ringing bells, but that’s not what happened. It’s true that Revere told the British that Colonials were amassing for a fight. But the point to his ride was to warn the Colonials, not the British.

    Chuck Bartowski (e84e27)

  4. But the point to his ride was to warn the Colonials, not the British.

    Correct. But once he was captured by the British, Revere did warn them they would be met by armed resistance from the colonists. Palin’s comment was not the most articulate…perhaps on a level with many of those by Barack “57-states” Obama or the always eloquent Joe Biden.

    Nonetheless, Palin’s observation about warning the British has foundation. The ridicule of Palin by the left: not so much.

    navyvet (db5856)

  5. Hear the loud alarum bells –
    Brazen bells!
    What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells!

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  6. If you, Mr. Worthing, believe that this gaffe (look at her face, look at her eyes on the video, listen to her muffling and meandering response…apparently she knows something about herself that you don’t know)….if you believe this is evidence that Sarah Palin is more knowledgeable than most of the rest of us, many pertinent historians included, then you, too, have the right stuff to be the Republican nominee for president. Go for it. Get a bus and get on it.

    Larry Reilly (0e1b2d)

  7. Mr. Reilly:

    I seem to remember a similar “gaffe” leaped upon by the blogosphere from Mrs. Palin a while ago. Perhaps you remember it too?

    “Let’s party like it’s 1773?”

    You do remember that, don’t you?

    Keith (1291e2)

  8. Larry that was one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard.

    Billy Madison rules.

    DohBiden (15aa57)

  9. 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.

    that’s not a gaffe that’s the ultimate in wisdom … god she reminds me of Reagan! /sarc

    vor2 (0031b2)

  10. vor2 my bill madison reference applies to you too.

    DohBiden (15aa57)

  11. Warned the British….”by ringing those bells” ? When you put history in a blender, some of the phrases you use might even come out right.

    jvc (a3fab7)

  12. Imdw just cannot quit us.
    Larry Reilly the JournoLister will never let the facts get in the way of his narrative.

    JD (318f81)

  13. jvc

    Nothing she said was not factual, ringing those bells was surely telling the redcoats that these people were warned and armed

    Like today, there’s no problem with a rifle or two in every closet

    EricPWJohnson (9edf59)

  14. I wonder whether she deliberately included that in her comments, to mousetrap the lefties who constantly deride her, and make them look like idiots again.

    This whole bus tour seems to have been designed to tie the left-wing media into knots and make them look like fools.

    Steven Den Beste (99cfa1)

  15. this didn’t have that masterstroke kinda feel

    she sounded kinda tired like she was ready for a diet shasta

    don’t give her that so so soda

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  16. Mawy, and his little lab wat Voice of Unreason Too, just luv to prove Aaron’s point, don’t they?

    Icy Texan (aa6500)

  17. It’s particularly telling when they edit in “uhs” into Palin’s comments, but remove them from Obama’s.

    Palin’s right. Revere warned the British, the same way the Tea Partiers are warning the antifederalists today.

    Is the Tea Party trying to reach only Tea Partiers, or is it really trying to inform the government that enough is enough, and be warned we’re going to do what we can on election day to change the tide?

    Sure, the MSM will refuse to give her an inch. They certainly didn’t apologize to Palin for bashing her 1773 point. She’s not just stump speeching moronic ‘fired up, ready to go!’ nothings or ‘hope and change’ or ‘we are the ones we’ve been waiting for’. She is actually communicating a meaningful point, which means some of the audience won’t have known the point before they show up. Otherwise, it’s just a dumb pep rally.

    The media simply do not understand what Palin is trying to do.

    It’s sad. They all act like Larry Reilly, really. After they keep making embarrassing mistakes of underestimating Palin, you’d think they would research her points before just asserting they are wrong.

    Revere warned the British. Hell, at the time of the revolution, we were all British. But he specifically warned the King’s faction that they were going to face a real revolution.

    Palin is warning the left that we are going to fundamentally restore our country.

    A whole lot of apologies are owed Palin over this. Why should she cooperate with the MSM at all at this point?

    What happens when Palin makes a real gaffe? She’s only human. What’s sad is half of the quotes above take a single point, which they assume was a simple gaffe like Obama makes repeatedly, and assert the person who made it deserves no respect whatsoever over it. Palin has to be absolutely perfect to get respect?

    Why?

    Happyfeet’s certainly right. The standard for the presidency should be higher than just being knowledgeable of history. However, in this climate, you have to be a partisan whore to get an ounce of respect, so most of the people with presidential character are simply weeded out. They either sign on to much of the establishment’s demands, like Romney’s support for ethanol subsidies or mandated insurance, or the media will eat you alive over any little excuse they can come up with.

    Under that climate, it’s more important that we change the basic rules than it is that we quixotically hope for a presidential person to survive long enough to be a presidential candidate.

    Every day I feel more likely to place a total vote of no confidence on this system by going for broke for Palin. That’s not something I’d do if I really believed in any of the other candidates, and I know this is begging for disaster.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  18. Mr. Feet, you seem like a Mr. Pibb kind of guy. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

    Simon Jester (843b0c)

  19. It’s particularly telling when they edit in “uhs” into Palin’s comments, but remove them from Obama’s.

    National Soros Radio actually edits sound clips to this effect

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  20. whaa? I’m a Texas pikachu Mr. Jester

    Dr. Pepper 10-2-4!

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  21. so many nights I sit by my window waiting for Mr. Ryan to sing me his song

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  22. You know whose also a fan of Dr. Pepper, pikachu?

    sarah palin (72470d)

  23. I wonder whether she deliberately included that in her comments, to mousetrap the lefties who constantly deride her, and make them look like idiots again.

    I think it’s deliberate, and I also think she’s having a pretty good time pushing lefty buttons as she sees just how easy it is to make them squeal.

    Clearly, she’s the one in the driver’s seat and the left/MSM, who are so unused to being dismissed as irrelevant, are becoming desperate in their gotcha attempts.

    Dana (4eca6e)

  24. Forget legal insurrections excuse. She was very clear in what she said.

    Revere’s ride not only alerted the Revolutionaries of an impending invasion in the instant, it also alerted the British in the abstract that they would have a fight. His ride meant more than a warning. It meant the Americans were serious. They were armed and intended to fight. I don’t know how to make that more clear. She is right and her words make that point.

    Look, Palin is not my candidate, but I’m by god thinking she could be, simply because of the “objective” media’s unrelenting assault on everything she says.

    Ag80 (1bc637)

  25. Alright, sock off, but why is it those ‘deemed’ to be the right candidates. like Romney, surrender on practically every point, from Romneycare to ethanol
    subsidies, to AGW. Some have shown a little more
    resoluteness, at least Huntsman has stated, give
    an alternative to the Ryan plan,

    Ryan, is an exceptional gifted candidate, yet the truth serves as no obstacle, to those who have demonized him, Same for Walker, whose personality
    would seem somewhat milquetoast, Kasich, our own
    Gov. Scott, who might have ‘bitten off more than he can chew,’

    ian cormac (72470d)

  26. Romney is a sad desperate man he’d have been a good pick to take over for Steve Carell on that office show

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  27. but why is it those ‘deemed’ to be the right candidates. like Romney, surrender on practically every point

    Well, Palin is particularly stubborn about it, and has a personality and following that is strong enough to make that stubbornness into a full fledged movement. So the opposition to Palin is intense. More than it would be against some other true conservative who is less of a real threat.

    But it really seems to me that we have a rule, as a society, that if you do not surrender on certain points the left really really likes, then you will be destroyed by the media. At some point, something will expose your imperfection. Your kid will do something, or you will make a verbal gaffe, or if you’re perfect, someone will just accuse you of something serious.

    Compare Joe Biden to Sarah Palin. Palin is much less prone to embarrassing gaffes. Her kids are far more impressive people, with far less scandal. She is a cleaner politician, with much more class and humility and actual honorable intention.

    And yet, 99% of Americans know nothing of Biden’s gaffes, his kids’ crimes, or Biden’s arrogance and dishonesty. Because he’s on the side of the MSM. Like Romney, though I don’t think Romney is anywhere near as bad as Biden. Or even bad at all. Romney is simply a smart politician, with the primary aim of success in politics, so he has calculated what he must say in order to avoid the Palin treatment.

    That’s the larger lesson. If we don’t stick up for Palin, then all the smart politicians will avoid being conservative enough to save this country, because they want to win elections.

    Dustin (c16eca)

  28. Comment by Icy Texan — 6/3/2011 @ 7:21 pm

    Your obsession with me is duly noted. Palin could fart and you would find the oracle of the ages in the sound….
    DenseTexan fits you better I think

    vor2 (0031b2)

  29. So …. the Paul Revere story is historical? I always took it to be at least partly legendary, the cultural echo of an Andy Griffith bit. I’d be skeptical of any account that isn’t backed up with contemporaneous original source docs: newspaper stories, diary entries, stuff like that.

    gp (12651d)

  30. Well I’ve shown you, some counterexamples, this whole wretched Wiener ‘matter’ I was going to use, affair, ‘but that wouldn’t be prudent,’ which has been the counterpart to her trip, such a feckless
    weasel.

    They say she is doing this for the money, right, well if she sold out her principles like Murkowski, she would have not only money but power as well.
    Yes, she’s come into some resources, but this seems
    a steep path to doing so.

    ian cormac (72470d)

  31. I’m thinking that the density equation may equal vor2 rather than icy.

    Regardless, we are suffering under the worst president since Buchanan and all the left has is criticizing Palin?

    What a worthless bunch of losers.

    Ag80 (1bc637)

  32. Look, I’m not sold on Palin, but she sure has all the right enemies…

    Any day now I expect to hear that Palin said the sun was going to set in the west, and the Media is howling about how dumb that makes her.

    Jeezus! What a bunch of simpletons.

    At this rate it might be worth voting her into the White House just to hear the wet *splorch* of heads exploding from coast to coast.

    C. S. P. Schofield (8b1968)

  33. Revere did ride with several others. Revere was captured by the British fairly early on. It is ironic that the least successful of the riders that night is the most famous, but for that we have to blame both Revere’s writings but even more the poet who wrote the best known account (inaccurate) (and many years later) of the evenings events.

    Have Blue (854a6e)

  34. Apparently, Sarah Palin has two new superpowers:

    –forcing liberals to demonstrate they haven’t bothered to read any actual history books not penned by “Oppression Studies” professors, and;

    –compelling happyfeet to make PDS-dripping comments every time her name is brought up.

