Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin insisted yesterday that history was on her side when she claimed that US patriot Paul Revere’s famous midnight ride in 1775 was intended to warn both British soldiers and his fellow colonists.
“You realize that you messed up about Paul Revere, don’t you?” Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace asked the potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate.
“I didn’t mess up about Paul Revere,” replied Palin, a paid contributor to the Fox network.
“Part of his ride was to warn the British that were already there. That, hey, you’re not going to succeed. You’re not going to take American arms. You are not going to beat our own well-armed persons, individual, private militia that we have,” she added. “He did warn the British.”
Palin, who again said she has not decided whether to run for president, was asked about the American Revolution hero during a stop on Thursday in Boston on her East Coast bus tour.
“He who warned the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms by ringing those bells, and makin’ sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed,” she said.
Palin’s brush with US history came toward the end of her “One Nation” bus tour that generated intense interest as she traveled from Washington to New England. Along the way, she steadfastly refused “a million times” to say whether she was running for president.
“I’m publicizing Americana and our foundation and how important it is that we learn about our past and our challenges and victories throughout American history, so that we can successfully proceed forward,” Palin said in the broadcast. “It’s not a campaign tour.”
There is no ambiguity about the interest Palin generates, a point that does not sit comfortably in some quarters of a Republican Party without a clear front-runner to face US President Barack Obama next year.
Palin ran for vice presidential candidate in 2008, when presidential nominee Senator John McCain led the party. She resigned partway through her single term as Alaskan governor in July 2009.
For now, Palin is clearly grappling with the downside of celebrity. Even her otherwise successful media events can leave lingering questions about Palin’s grasp of — and interest in — history, public policy and other subjects of substance.
On Sunday, Palin insisted she was right about the purpose of Revere’s famous “midnight ride.”
“I know my American history,” she told Wallace.
The colonists at the time of Revere’s ride were British subjects, with US independence still in the future, but Revere’s own writing and other historical accounts leave little doubt that secrecy was vital to his mission.
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