Former Governor of Alaska and Republican nominee for Vice President Sarah Palin snaked her way into Massachusetts through Connecticut with minimal notice. But when she arrived in the Patriot State, she was besieged by ill-wishers after she had “mangled” a historical reference to Paul Revere’s ride.
In a 2’fer, an assassination “joke” by “comedian” Christopher Titus targeted both Sarah Palin and the Kennedy family.
Mr. Titus joked that if Sarah Palin became president, he would “hang out on the grassy knoll all the time, just loaded and ready," after which he offered an apology:
Mr. Titus then proceeded to chip away at his generous Palin apology:
Mr. Titus offered no apology to Mr. Revere or to his first grade history teacher, who must at some point have told Mr. Titus that everyone warned by Mr. Revere during his ride was British, the separation from Britain having occurred years after Mr. Revere’s much celebrated ride.
In a 2’fer, an assassination “joke” by “comedian” Christopher Titus targeted both Sarah Palin and the Kennedy family.
Mr. Titus joked that if Sarah Palin became president, he would “hang out on the grassy knoll all the time, just loaded and ready," after which he offered an apology:
“While sitting in a comedy club with another comedian doing a podcast after listening to Sarah Palin’s stupid comments about Paul Revere -- something we all learned about in the first grade -- I popped off. More than anything, I made a joke about a horrible tragedy that befell a great President. To the Kennedy family, my heartfelt apologies. To Ms. Palin’s family, this would infuriate me if it were said about my family. Apologies to you as well.”Sadly, Mr. Titus’ remarks, which drew a few laughs, followed an assassination attempt upon Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, immediately after which the country was treated to charges that Tea Party Patriots had in some sense been responsible for the atmosphere of incivility that possibly had motivated the assassin, Jared Lee Loughner, a nut whose political predispositions certainly had not been drawn from the abused Tea Party Patriots.
Mr. Titus then proceeded to chip away at his generous Palin apology:
“The comment was based on the fact that America has set the bar so low with what we accept as a possible leader. Just imagine Sarah Palin sitting in a negotiation with Putin, Ahmadinejad or Hu Jin Tao. Let’s all take a deep breath."However, it turns out that Paul Revere did warn the British that the Americans were armed against them, according to the Boston Herald:
“In fact, Revere’s own account of the ride in a 1798 letter seems to back up Palin’s claim. Revere describes how after his capture by British officers, he warned them “there would be five hundred Americans there in a short time for I had alarmed the Country all the way up.”Wes Pruden of the Washington Times, with some help from Brendan McConville, a history professor at Boston University, here sets the historical record straight:
Only now it turns out that she was right about Paul Revere’s midnight ride and the press claque was wrong. Even the professors say so, though they’re grudging to the point of churlishness. “Basically,” says Brendan McConville, a history professor at Boston University, “when Paul Revere was stopped by the British, he did say to them, ‘Look, there is a mobilization going on that you’ll be confronting.’” Revere, an honest tradesman, probably didn’t employ “professor-speak” in the heat of the moment, with words like “mobilization” and “confronting,” but we can take the point. In the account of the most famous midnight ride in American history, the professor says, “the British are aware as they’re marching down the countryside they hear church bells ringing—she was right about that—and warning shots being fired. That’s accurate.”
Mr. Titus offered no apology to Mr. Revere or to his first grade history teacher, who must at some point have told Mr. Titus that everyone warned by Mr. Revere during his ride was British, the separation from Britain having occurred years after Mr. Revere’s much celebrated ride.
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