    Oh wait–we already knew about that second superpower.

    M. Scott Eiland (0d2060)

  35. where did I make a dripping comment

    not in this thread I didn’t mister

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  36. The signal in towns & villages was the ringing of church bells to alert the Minutemen. And that was what Reveres job was…to alert the bell ringer.
    God, you petty ass kommiecrats are stupid

    serfer62 (de5ef0)

  37. I’m not a big Palin fan, but I do admire her willingness to get out there, but what I find odd is how people are making so much fun of her when she is actually correct about Paul Revere.

    Yes I know she stuttered a little but Paul Revere was assigned to inform the local militia when the British was coming, However most people seem to forget exactly why the British were coming, yes they were coming to to confiscate the militias Firearms and powder.

    Stupid Liberals.

    Jeff (ad4692)

  38. Leave it to gp to come up with a “fresh angle” on all of this.

    Icy Texan (aa6500)

  39. Anger issues on aisle 37.

    Icy Texan (aa6500)

  40. As a Democratic Party activist, I am as hard core a partisan as anyone.
    But I also warn my liberal friends to lay off the Palin-is-stupid meme, simply because it plays right into her strategy.

    Palin is the George Wallace of our time, posing as the populist Everywoman who is constantly under attack by the pointy headed libruls.

    The more the eggheads attack her, the more her fans love her, since she is running the politics of grievance.

    And you know what? Her fans ARE aggrieved. The white blue collar people who form her base are in fact under economic stress, and have experienced a loss of living standards over the past few decades. She is giving voice to their anger and anxiety, and pouncing on her verbal gaffes only sharpens their rage and resentment of the “elites”.

    My problem with Palin isn’t that she is stupid- its that she is a phony.

    She postures as a enemy of the “elites” yet who does she consider to be “elite”?
    College perfessors, tee vee pundits, newpaper reporters with fancy degrees.

    In other words, in Palin’s world, a sociology professor making 150K a year is “elite” but a Wall Street banker making 150 million is just a regular Joe.

    Every policy she favors- tax cuts for the rich, less business regulation, the shredding of the social compact- are things that directly hurt the very working class people who praise her, and benefit the economic top 1%.

    Liberty60 (aaf861)

  41. Your obsession with me is duly noted.
    — Whatever. Pointing out the silliness of statements like yours is what I do.

    Palin could fart and you would find the oracle of the ages in the sound….
    — OR, she could make a true statement, and those of us that are NOT partisan hacks will bravely acknowledge that truth.

    DenseTexan fits you better I think
    — “Icy” is a reference to ‘the cold hard truth’. Do not be afraid.

    Icy Texan (aa6500)

  42. “liberty” is kind of an idiot. It is a caricature of a parody.

    JD (318f81)

  43. Liberty shut up troll.

    And the scozzafava sycophant is over at hot air calling Palin a tax and spender.

    Someone get me a new irony meter.

    DohBiden (15aa57)

  44. Liberty is clearly right about one thing, though–having liberals criticize her for being stupid, only to have her proven right later, is definitely helping her and hurting them. One wonders if the aversion therapy that is resulting will sink in at some point.

    M. Scott Eiland (0d2060)

  45. I’ll be glad to mark this off as somewhat incoherent because it’s an extemporized answer to a question from the audience. But she did make it sound as if the purpose of Revere’s ride was to warn the British–which it wasn’t–it was to warn the militias north of Boston that the British were sending out a party,and to warn the folks at Concord that the British wanted to seize the cache of arms and ammo kept there (and incidentally, also warn John Hancock and a couple of others staying at Concord to get away because the British wanted to arrest them if they found them at Concord). If Revere’s plans had gone the way he wanted them to, he would not have been captured by the British and therefore never given them the warning.

    But as I said, this wasn’t a prepared remark, so a bit of awkward phrasing and incoherence can be expected even from the most eloquent of speakers. It’s not on the plane of Bachmann’s thinking the revolution started in New Hampshire, for which there could be no excuse. (Well, no excuse if you’re from Massachusetts, like I am. 🙂

    The Fischer book to which Legal Insurrection refers, btw, is good but nowhere great; his book about Washington’s crossing of the Delaware and the Battle of Trenton, on the other hand, should be required reading.

    kishnevi (d785be)

  46. Liberty60 if phunny!
    Palin is the George Wallace of our time, posing as the populist Everywoman
    — George “KKK” Wallace was a ‘populist Everyman’?

    The white blue collar people who form her base are in fact under economic stress, and have experienced a loss of living standards over the past few decades.
    — Do any of these “white blue collar people” own a cell phone? or a plasma tv? DVD player? a PC? Tivo? How much has the square footage of the average home INCREASED “over the past few decades”? Are they living longer?

    in Palin’s world, a sociology professor making 150K a year is “elite” but a Wall Street banker making 150 million is just a regular Joe.
    — Does telling a complete and total untruth make you feel better about yourself? Just askin’.

    Every policy she favors … are things that directly hurt the very working class people who praise her
    — Wow! She must be the best politician that EVER lived! To so completely pull the wool over so many pairs of eyes. Quite a feat.

    Icy Texan (aa6500)

  47. Liberty60, you are living proof of the stupidity of Democrats. You yammer about tax cuts for the rich when any idiot with a browser can easily discover that the top 1% pay 33% of the taxes and the top 5% pay 45%. The bottom 50% (your so-called “poor”) pay almost nothing (less than 4% of the total.

    You talk about tearing the social compact when shoving homosexuality, transgender lifestyles and every other sexual “choice” in the faces of Americans whether they want to be confronted by it or not.

    Nothing has hurt the working man more than Democrat policies. You have destroyed entire cities (Detroit, for example), stolen a good education from entire generations of minorities and bankrupted the country with your so-called concern for the working man.

    So please don’t lecture us about your compassion. We’re not buying it.

    As for the bells and guns, if the dummies who are calling Palin dummy would simply READ the damn record, they would find that Revere himself wrote that he stopped at every home and village along the way to warn the people. Well what the hell do you think those people did? RANG BELLS AND FIRED GUNS to spread the word that the Regulars were coming.

    Palin was right. You were wrong. But your hatred and hubris won’t allow you to admit it. Just like your hatred and hubris won’t allow you to admit that you have come very close to destroying this country.

    Who founded the KKK? The Democrats. And you have the temerity to lecture us about how much you care for black people? Do us all a favor and just STFU.

    Antimedia (f41333)

  48. In case nobody’s spotted it, Charles “Pureheart” Johnson jumped into the manure as well. After all, how could he resist a Sarah Palin bash?

    http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/38663_Video-_Sarah_Palin_Mangles_Paul_Revere_Story/comments/#ctop

    Darren (986c76)

  49. #48. I wonder if anyone is every going to NOT be an idiot when it comes to citing class warfare fuzzy math.

    If you cite a percentage of Income Tax paid by the top 1% of earners vs the bottom 50% of earners, we ALSO NEED their respective earning amounts of the pie…

    “the top 1% pay 33% of the taxes and the top 5% pay 45%. The bottom 50% pay less than 4% of the total.”
    The DATA LEFT OUT is what percentage of all income (if we’re talking income taxes only) does the top 1%, 5%, and bottom 50% make …?
    Furthermore, we should include all taxes, since local sate and federal are pretty much one gigantic sucking beast joined by many shared tentacles.

    So… I hear all these stats – that are UTTERLY WORTHLESS – only a fool could pretend to deduce something from them.
    Anyway I am on the internet… so now I’ll look.

    SiliconDoc (7ba52b)

  50. In 2006, the top quintile of households earned 55.7 percent of pretax income and paid 69.3 percent of federal taxes, while the top 1 percent of households earned 18.8 percent of income and paid 28.3 percent of taxes.
    http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/how-much-americans-actually-pay-in-taxes/

    It is the NYT claiming CBO data, so as far as it’s accuracy, I find it questionable, but it will be very difficult for the left lib60 to whine I believe.

    SiliconDoc (7ba52b)

  51. UPDATE BY PATTERICO: God help me, I think I agree with happyfeet on Sarah Palin . . . on this one: this didn’t really have that masterstroke kind of feel. I don’t think it’s right to lump it in with the “Party like it’s 1773” situation, where her critics did indeed look stupid even as they claimed she was. To me, she sounds kind of incoherent in this clip. But as Dennis Miller says: that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

    Patterico (135ea8)

  52. SiliconDoc, congratulations. You actually looked it up. Now that you know that the “rich” pay a higher percentage of taxes than the percentage of total earnings they “take”, perhaps you’d like to rethink your first response?

    Oh, and I apologize for not having written an essay on the subject, but then I did mention a browser, and you did do the research, and I was proven correct in my statements. So, on second thought, no, I won’t apologize.

    I’m not the one using class warfare, BTW. It’s the damn Democrats and their damn lies; tax cuts for the rich, GOP wants to kill medicare and all the other lies they routinely tell in their efforts to get the fools to buy their crap.

    Antimedia (f41333)

  53. Yeah, have an even better link from the libs – I understand you’re not using class warfare – I just get frustrated when meaningful ( the whole pie) stats aren’t used – as often stat and word smithing abounds.
    Anyway (sorry for kind of off topic too but it was brought up in context as a put down on Palin)

    ” The group also finds that in 2008 the share of total federal, state and local taxes paid by each income group was relatively close to the share of income that that group brings in, at least as compared to comparable 2006 numbers for effective federal tax rates: ”

    http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/just-how-progressive-is-the-tax-system/

    Those numbers from Citizens for Tax Justice — a liberal organization that advocates “fair taxes for middle- and low-income families”
    / show the lowest quintile pays the lowest percentage of income in taxes… in fact the three lowest quintiles up to 60% of all earners pay the lowest percentages of their income in all taxes.

    Looks to me like those in the top 10%-5% are getting the shaft a bit…. while the top 5% pays a far larger percentage of their income overall than the bottom 20%, next to 40%, and next fifth to 60%…

    YEP.

    SiliconDoc (7ba52b)

  54. But as Dennis Miller says: that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

    You most assuredly are.

    Spartan79 (fbcb22)

  55. #34

    Revere may have been the less successful of the two main riders, but he was the organizer of the whole thing. The credit properly belongs to him.

    R.D. (9f4430)

  56. As for Palin, I think she spoke poorly and mixed two parts of the story.

    First, we’ve already seen how Paul Revere ‘warned’ the Regulars not to keep going.

    Second, the Regulars were warned by events–as the riders keep going from town to town, the bells would toll, and drums would call the militiamen to arms.

    Palin spoke poorly.

    But the people who attacked Palin’s ignorance didn’t know the story to begin with, and should be ashamed of their smugness. And it wasn’t only leftists enjoying their undeserved sense of superiority.

    R.D. (9f4430)

  57. Does It Ever Cross Their Mind That Sarah Palin Might Actually Know Something?!

    Does The Pope regularly take a sh** in the woods?

    IgotBupkis, President, United Anarchist Society (c9dcd8)

  58. Warned the British….”by ringing those bells” ? When you put history in a blender, some of the phrases you use might even come out right.

    Ah, but if only the same were true of brains.

    The fact that it’s not is demonstrated amply by you.

    IgotBupkis, President, United Anarchist Society (c9dcd8)

  59. Ha! She is soo Stoopid. She actually believes that you can spend your way out of a financial mess – make money by spending more on credit., yeah that is….what? Oh that is our current president. Opps.

    On a related note – Michelle Obama said that she was proud of Paul Revere for the first time today….

    Californio (987cd2)

  60. Sarah Palin is always right.

    QED.

    Spinning for Palin is exhausting and demeaning. Not ashamed to admit I indulged in 2008 to stop Obama, happy to not do it anymore. Not voting for her in 2012, period.

    kelseycree (e431a6)

  61. This is less about Palin and more about the idiots who jumped on the “Revere warned the British” line as being false.

    She and every Republican should be well aware by now that editing will never be favorable for our side.

    Estragon (ec6a4b)

  62. Actually, I don’t think Sarah Palin did know all that history, I just think she made a mistake…if in fact she did know, she could have been a lot clearer in her comments and then conservatives would not feel the need {again} to defend her. Either way…she has opened up herself up again for criticism and it is getting tiresome. She could make some prepared and short remarks that made sense and were historically accurate. This is just getting silly..if it is not the grammar, it is the syntax and then there is the content. I mean come on. She needs to get it together.

    Terrye (007c3b)

  63. Palin would not be my first choice in ’12. Funny, though, by the time my primary vote down here in Texas comes along my first couple of choices have already been knocked out of the race.

    I will say this, if Palin is the nominee I’ll be working for her hell bent for leather. We need to get rid of this bunch of clowns in Washington and that means uniting behind a nominee. Or four more years of Holder and the TSA handraping six year olds.

    Peter (96971c)

  64. “I don’t think Sarah Palin did know all that history, I just think she made a mistake…if in fact she did know, she could have been a lot clearer”

    Seems strange how many want to take that point of view. When you know the whole story what she said was accurate in a book jacket blurb sort of way, more jazz riff than linear plot summary.

    Hey it’s okay to be a strictly linear thinker, it’s not okay to use that limitation as a substitute for valid criticism.

    boris (d9319d)

  65. Longfellow wrote about Paul Revere because they were related. he wrote the “family/Revere’s” version of that night. For a diferent view of Revere’s contributions to the Revolution, I suggest checking out his later exploits as a artillery commander in the Massachusetts milita. Particulary, his performance against the British in the Maine expedition.

    Michael M. Keohane (4f1258)

  66. Terrye

    Lincoln had a high pitched girlie voice that made conservatives want to strangle him, some said he had the diction of a dying hog

    He was Fu@king ugly too

    Somehow it got lost in translation

    It was the moments that made the man

    If Palin’s going to win she needs to reinforce her committment to those ideals she is spouting left and right on the “circuit”

    If she gets into the debates – they are her’s to lose – her place in history is not in a bus, its in front of the podium of the People

    EricPWJohnson (50a1a3)

  67. This election will be all about emotion, we are an emotional people, a passionate populus

    People, (I will), look for the fire that was there that first night that has eluded her since

    Reagan was an emotional movement, only president I saw in person that made people tear up.

    He reminded everyone about the best things and promised the best times were coming.

    Palin is way off this wagon lately, she needs to return to what America needs – a leader who believes that the best days are not a slogan a vision – but a reality (oh and lower taxes)

    EricPWJohnson (50a1a3)

  68. Isn’t it ironic you supported scozzafava who was supported by militant tax and spenders but yet Palin and Tancredo are the bad guys.

    DohBiden (15aa57)

  69. and BTW I give you 13 months and you will decry tax cuts for the rich.

    DohBiden (15aa57)

  70. @Liberty60. #41

    Elitism has nothing to do with income. Your comparison of rich bankers vs intelligentsia misses the point. The elites that must be fought are the ones who would control our lives through mandates, regulations and propaganda.

    What you speak of is envy not liberty.

    neo (9c9068)

  71. I think the MSM/LSM (whatever) and the chattering Left would be wise to remember Palin’s nickname when she played high school basketball: “Sarah Barracuda”. The lady is a lot smarter than they give her credit for, is tough as nails, and can be ruthless. And it appears that she follows the motto attributed to the Kennedy family–“don’t get mad, get even” and has the patience to do it well.

    ExRat (3b46ff)

  72. Terrye (#63) writes “Actually, I don’t think Sarah Palin did know all that history”

    Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds? She didn’t know the history and yet somehow she got it all right. And 99.95% of Americans didn’t know it and made fun of her for it.

    Was she inarticulate? Yes, but so what? It was a spontaneous utterance after having recently visited the museum. And what do you suppose she might have learned there? Precisely what she just taught you and millions of other Americans. Funny how actually learning some of our history can make some people even more proud of America, yet others see no reason to learn anything because they already “know” America is evil.

    The popular notion of Paul Revere’s ride is a product of an education system that teaches a superficial knowledge of America and an in depth hatred of the American system.

    I work at a major university. I see “educated” people who can’t spell, can’t write coherent sentences and have awful grammar. (And yes, I’m referring to Ph.D. faculty, not students.) Yet these same people smugly criticize Palin for being stupid. It would be laughable in the extreme if it weren’t for the fact that these same people will never educate themselves to the truth. They think they already know it.

    I’ll take thousands of inarticulate but passionate Sarah Palins over one Noam Chomsky. Yet that pompous ass has the admiration of most of the elites in this country who nod their heads in agreement with his complete distortions of and lies about history.

    And yes, liberty60, “a sociology professor making 150K a year” IS an elite, because his or her opinion will be touted to the heavens by s sycophantic media and adoring left and turned into yet more policies that destroy America.

    The Wall Street banker, OTOH, will be vilified and denigrated publicly while the corrupt politicians quietly and eagerly take his money for their election coffers and then happily pass laws that will enrich him further so their election coffers will be even larger in the future. And all the while they will be telling the sheep how evil and corrupt he is so they will continue to elect these robber barons and destroy what was once a great country.

    Antimedia (f41333)

  73. Terrye (#63) writes “Actually, I don’t think Sarah Palin did know all that history”

    Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds? She didn’t know the history and yet somehow she got it all right. And 99.95% of Americans didn’t know it and made fun of her for it.

    Was she inarticulate? Yes, but so what? It was a spontaneous utterance after having recently visited the museum. And what do you suppose she might have learned there? Precisely what she just taught you and millions of other Americans. Funny how actually learning some of our history can make some people even more proud of America, yet others see no reason to learn anything because they already “know” America is evil.

    The popular notion of Paul Revere’s ride is a product of an education system that teaches a superficial knowledge of America and an in depth hatred of the American system.

    I work at a major university. I see “educated” people who can’t spell, can’t write coherent sentences and have awful grammar. (And yes, I’m referring to Ph.D. faculty, not students.) Yet these same people smugly criticize Palin for being stupid. It would be laughable in the extreme if it weren’t for the fact that these same people will never educate themselves to the truth. They think they already know it.

    I’ll take thousands of inarticulate but passionate Sarah Palins over one Noam Chomsky. Yet that pompous ass has the admiration of most of the elites in this country who nod their heads in agreement with his complete distortions of and lies about history.

    And yes, liberty60, “a sociology professor making 150K a year” IS an elite, because his or her opinion will be touted to the heavens by s sycophantic media and adoring left and turned into yet more policies that destroy America (anthropomorphic global warming, for example).

    The Wall Street banker, OTOH, will be vilified and denigrated publicly while the corrupt politicians quietly and eagerly take his money for their election coffers and then happily pass laws that will enrich him further so their election coffers will be even larger in the future. And all the while they will be telling the sheep how evil and corrupt he is so they will continue to elect these robber barons and destroy what was once a great country.

    Antimedia (f41333)

  74. Gotta love the sound of reactionary leftist heads exploding in the morning.

    So when does Sarah Palin start to receive apologies?

    TANSTAAFL (bb1ee7)

  75. @45, M. Scott Eiland:

    If only it were so.

    I’d wager that of those who saw the tape, in which Sarah Palin does sound a bit incoherent (tired, probably), framed by smug announcers telling them that what she said was stupid, the vast majority will never hear any correction, and would laugh if you told them she had the facts right.

    They are wrong. But they’re much louder than we are, and they have no shame.

    Clint (f3d0e0)

  76. It is a certified fact that British troops at the time of the revolution were unable to hear bells being rung and shots being fired as a warning device by the colonials. Only the rebels had the ability to detect this alarms.

    navyvet (db5856)

  77. “these”.

    (Drat!)

    navyvet (db5856)

  78. New scandalous headline-Sarah Palin cheated on her husband with Arnold.

    DohBiden (15aa57)

  79. Obviously, those people mocking Palin got their history of this nation from the Cliff notes and by reading a poem. And they live in ivory towers where the adages of “ringing the bell” and “firing a shot” are never used as a metaphor for issuing a general warning. I am sure they are of the belief that “the shot heard ’round the world” could actually be heard in Paris and London.

    Is there any greater proof that a college education does not make you educated/informed?

    retire05 (9e2f08)

  80. To make such an assumption would require evidence.

    Hart Williams (30138e)

  81. “The Wall Street banker, OTOH, will be vilified and denigrated publicly while the corrupt politicians quietly and eagerly take his money for their election coffers and then happily pass laws that will enrich him further so their election coffers will be even larger in the future. And all the while they will be telling the sheep how evil and corrupt he is so they will continue to elect these robber barons and destroy what was once a great country

    I couldn’t have said it better myself.

    Thank you.

    Liberty60 (aaf861)

  82. First, may I say I love Palin’s grit! That said, from listening to the clip a number of times, I think she just “fell”into being right. Revere did indeed, fess up to the British, leaving aside we were all Bitish at the time, once caught and questioned. However, when you look at what Palin said, as a British officer at the time, the bells and gunshots were, indeed, a heads up to the approaching troops that the citizens were armed and dangerous. Who can argue with that?

    Nick Shaw (71b010)

  83. It does seem strange that they only “character”, “spine”, and good old-fashioned “balls” that we find in the Presidential Sweepstakes, belong to a “Caribou Barbie” that is just trying to let her children have an appreciation for, and of, American History.

    Sarah Palin could hold a presser on Plymouth Rock at dawn, stating that “the Sun rises in the East”, and she would be attacked in the MFM for not knowing (or saying) that the “rising” is only due to the Earth’s rotation, that no “rising” is actually taking place, etc, etc.

    Pat Buchanan wrote twenty years ago about a Cultural War in America, today we are seeing a series of skirmishes escalating into a full-on campaign.

    The immediate future should prove “interesting”.

    AD-RtR/OS! (4fa9f0)

  84. Liberty60 (#82), lest you think you got away with your cute remark, my reference to the Wall Street banker colluding with politicians was a pointed denouncement of the current administration and the party that you represent. Democrats are just as (if not more) guilty as Republicans of favoring the monied interests over the common man, and neither party, presently, gives a damn about America, with a few shining exceptions.

    Antimedia (f41333)

  85. Comment by DohBiden — 6/4/2011 @ 7:20 am

    Well, we know that’s not true, for Arnold is still alive, and Todd’s not in jail (Heh!).

    AD-RtR/OS! (4fa9f0)

  86. Democrats are just as (if not more) guilty as Republicans of favoring the monied interests over the common man, and neither party, presently, gives a damn about America, with a few shining exceptions

    Again- and I speak in my capacity as a Democratic Party activist-You are absolutely correct.

    So now that we agree that the monied interests are a threat to America, what do we propose to do about it?

    Liberty60 (aaf861)

  87. Monied interests are a threat to America? How about a leftist activist government that increasingly encroaches on individual liberty, runaway government spending, less tax payers than tax recipients, incessant class warfare, and overall douchebqggery from “liberty” and its fellow travelers.

    JD (318f81)

  88. Standard leftist cant – eat the rich. Tax the holy hell out of them.

    JD (318f81)

  89. The question, might be why did side with the candidate of the monied interests, namely Obama,

    ian cormac (72470d)

  90. I’m sure Palin knows pieces of US History that most educated people do not.
    She also likely been taught to recognize some of the biggest “what you think you know might not be so” traps.

    Here’s why I think these things:
    Palin’s dad is a great teacher. I saw him teaching some kids on her Alaska show and noticed his methods. He teaches constantly and well.
    The tea party reference, this Paul Revere moment all point towards her dad’s influences.
    Sure she muddles and mangles US History trivia on the spot, but she’s twice managed to expose how much the holier than thou journalistic elites do NOT know.

    And she is the one that the pundits say is so stupid… and they are more ignorant and stupid than her…
    Palin knows Revere warned the colonials… everyone knows that half of the story.
    But Palin touched onto the other half of the story… something the journalists didn’t have the slightest inkling existed

    SteveG (cc5dc9)

  91. Liberty60 – Where did anyone say the “monied interests” are a threat to America??

    You know who else used to rant and rave about the “monied interests?”
    Would tell people at the drop of a hat that all of their problems were due to those damned “monied interests” who had taken all of the stuff that was rightfully theirs?
    Regularly ran political cartoons of the members of the “monied interests” running in the street with bags overflowing with their ill gotten gains?
    Based much of their entire rise to power on their opposition to “monied interests?”

    Have Blue (854a6e)

  92. Liberty60, if you think we agree, you’re sadly mistaken. You need to reread what I wrote. Monied interests are not a threat to America. Corrupt politicians are. The monied interests you will always have with you. Even in communist Russia the monied interest did just fine. It was the common man who suffered horribly.

    What do we do about it? You can start by cleaning up your own house. Democrats should be critical of the politicians in their party who seek the destruction of America. Anyone who supports socialist policies should be thrown out of office through an active effort by Democrat activists to oppose them with principled candidates that support the Constitution.

    Of course, if you do that, you won’t be a Democrat activist for long. You’ll have become a Tea Party member. I won’t hold my breath waiting for your conversion.

    Antimedia (f41333)

  93. Eric:

    Sarah Palin is not Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address while he was sick with a temperature..he was that gifted with language..and while he might have had a high reedy voice..when he spoke in stories his point was plain to everyone. It was not necessary to be a huge fan of Lincoln in order to understand his meaning. I am not some liberal, I have no intention of voting for Obama..but I do not think it is too much to ask high profile Republicans to make statements that do no not require translation.

    Terrye (2e6779)

  94. When did being right, even if by accident, become a gaffe?

    JD (85b089)

  95. Antimedia:

    I know the history. I know that Revere was the one who got caught by the British..I know about the colonists keeping caches of weapons and wanting top protect them from confiscation by the British etc..But the thing is Sarah did not really get it right..she only got it right if you pick parts of it and assume that she is talking about Revere warning the British about American resolve vs Revere warning the Colonists about the British advance.

    The point is that it sounds as if she conflated two different things and it comes off confusing. She might have been tired or trying to remember details..whatever. I am just saying that if she was as plain as a lot of her defenders here say she was we would not be having this discussion because people would have known what she was saying.

    Terrye (2e6779)

  96. JD…In DC speak, a gaffe is when one inadvertently reveals the truth.

    As to our “Democrat Activist”:
    When you remove all of the “monied interests” from America, you’ll have Zimbabwe.
    Do you really want to go there?
    If so, visit first and see what it’s like.
    And don’t give us that crap about “the wrong people” leading the effort…
    In any society that devolves into Authoritarianism/Tyranny, it is always the same people leading the masses into poverty, penury, and slavery (no matter what they call it).

    AD-RtR/OS! (4fa9f0)

  97. Terrye

    I’m BY FAR not convinced that Palin isnt a conservative but a social conservative and fiscal imprudent moderate AT BEST

    However, you dont know the history, it evolves, it changes, it gets clarified. Everything she said – I have no problem with a historical analogy

    There are a select group of history guys – we had a George Mason guy on another blog who thought he knew everything about everything –

    (and here I thought I was the one)

    There was nothing wrong historically metamorphically with her somewhat tired uneven speech.

    Not everyone has their best day every moment of every day

    EricPWJohnson (9edf59)

  98. I’ll take thousands of inarticulate but passionate Sarah Palins over one Noam Chomsky. Yet that pompous ass has the admiration of most of the elites in this country who nod their heads in agreement with his complete distortions of and lies about history.

    One clearly remains curious and teachable and that makes for an interesting and evolving person. The other, a rather predictable being so wrapped up in his own self-righteousness, that not only is he unteachable as to what is correct, he doesn’t care about being correct. No longer curious about the world around him and truths to discover, he has lost all sense of wonder and is nothing more than a boring drone.

    Palin might be ridiculed on a number of levels but I happen to enjoy her curiosity and wonder. It shows me she’s thinking and discovering and never bores of what there is to dig up. And I think that offends the jaded and smug who believe they have mined all there is. How dare she!

    Dana (4eca6e)

  99. Chomsky does prove Orwell’s maxim, ‘that there are
    some things so ridiculous only an intellectual, would be believe them’

    ian cormac (72470d)

  100. epwj gives us a “living history” moment, before the facts changed again.

    I’m sorry, but truth (facts) never change, but are immemorial. It is only the biases of the observers that change as they constantly try to re-interpret what has happened so that it conforms to their mindset.

    AD-RtR/OS! (4fa9f0)

  101. I thought this was a simple little bit of history that explains how the events of both warning the British and warning the Americans could have been conflated or confused:

    Revere became a trusted messenger for the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, an organization set up to resist the British. He foresaw an attack by the British troops against the location of military supplies in Concord, Massachusetts, and arranged a signal to warn the patriots in Charlestown, Massachusetts. During the late evening of April 18, 1775, the chairman of the Committee of Safety told him that the British were going to march to Concord. Revere signaled by hanging two lanterns in the tower of Boston’s North Church. This showed that the British were approaching “by sea,” that is, by way of the Charles River. He crossed the river, borrowed a horse in Charlestown, and started for Concord. Arriving in Lexington, Massachusetts, at midnight, he awakened American rebels John Hancock (1737–1793) and Samuel Adams (1722–1803), allowing the two men to flee to safety.

    Revere was captured that night by the British, but he persuaded his captors that the whole countryside was aroused to fight, and they freed him. He returned to Lexington, where he saw the first shot fired in the first battle of the Revolutionary War (1776). This ride and series of events were made legendary by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) in the poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.”

    Terrye (2e6779)

  102. Comment by Dana — 6/4/2011 @ 10:37 am

    Chomsky “knows” that there is nothing left to know, since “History” has ended.
    Right?

    AD-RtR/OS! (4fa9f0)

  103. Longfellow took a great deal of artistic license in the creation of his poem.

    AD-RtR/OS! (4fa9f0)

  104. Eric:

    The point is that this should not be such a big a deal, she should not have made this so confusing…yes, the media is always looking for something they can slap her around about, but she and her supporters know that is going to happen. They know how the media is. So why not be better prepared and make more sense? If any other candidate or possible candidate had said this we would not be expected to decipher or explain or figure it out. They would be expected to speak in a way that it made sense when they said it. That is my only point.

    Terrye (2e6779)

  105. AD:

    To some extent Longfellow took some license, but there was a ride made by Revere to warn the colonists..there was also a warning from Revere to the British…of sorts. Maybe it was more of a bluff than a warning, but it seems to me that a lot of people are taking historical license here.

    Terrye (2e6779)

  106. Terrye

    Reagan was a sucky suck at public Q/A thats why the great one only had carefully scripted appearences.

    He Fell flat in his debates agsinst Mondale. Mondale beat Mondale by promising to raise taxes

    Palin fares very well and she is at her best on the attack.

    Sure they are going to show every nose pick, every chest stretch, every cheap trick, every um

    EricPWJohnson (9edf59)

  107. Comment by AD-RtR/OS! — 6/4/2011 @ 10:45 am

    Chomsky “knows” that there is nothing left to know, since “History” has ended.
    Right?

    Heh. Yes, that’s about right. God, what a boring shell of a man. Even tweeting pics of little Noam could not make him interesting.

    Dana (4eca6e)

  108. Terrye

    Read your post 102 out load to yourself or a friend

    Palins got time for 40 words or less to your 200 plus word “definitive” historical statement

    there is a huge difference between a history lesson and 10 seconds on national news

    EricPWJohnson (9edf59)

  109. out loud, sorry not load

    EricPWJohnson (9edf59)

  110. I’m more confused than usual….
    Just why is emwj defending that which he was so vigorously attacking, in all manner, large and small?

    AD-RtR/OS! (4fa9f0)

  111. OOPS….epwj

    AD-RtR/OS! (4fa9f0)

  112. Terrye (#96), it is you who is conflating. The popular story is that Paul Revere rode on a horse yelling, “The British are coming! The British are coming!” That is the one that most Americans are familiar with.

    If you read what Sarah said, she was referring to the part of Revere’s ride where he was captured by six British officers and convinced them to let him go by telling them that the colonists had been alerted and were waiting for them.

    I told him, and added that their troops had catched aground in passing the river, and that there would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the country all the way up.

    Revere was the one who had done the alerting (along with William Daws and Dr. Prescott), going from house to house and rousing the residents in the middle of the night (remember, they didn’t have electricity and usually retired earlier than we do). Those residents, then, rang their bells and beat their drums (because they didn’t have telephones or radios back then) to alert others within earshot.

    The idea that the average person would have understood her is laughable. The average person was completely ignorant of the history of Revere’s ride and only knew of Longfellow’s poem, because our schools don’t educate our children (k-12 AND colleges) regarding US history. They get a cursory overview of popular myths, and that is thought to be sufficient knowledge.

    Antimedia (f41333)

  113. The idea that the average person would have understood her is laughable. The average person was completely ignorant of the history of Revere’s ride and only knew of Longfellow’s poem, because our schools don’t educate our children (k-12 AND colleges) regarding US history. They get a cursory overview of popular myths, and that is thought to be sufficient knowledge.

    Comment by Antimedia — 6/4/2011 @ 11:29 am

    I have read a few books on the subject just because it always interested me. But that is not my point..she was not plain in her answer, if she had been then the entire little dust up could have been avoided. The truth is Palin is in this situation because of the way she phrased this with some stuff about Revere warning the British etc. It is not a complicated story if she had been plain in her meaning it could have been told without people treating her like a dummie. I think she was tired and meandered in her response and it came off badly. I am not saying she is stupid, I am saying she is careless, she should learn to come up with short and succinct statements that do not require that all of us run interference for her. No matter how you look at it, she was not that coherent.

    Terrye (eec529)

  114. Terrye

    Read your post 102 out load to yourself or a friend

    Palins got time for 40 words or less to your 200 plus word “definitive” historical statement

    there is a huge difference between a history lesson and 10 seconds on national news

    Comment by EricPWJohnson — 6/4/2011 @ 10:56 am

    How about this: Paul Revere not only warned the colonists that the British were coming, he also warned the British that those colonists would not easily be disarmed or defeated.

    How long did that take?

    Terrye (eec529)

  115. I thought the takeaway was that Sarah took the occasion mostly as an opportunity to pander on second amendment stuff. If you look at it that way then it was actually almost well done. If she hadn’t gotten bogged down in the who’s warning who business it would have been a very effective gambit.

    But as executed it fell short.

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  116. But, Terrye, you’ve had half the day to come up with that response, without a dozen TV cameras, and another two-dozen microphones/Digital Recorders shoved into your face.
    But, of course, we all know that you are a polished, professional, public speaker who is always on-message, and prepared for any question from the media, no matter how inane it is, and are fully prepared at all times (even when taking your family to a historical site) to propound on any and all subjects that might arise.

    Give me a break!

    AD-RtR/OS! (4fa9f0)

  117. But as executed it fell short.

    But, it didn’t cost the bondholders of Chrysler and Government Motors anything.

    AD-RtR/OS! (4fa9f0)

  118. Give me a break!

    Comment by AD-RtR/OS! — 6/4/2011 @ 12:26 pm

    I did not need all day to come up with something that damn simple..and besides Sarah Palin is out there on her bus tour talking about historical sites and history and our foundation..that is the whole damn point. She can not think on her feet…she needs too much preparation to come up with something that is really not that hard to think of. This is what bothers me about her..we always end up explaining what she really meant and what she was actually saying and how smart she really is.

    No one is perfect..people will get tired and say things and they will come out wrong. It happens to the most seasoned politicians and public speakers, but it happens to Sarah Palin too often. It is getting ridiculous.

    Terrye (eec529)

  119. if you asked Obama the same question he would’ve pointed out that Paul Revere was a dirty anti-government snitch but his horse was a very sustainable low-emissions model with union-shod horseshoes

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  120. feets…
    If you think that a horse is a “very sustainable low-emissions model” than you’ve never been in a Marching Band, or worked in a stable.

    No one is perfect….
    Yes, that aphorism has been proven by the current occupant of the WH; so why do we hold the bar so high for any possible successor?

    AD-RtR/OS! (4fa9f0)

  121. oh. ok yeah I just made that up.

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  122. No one is perfect….

    Yes, that aphorism has been proven by the current occupant of the WH; so why do we hold the bar so high for any possible successor?

    …because the fact that he is *in* the WH makes people easily believe he must be close to perfect.

    Palin is *not* in the WH, therefore it is imperfect. And dumb.

    This logic lack of logic speaks far more to the American voter than anything else. People are still easily romanced by the WH and its occupants & accessories…The office, the suits and ties, the limos, state dinners, etc, are perceived indicators of great knowledge and intelligence and something we the little people are far removed from.

    Palin, a little person on the outside = dumb and uninformed.
    Obama, POTUS, on the inside = smart and knowledgeable.

    We’re a gullible lot.

    Dana (4eca6e)

  123. “she was not plain in her answer”

    In context her riff on Revere’s ride is plain enough.

    “He warned the British they would not be taking away our arms. [true]

    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.”

    Who is ringing those bells and firing those shots? I’d say according to Sarah We were.

    So there is an in context plausible interpretation of her statement consistant with the facts, and apparently for you another interpetation in isolation that makes no sense. “Actually, I don’t think Sarah Palin did know all that history”. The basis for your choice.

    boris (d9319d)

  124. Terrye, since you are so insistent, let’s actually parse Sarah’s words, rather than others’ interpretations of them.

    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.

    Did she say he was riding to warn the British? That that was his purpose? No. Yet some have insisted that’s what she was saying and it was therefore stupid. The stupidity is on the part of the hearers, who don’t listen. They conflate his ride, which actually had two purposes, to warn Adams and Hancock and also to alert the countryside and villages.

    As for the shots and bells, she used a synecdoche, a common figure of speech, that puts the part for the whole. No, Revere didn’t literally ring the bells, pound the drums and fire the warning shots. But, by warning all who did, he can be said to have done it. And the figure of speech synecdoche is used in precisely that way.

    When you only have ten seconds to answer a question, you can’t expound upon the subject. Her point is quite clear to those whose judgment isn’t clouded by a hatred of Palin or by having been so thoroughly corrupted by the media’s portrayal of her as stupid that you can no longer think for yourself.

    Some have even argued that he never rode through a town, only villages, and therefore Palin is stupid. If you can’t see how strained that attempt to defame her is, your vision is obscured.

    The larger point is that had anyone else said this, there would have been some scratching of heads until those with knowledge confirmed the accuracy of her statement. Because it’s Palin, the alarm bells go off instantly and the full force of PDS rises up to damn her. Yet she just keeps chugging along like nothing has happened.

    I want a person with that level of intestinal fortitude and peaceful inner strength to be my President. If she is the nominee, I will gladly cast my vote for her. What will you do? Vote for Obama?

    Antimedia (f41333)

  125. Because it’s Palin, the alarm bells go off instantly and the full force of PDS rises up to damn her.

    she is a lot singular in her ability to energize Obama’s base. This is because they think she’s outstandingly stupid and contemptible.

    Strategically speaking, it would be unwise for Team R to nominate someone with Sarah Palin’s proven skill at energizing socialist fervor.

    The question we should be asking is… who will be our Paul Revere what will bravely warn Team R about the danger Palin poses to their electoral prospects and, by extension, to America?

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  126. happyfeet, that is precisely what the media wants you to think. The reality is that the left is much more attuned to the danger of a Palin presidency than the right is. The left is fully aware that Palin represents a threat to everything they hold dear. Some on the right has been bought and paid for by the media and so see her exactly as the media wants them to see her.

    Antimedia (f41333)

  127. Antimedia person America had the chance to put Sarah Palin a Meghan’s geriatric coward daddy heartbeat away from the presidency very recently, and it turned out very badly for America.

    I think there’s some things what you can extrapolate out to 2012 is all.

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  128. But, just what is Obama’s base?
    Is it the 20-somethings that couldn’t be bothered to vote in 2010, and might not want to vote for a President who presented them with such dire economic conditions after his election that was couched on the guarantee that he would improve things?

    Is it the Black vote that have some of the same issues as above? If he only gets 2/3rds of the Black vote in 2012, can he still win?

    Is it the Hispanic vote that hangs on Amnesty, but sees his DHS deporting record numbers back to Mexico?

    Might it be that all he has left is the PE unions, and their minions, who will – over the next 18 months – start to experience the Great Recession that they have brought upon the rest of us, as all of those conservatives elected in 2010 start t seriously trim back the excesses within State governments, or as those State and Local governments fall into insolvency?

    Just who, other than the WH Czars, can BHO rely on for votes?

    AD-RtR/OS! (0398a3)

  129. these are all good questions

    but they are questions what will all be answered in the fullness of time

    There are a few known knowns though. And one of them is that Sarah Palin fires up socialist obamawhore losers something fierce.

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  130. feets….
    McCain got more votes with Palin, than he would have gotten without her.
    Once he lost the MSM (who he never had, but they always talked him up as an alternative to stronger GOP candidates – particularly back in ’00 when they wanted to damage Bush to make Gore a more attractive alternative), we discovered how bad a candidate, and campaigner, John McCain actually was – he just didn’t have the will to attack his opponent’s weaknesses, because he knew the Left would throw the “Racist!” charge at him as it has been doing against all of the O’s critics since the election.

    I think we’re finding out that The Sarahcuda is made of sterner stuff.

    AD-RtR/OS! (0398a3)

  131. McCain got more votes with Palin, than he would have gotten without her.

    Yes indeed. This is because McCain is an odious geriatric coward.

    But you know what? Obama got more votes with Palin than he would have gotten without her too.

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  132. feets…
    I don’t think that is true.
    Once the economy went into freefall with the collapse of Lehman Bros on 9/18, the slight lead McCain had up to then evaporated, and his performance in dealing with the crisis was a utter disaster that drove people away from him not because of who his VP choice was, but because they knew that he didn’t have a clue.
    The indies went to Obama because of White-Guilt, and quite a bit of BDS stoked by the media, and swung the election – Big Time!
    The Left/Prog base was never going to consider voting for McCain/Palin. McCain chose Palin because he needed to shore-up his support within the base of the GOP, who had become disillushioned with his “Maverick” ways over the Gang of 14, Amnesty, and other issues.
    I remind you, polls showed that with the selection of Palin as Veep, McCain closed the gap to Obama in the Summer, and inched ahead – until that fatal day of 18 September, and the Lehman collapse.

    AD-RtR/OS! (0398a3)

  133. @ antimedia
    very good response to Terrye at 125. He seems to think everyone can be just as quick on their feet as the guy sitting at home taking time to peck out a comment. Nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, Sarah really did look and sound tired, or maybe it’s me. Terrye also says we shouldn’t have to spend so much time explaining and backfilling. You know, if the media didn’t jump to conclusions and misinterpret everything she says, or even doesn’t say, we would have to do any tidying up, would we?

    Nick Shaw (71b010)

  134. hmmm. I wonder who Sarah Palin was a bigger fundraising boost for?

    Ok gotta go that ground turkey ain’t getting any fresher.

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  135. happyfeet, I take offense to your characterization of McCain as a coward. I have never liked the man and felt he was a horrible, unprincipled politician, but calling him a coward is stupid. If you had any awareness at all of his life as a POW, you would never even consider making a statement like that. RINO, yes. Lousy politician, yes. But coward? Not on your life, sir. He was a credit to the service and the country.

    Antimedia (f41333)

  136. America would have been better served if he had continued with his POW career I think.

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  137. feets….You’re an ASS!

    AD-RtR/OS! (0398a3)

  138. Dumb is saying corpse man. Well, maybe just ignorant. Certainly not presidential.

    kansas (750495)

  139. we were all british subjects in 1775. revere was warning the british, the regulars were coming

    philip gahtan (14ea72)

  140. All this anachronistic explaning for what took place back then is simply exposing how shallow the thinking of most Americans really is. philip (#140), you’re not the first one who has tried that explanation, but it doesn’t square with the facts. Paul Revere wrote, “…..there would be five hundred Americans there in a short time,…”, so he clearly knew the colonists as Americans and the soldiers as British.

    I read on another blog that Paul Revere never would have written “blow my brains out” and therefore Palin’s explanation (on her PAC website) was wrong. And yet that’s exactly what Paul Revere wrote.

    “One of them, whom I afterwards found to be a Major Mitchel, of the 5th Regiment, clapped his pistol to my head, called me by name and told me he was going to ask me some questions, and if I did not give him true answers, he would blow my brains out.”

    http://www.historycarper.com/resources/articles/prevere.htm

    It’s embarrassing to read these kinds of convoluted explanations for something when the source documents are available on the web. We can do better than that.

    Antimedia (f41333)

  141. Too many people, particularly on the Left, are credentialed, but not educated.

    AD-RtR/OS! (0398a3)

  142. You know who else used to rant and rave about the “monied interests?

    Yeah, this guy-

    I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

    Thomas Jefferson

    Liberty60 (aaf861)

  143. Well, this is interesting. Revere’s letter to Belknap was written 23 years after the event it describes. In a more contemporaneous version recording his testimony before the Massachusetts Provincial Council he used the word “men” not “Americans”.

    http://www.paul-revere-heritage.com/ride-account-original.html

    So I suppose there’s some room for philip’s argument unless contemporaneous documents can be adduced that show his use of the term. Not that I think the argument addresses what Palin was saying.

    Antimedia (f41333)

  144. @Antimedia-
    I admit to being confused by the logic here-

    You say that monied interests are not a threat, but corrupt politicians who, as you said it, are “favoring the monied interests over the common man”

    So how would we prevent the politicians from “favoring the monied interests over the common man”?

    Give more tax cuts to the monied interests?
    Fewer restrictions on how much money the monied interests can give to the politicians?

    Liberty60 (aaf861)

  145. Did she say he was riding to warn the British? That that was his purpose? No. Yet some have insisted that’s what she was saying and it was therefore stupid.

    Except that’s what she actually said. No mention of warning Hancock and Adams and the militias on the way to Concord.

    I put it down to speaking off the cuff, and possibly a little travel fatigued, and not stupidity or ignorance. But her wording does make it sound the purpose of the ride was to warn the British, and not the colonists.

    kishnevi (38f6c3)

  146. Why do you hate the successful? You leftist class warfare cant is tiresome, and predictable.

    JD (318f81)

  147. Yes, liberty60, Jefferson wrote that. He also wrote extensively about the dangers of vesting too much power in the government precisely because the monied interests will exert their influence on the government (and for other reasons). The more powerful the government is, the more influence the monied interests will have. (Which, BTW, is the raison d’etre for the Tea Party movement. Still waiting for you to join up.)

    Adams and Jefferson constantly vied on the point of how powerful the federal government should be, and Jefferson wrote at great length about his fears of the federal government becoming too strong.

    Antimedia (f41333)

  148. If only we could tax the rich more, make them pay their fair share.

    JD (318f81)

  149. One of the two reporters that relied on rumors rather than facts, previously gives a different account

    http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/06/04/palin.tour/

    ian cormac (72470d)

  150. Adams and Jefferson constantly vied on the point of how powerful the federal government should be, and Jefferson wrote at great length about his fears of the federal government becoming too strong.

    And yet it was Jefferson who stretched federal power further and more intrusively than Adams–for instance, the Louisiana Purchase which even he acknowledged was carried out in a manner that ignored the Constitution, and the Embargo, which intruded on private commerce in a manner that was probably unequaled before the New Deal.

    kishnevi (38f6c3)

  151. Comment by Antimedia — 6/4/2011 @ 5:43 pm
    And of an unaccountable Judiciary.

    Liberty60, why do you take such an anti-Libertarian position vis-a-vis the government and monied interests, and yet you profess – in your handle – to be advocating Liberty?
    Without the Freedom to create, invest, conduct business, there can be no Liberty –
    isn’t that what the argument has been about for the last 200+ years.

    I don’t care what the “monied interests” do Re the pols, as long as it is openly.
    There should be complete freedom to contribute however much you wish to whomever you wish, as long as it is instantly published on an open forum.
    Likewise, pols should be able to spend as much money as they wish running for office; again, as long as every expenditure is published on an open forum in a timely (hours) manner.
    It is not the amount of money that creates the atmosphere of corruption, it is the lack of transparency in its velocity.

    AD-RtR/OS! (0398a3)

  152. And kish, don’t forget how TJ ignored the provisions of the War Powers Resolution in sending the Navy and Marines to the Barbary Coast…well, he would have ignored it if it had existed at the time.

    AD-RtR/OS! (0398a3)

  153. This is often so, Gladstone, the Liberal, elected in part, over disenchantment with policy in the NorthWest Frontier, ended up getting Britain involved in Egypt, a multigenerational intervention, that lasted till 1922 officially, 1956, unofficially

    ian cormac (72470d)

  154. liberty60 (#145) asks “So how would we prevent the politicians from “favoring the monied interests over the common man”?”

    The way Adams said we should. By having an informed and involved electorate that doesn’t allow the politicians that succumb to temptation to continue in office. The way you have good government is by having good people in office, not by restricting the rights of the electorate.

    kishnevi (#151), “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. Jefferson’s actions as President are a perfect example of the aphorism “power corrupts”. That, again, is a powerful argument for keeping the government as small as possible and limiting its power in every way possible.

    AD-RtR/OS! is right. The correct solution to our maladies is transparency and accountability, not more taxes, more regulation, more power centralized in an already out of control government.

    Antimedia (f41333)

  155. “But her wording does make it sound the purpose of the ride was to warn the British, and not the colonists”

    Only if one assumes she was obliged to tell the whole tale including the part everybody knows rather than some point she found interesing. By the time she got to the new part 20 min later everybody would have tuned out 19.7 minutes earlier.

    boris (d9319d)

  156. liberty60 – I was going for somebody more twentieth century and much more relevant to the thinking of the modern democrat than Jefferson.

    Have Blue (854a6e)

  157. AD – their version of liberty, and actual liberty, are not even remotely related.

    JD (318f81)

  158. Palin should have mentioned that there were 3 other riders. No one outside of a 6th grade class ever remembers that. Or that Revere yelled “The Regulars are coming” and not British.

    Of course the Colonials were British at the time too, so she was right that Revere warned the British, even before she was more right.

    Buckshot Bill (538859)

  159. I think she wasn’t just going for a historical lesson, but a lesson for today, as with her 1773
    reference, recall the Tea Party wasn’t the end point, but the beginning,

    ian cormac (72470d)

  160. I think what everyone is failing to see here is that there were some fundamental changes in the last election. People who were once ignorant are now intelligent. We now have the most intelligent President we’ve ever had. If Sarah were to run for President, and win, using our new standards, Obama would still be the most intelligent President we ever had and would probably retain that standing for a considerable time.

    hd (2c6272)

  161. Shirley you can’t be serious,

    ian cormac (72470d)

  162. Most intelligent President ever? SRSLY?

    JD (318f81)

  163. The question we should be asking is… who will be our Paul Revere what will bravely warn Team R about the danger Palin poses to their electoral prospects and, by extension, to America?

    Comment by happyfeet — 6/4/2011 @ 1:22 pm

    I nominate a guy who is not in the practice of using punctuation or capital letters in internet comments and uses such pejoratives as “whore” and “strumpet” to describe Palin. That’ll make people think twice. &lt/sarcasm&gt

    L.N. Smithee (4d2a87)

  164. That’s not a creative tack, Brooks, Noonan, Moran, the Joyner/Taylor duo, Will, all have that slot,

    ian cormac (72470d)

  165. The idea that the average person would have understood her is laughable. The average person was completely ignorant of the history of Revere’s ride and only knew of Longfellow’s poem, because our schools don’t educate our children (k-12 AND colleges) regarding US history. They get a cursory overview of popular myths, and that is thought to be sufficient knowledge.

    Comment by Antimedia — 6/4/2011 @ 11:29 am

    The same is true of the term “blood libel,” which all of a sudden was broken down by partisan pundits and wire service writers in the aftermath of the Arizona massacre. In order to make the implication that Palin was misusing the phrase and either carelessly offending Jews or revealing herself to be an anti-Semite herself, they had to explain what it meant first. In fact, she was using the phrase correctly, as no less a Jew than Alan Dershowitz admitted.

    However, I must admit that I agree that if Palin ever wants to be President, she needs to learn to be more concise. We know the decks are stacked against her, so in addition to calling out that fact, she needs to be better. Lately, she has been, but the tiniest of slips gives the usual suspects a reason to reinforce their negative narrative.

    L.N. Smithee (4d2a87)

  166. I think the Redcoats immediate problem is do they go with Tweedledum, MR, who’s sworn off flipping for the first time in his life, or Tweedledee, TP, who daily doffs some newly conservative mantle?

    Neither will be a first ballot nominee and together they will struggle to approach a majority.

    I say neither can short-circuit a TEA revolt.

    gary gulrud (6c0569)

  167. Liberty60, the drop-and-run troll, is becoming quite tiresome.

    Icy Texan (0111bf)

  168. Some want the credentialed to run the world rather than the productive to run their nation.

    I would suspect that some think the nation that permits a view in a free forum is somehow crippled by the same. All thoughts are valued except those who disagree.

    God damn the man who corrupted liberalism to such simple thought.

    Ag80 (1bc637)

  169. @ Comment by kishnevi — 6/4/2011 @ 5:51 pm

    Read up on the Alien and Sedition Acts – Adams didn’t just call them pesky reporters jackass or ban them from the press conferences, he locked them up if they said something he didn’t agree with.

    papertiger (e55ba0)

  170. haha, O Feets, didnt I warn you?
    Didnt I sound the bells of alarm at PW? Palin can get the nom, but she cannot win the general. She will split the party like I predicted. Consensus is the GOP’s only path back to power in 2012…because the demographic timer is relentlessly ticking down, the GOP’s very own doomsday clock.
    Even Dr. Krauthammer cannot pull the horses bases head up out of the poisoned grain bin of Palinism.
    😉
    Poor Dr. Krauthammer is just Horace Holly in the Land of She-who-must-be-obeyed.

    Suddenly there was a cry of “Hiya! Hiya!” (“She! She!”), and thereupon the entire crowd of spectators instantly precipitated itself upon the ground, and lay still as though it were individually and collectively stricken dead, leaving me standing there like some solitary survivor of a massacre. As it did so a long string of guards began to defile from a passage to the left, and ranged themselves on either side of the daïs. Then followed about a score of male mutes, then as many women mutes bearing lamps, and then a tall white figure, swathed from head to foot, in whom I recognised She herself. She mounted the daïs and sat down upon the chair, and spoke to me in Greek, I suppose because she did not wish those present to understand what she said.

    haha, this is going to be sweet!

    wheeler's cat (ce6ac6)

  171. Completely unglued spitting out Meme #4. Next is a little gentic engineering to get rid of the undesirables. Seek help, majnoon bint.

    JD (85b089)

  172. In her own way, nishi offers a backhanded complement, yes, the notion that anyone has been silent on the matter, is like Tim Robbins speaking
    of a ‘chill wind on dissent’ very silly, but that’s what it is.

    ian cormac (72470d)

  173. In point of fact Revere did, in his own letters, say that he was arrested by Red Coats and when questioned told them 500 volunteers were on the way to kill them.

    Let me see… I think that it might be said that he warned the British… or something like that. I’m not as smart as all these millionaire talking heads though. So maybe I’m wrong(?). [/sarc, for those in Rio Linda who need it]

    chuck in st paul (b7fe5a)

  174. Comment by boris — 6/4/2011 @ 6:11 pm
    Oh, she could have said it, in as many or fewer words than she actually used:
    Because of Paul Revere’s ride, the British could hear the gunshots and bells that meant that we Americans were armed and ready to defend ourselves and our liberty.
    But like I said, I think this is not because of stupidity or ignorance. When you’re talking in conversation–which this basically was–you don’t have a prepared text and you don’t have time to think of everything you ought to say. Palin did nothing she could should be criticized here.

    kishnevi (4fe729)

  175. Crappyfeet is an idiot.

    DohBiden (15aa57)

  176. Every policy she favors- tax cuts for the rich, less business regulation, the shredding of the social compact- are things that directly hurt the very working class people who praise her, and benefit the economic top 1%.

    What pisses me off about so many “progressives” is the way they’re often more indignant about wealthy people not paying enough in taxes than middle-income folks paying too much. IOW, I rarely, if ever, hear liberals complaining about the tax burden of the typical American.

    Of course, people on the left become the epitome of the “limousine liberal” when it comes to their own taxes. For example, FDR back in the 1930s berating the wealthy for avoiding taxes, while he had the gall to tell the IRS that those same higher taxes didn’t apply to him.

    Mark (411533)

  177. Ignore the che guevara worshippng tool odds are he pays 1.1% in taxes.

    DohBiden (15aa57)

  178. wheeler’s cat (#173), Donald Duck could be Obama in 2012. That you can’t see that says a lot more about you than it does about the truth. No President has ever been reelected when the economy goes south, and this one is south of south.

    Antimedia (f41333)

  179. And if mexico is so poor than how come there are millionaires there?

    DohBiden (15aa57)

  180. Am I mistaken or is the real story here that the left has been proven once again to be wrong for jumping on their favorite meme that Sarah Palin is an absolute moron that doesn’t know anything about history? The fact that she may have given a somewhat meandering account of what occurred on April 18, 1775 is beside the point. The left is totally invested in the narrative that she’s an idiot. They couldn’t be bothered to follow the advice of Ashton Shepherd before commenting on her statement! Gov. Palin may not have given a picture perfect explanation of that historic evening but she got the gist of it correct. Meanwhile, her detractors got it totally wrong. The comments by Terrye and others trying to cover up the left’s ignorance of history and lack of journalistic integrity is the perfect example of moving the goalposts!

    RonM822 (d0a545)

  181. Am I mistaken or is the real story here that the left has been proven once again to be wrong for jumping on their favorite meme that Sarah Palin is an absolute moron that doesn’t know anything about history? The fact that she may have given a somewhat meandering account of what occurred on April 18, 1775 is beside the point. The left is totally invested in the narrative that she’s an idiot. They couldn’t be bothered to follow the advice of Ashton Shepherd before commenting on her statement! Gov. Palin may not have given a picture perfect explanation of that historic evening but she got the gist of it correct. Meanwhile, her detractors got it totally wrong. The comments by Terrye and others trying to cover up the left’s ignorance of history and lack of journalistic integrity is the perfect example of moving the goalposts!

    RonM822 (d0a545)

  182. sorry for the double post. My laptop is plugged into one of the cigar lighters of a tractor-trailer and the tap pad area can be a little bit too sensitive.

    RonM822 (d0a545)

  183. There are millionaires, there, the Times’s ‘Daddy Warbucks’ Carlos Slim, notably among them, but they
    are more like Russian oligarchs, than your typical
    American tycoon,

    ian cormac (72470d)

  184. it is simply amazing that allll this attention to her, yet NONE to the supposed massive intellect housed between Barry’s jugears.

    It’s almost like he’s not even the President or something.

    I’d LOVE to see someone ask him what inflation is, or explain what a bond is…

    THERE IS NO POSSIBLE WAY HE WOULD KNOW.

    But hey, conservative women, they’re just stupid bitches who need to get in the kitchen according to our betters of the Democrat Party.

    Just ridiculous.

    Rev Dr E Buzz (c8187d)

  185. The Sarahcuda had a very impressive appearance this morning on the hot-seat at FoxNews Sunday.
    Even Kim Strassel gave her kudos after blistering Sarah in her (Kim’s) Friday column in the WSJ.

    Chris did a soft attack on the Paul Revere thing, but conceeded after her response to him that she got the gist of the event correct, and her attackers are a little berift in the ‘istory larnin’ department.

    AD-RtR/OS! (f756d5)

  186. t’s not on the plane of Bachmann’s thinking the revolution started in New Hampshire, for which there could be no excuse. (Well, no excuse if you’re from Massachusetts, like I am.

    But that’s just the point. The 60 miles between Concord, MA and Concord, NH may be significant if you’re from MA, but they’re utterly insignificant to nearly everybody else. If you’re from Minnesota, why on earth should you be expected to know that there are two Concords right near each other, and near which one the battle happened? Do you also expect midwesterners to know that Liberty, NJ is not the same place as Liberty Island, NJ?

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  187. It is a certified fact that British troops at the time of the revolution were unable to hear bells being rung and shots being fired as a warning device by the colonials. Only the rebels had the ability to detect this alarms.

    Good one. Just as only Democrats are able to hear the “dog whistles” they keep accusing Republicans of blowing.

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  188. They have very special secret decoder rings to decipher all of those “code words” that the evil Republicans use too.

    AD-RtR/OS! (f756d5)

  189. I thought the takeaway was that Sarah took the occasion mostly as an opportunity to pander on second amendment stuff.

    Now you’ve got me really confuzzled. How is talking about “second amendment stuff” when asked about Paul Friggin’ Revere “pandering”? What else is that story about? What does anyone think he was warning the countryside about, if not that the Redcoats were coming to confiscate their weapons? And what inspired the Second Amendment itself, if not precisely this incident?

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  190. AD,

    It sure was a strikingly serious interview. She was sharp, to the point, and it’s the first interview where she didn’t make me cringe – her voice was controlled and well modulated; and there was no mangled syntax. She was cohesive, unhesitating and her statements were linear from beginning to end, without any usual meanderings.

    It’s easy to see her as a serious contender.

    Dana (4eca6e)

  191. …and don’t miss her “This is what a President Palin would do…” comment.

    Dana (4eca6e)

  192. See how much better she’s become with a little R&R,
    getting to relax with Todd and the Kids, visiting National Shrines, and sharing Historical Moments.

    Plus, it looks like she’s got a new hairdresser.

    AD-RtR/OS! (f756d5)

  193. she made linear statements!

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  194. Antimedia person America had the chance to put Sarah Palin a Meghan’s geriatric coward daddy heartbeat away from the presidency very recently, and it turned out very badly for America.

    Are you claiming Meghan’s daddy would have won if he’d run with someone else? That seems unlikely. If he’d gone with his preferred pick, a Lieberman or a Graham, he’d have gone down in a landslide rather than a respectable loss. If you’re looking for the reason that ticket lost, look to its top rather than its bottom. But really, look elsewhere, because what with the economic collapse in those months, it’s unlikely that any Republican could have won.

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  195. happyfeet,

    Watch it before you criticize, okay?

    Dana (4eca6e)

  196. …President Palin will do…

    That will lead to a lot of vapors in Georgetown.

    AD-RtR/OS! (f756d5)

  197. AD,

    Hopefully!!

    Dana (4eca6e)

  198. Meghan’s coward daddy was a sure loser from the get go Mr. Milhouse, but I think Sarah helped fire up Obama’s base a lot more than she fired up Team R’s base

    And I think she would do that again if she ran.

    But I don’t think she’s going to run. She’s just an attention whore. We’re just going to have to accept that a vast number of Republicans think so little of the presidency that they’ll hand it off to an inadequate quitty Fox news strumpet what is every bit as over-marketed vapid and whorish as the socialist we elected in 2008.

    Americans anymore just want whorish razzle dazzle in their leaders. This helps explain why America has become analogous to a special needs child pissing all over itself in front of the class.

    Soon enough though things are gonna get for reals serious, and in the grim light of that new day, people are going to turn to people what are a lot more substantive than Palin for leadership.

    Because they will be right proper scared.

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  199. papertiger, Adams notthe last president to use threat of prison to suppress dissent. Democrats still claim Wilson as their own and look at what he did to Debs.

    SPQR (621001)

  200. Happyfeet, still can’t wash the mysogeny from your mouth?

    SPQR (621001)

  201. it has nothing to do with her being a woman it has to do with her being a perpetual whiny-assed victim what brings a level of experience and depth of knowledge to a presidential candidacy every bit as lacking as what we criticized bumble for bringing in 2008

    it’s just it’s different in 2012 cause hey she’s OUR charismatic slut

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  202. happyfeet.

    STFU.

    Dana (4eca6e)

  203. I’d LOVE to see someone ask him what inflation is, or explain what a bond is…

    THERE IS NO POSSIBLE WAY HE WOULD KNOW.

    For that matter, I’d love to hear his version of the Paul Revere story; it probably features Mickey Mouse.

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  204. well that’s just my opinion Dana

    ymmv

    but I think it’s a very serious serious situation that Team R isn’t producing leaders equal to our little country’s grave grave challenges

    and I think it’s worrisome that a big chunk of Team R could care less

    Team R politics have devolved into a tribey tribey game of identity politics I think. Yeah, the socialists started it, but it’s not a good sign that Team R is embracing that sort of thing so enthusiastically. Why? Mostly cause it bespeaks a total lack of awareness of just how godawful much trouble our loser little country is in.

    Please Team R put your serious hat on we have work to do.

    chop chop

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  205. feets is unable to comprehend the accusation of misogyny, but everyone he attacks, male and female, he accuses of being some form of feminine degenerate.

    AD-RtR/OS! (f756d5)

  206. Gosh, Mr. Feet.

    When you get Dana irritable over this, it might be a divine notification that you maybe, just might, want to reconsider the way in which you approach this topic.

    You see, you think that when you insult males it gives you free reign to write misogynistic things about others (like calling McCain a “coward” is a free pass to call women you don’t like “sluts”). Repeatedly. And since you “don’t know” the person, it is okay for you—or so I am told—to write these truly nasty things.

    But not everyone agrees.

    I have said it before, and I will say it again: I think you have poster of the former governor over your bed. It would explain so much about you.

    But hey, most people think you are just darling. So I’ll bow out and let you prove my point, over and over again.

    Simon Jester (843b0c)

  207. Oh, and Mr. Feet?


    “…Please Team R put your serious hat on we have work to do….”

    Physician, heal thyself.

    Simon Jester (843b0c)

  208. Oh, and I recognize that Dana doesn’t need my help. It’s just I am much more interested in Dana’s posts. I would like to see more of them, and Mr. Feet’s bizarre little fetish (and I use that word literally) kind of drowns out other voices.

    Simon Jester (843b0c)

  209. you sound so bitter Mr. Jester

    here this makes me smile

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  210. Well that’s not exactly true, some he targets like
    Sarah and Meg, some he doesn’t like say Noem and
    Bachmann, never mind that the latter public profiles
    haven’t always been up to snuff:

    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504564_162-20069135-504564.html

    ian cormac (72470d)

  211. My respect for Palin has only increased. She was right, the jackals on the left and their mindless media enablers wrong.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (ddab80)

  212. SJ,
    Maybe the Ace Uterus Detective is spoofing hf?

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (ddab80)

  213. Comment by happyfeet — 6/5/2011 @ 5:44 pm

    Well, that explains a lot.

    AD-RtR/OS! (f756d5)

  214. I think McCain was tremendously courageous as a member of the US military and as a injured, beaten and tortured POW.

    As a politician and a candidate he was cowardly in his reluctance to take Obama head on, and also in botched bipartisan abortions like McCain Feingold.

    WTF?
    HF can say that, and I will too.

    As a POW I will honor McCain, but as a politician, he is squishy enough to earn an “Political coward” label.
    I’ll say it all day.
    Coward.
    And *bleep* anyone who tries to tell me that because a man was brave… hugely brave… in one area in his life, that no one can ever, ever call him out for being a coward in another distinct and separate area of his life.

    That all said and written: hf.. my friend.. you are no where near as articulate as you’d like the barracuda (tasty tacos!) to be. Of course neither am I.

    SteveG (cc5dc9)

  215. I know Mr. G I need to work on making the words say stuff to where people nod and say yes, happyfeet, that is wisdom, what you say

    I been practicing.

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  216. Hap

    Joe Miller – didnt see any condemnations of his calling Lisa one of the worlds oldest professioners…

    EricPWJohnson (9edf59)

  217. least of all from me!

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  218. Keep practicing. You have a very long way to go.

    Antimedia (f41333)

  219. every day in every way I’m becoming a better and better pikachu junior grade!

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  220. The voices in my head tell me my words are golden wisdom… my friends? not so much.
    McCain needed more friends I think… the ‘cuda’ (great with some a flour tortilla, a mayo based sauce left out in the sun all day and some sorta slaw…) the cuda tried to be a friend, but the inner circle of advisors thought challenging a young black man on anything was a sure loser on the campaign trail.
    Why not just lose upfront and go down in history as a guy who deferred to his superiors?
    OK McCain!!! Go Team Meghan!!!!

    SteveG (cc5dc9)

  221. McCain took a break from his campaign for to save the economy… and everyone laughed.

    They laughed and laughed.

    Cause it was funny.

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  222. Comment by Milhouse — 6/5/2011 @ 3:51 pm
    Err, it should be one of those basic facts of general knowledge that the first battles of the Revolution were in Massachusetts. Concord MA has a fairly important presence in American history, and not just because of the battle of Concord Bridge. It’s rather like someone confusing Albany GA with Albany NY, or thinking the battle of Gettysburg occurred in Maryland or Ohio.

    kishnevi (07cf78)

  223. He also took Obama at his word on campaign financing… which in retrospect was funny… if predictable.

    Ummm… did Obama take time off for the economy?
    Imagine how much worse it might have been if McCain hadn’t gone back to the Senate to attend to Senate business on the economy instead of pushing forward into winning something Presidential.
    Thank god McCain was so brave at this, or we’d be… well, anyway, I blame Palin for his nonsense.

    SteveG (cc5dc9)

  224. Ultimately, it was McCain’s call, bumble man Schmidt made the suggestion, as he admitted the following spring, because he though Lehman’s collapse, and Obama’s campaign was as idealistic as Bobby Kennedy,

    ian cormac (72470d)

  225. Err, it should be one of those basic facts of general knowledge that the first battles of the Revolution were in Massachusetts.

    I don’t see why. That it was in one of those tiny New England states, yes, but precisely which one? Why is this important for a midwesterner to know? Albany NY and Albany GA are not 60 miles apart; they’re 20 times that distance, and in very different regions; it’s fair enough to expect people not to confuse them. And FTR I had no idea Gettysburg was in PA; if I had to guess instead of looking it up I think I’d have guessed MD, and I’d only have been about 5 miles off. Does that make me ignorant of US history? Is this something everyone should know? Would it be fair to mock Palin if she had made the same guess?

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  226. I’m still perplexed by how many people got this wrong. Well, not perplexed-perplexed like Whoopi; Palin is after a Republican, so everything she says is automatically borderline-on a great day- retarded. But I have to admit that I’m surprised that so many non-leftists were unaware that Revere did in fact warn the British.

    physics geek (6669a4)

  227. Comment by Milhouse — 6/5/2011 @ 11:16 pm

    “…Why is this important for a midwesterner to know…”

    Because it is YOUR history, just as you would expect someone from the South or West to know of relevant battles fought in the Great Lakes/Mid-West (at that time the Mid-West was that area West of the confluence of the Allegheny and Monangehela Rivers, North of the Ohio River, and East of the Mississippi River) during the War for Independence, both I and II.

    It is almost like saying that Lincoln was a great lawyer from Springfield (pick a State, as their is a Springfield in 48 of them).

    AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92)

  228. “…Why is this important for a midwesterner to know…”

    Because it is YOUR history, just as you would expect someone from the South or West to know of relevant battles fought in the Great Lakes/Mid-West

    Sure; but do you really expect a southerner or westerner to know exactly where those battles were fought, to within 60 miles? Can you tell me, without looking it up, exactly where the Battle of Long Island happened? Was it in Nassau county or Suffolk county? Would it surprise you to learn that, as the term Lawn Guyland is currently used, the battle didn’t happen there at all? To the surprising (to me) number of Patterico commenters who live here, this is important; but it would be foolish to expect someone from elsewhere, even within NY, to know or care about the local geography, and where the battle sites can be found.

    Milhouse (ea66e3)

  229. Can you tell me, without looking it up, exactly where the Battle of Long Island happened? Was it in Nassau county or Suffolk county?

    For the benefit of those not local, and not up on the local geography, that was something of a trick question. In common usage, the term “Lawn Guyland” refers exclusively to those two counties, which between them account for about 85% of the island’s area (though only about 40% of its population). But as a matter of geography, there are four counties on the island, and the battle took place in Brooklyn, in fact within two miles of where I’m sitting now. There are several markers around my neighborhood, where various parts of the action are thought to have happened. But I wouldn’t expect anyone not local to know that.

    Milhouse (ea66e3)


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