Flap’s Links and Comments for June 6th on 19:19

These are my links for June 6th from 19:19 to 19:25:

• Experts back Sarah Palin’s historical account – Sarah Palin yesterday insisted her claim at the Old North Church last week that Paul Revere “warned the British” during his famed 1775 ride — remarks that Democrats and the media roundly ridiculed — is actually historically accurate. And local historians are backing her up.

  Palin prompted howls of partisan derision when she said on Boston’s Freedom Trail that Revere “warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms 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.”

  Palin insisted yesterday on Fox News Sunday she was right: “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.”
  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.”

  Boston University history professor Brendan McConville said, “Basically 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,’ and 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. Tbout tha. That’s accurate.”

• Sarah Palin’s Account of Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride Gets Shot Down by Historians – Sarah Palin said that Paul Revere warned the British during his midnight ride in 1775. Historians beg to differ.

  "He didn't warn the British," said James Giblin, author of "The Many Rides of Paul Revere." "That's her most obvious blooper."

  During her "One Nation Tour" last week, the former Alaska governor uttered a now-infamous recounting of the Revolutionary War hero's midnight ride, telling reporters that Revere "warned, uh, the … the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms, uh, by ringing those bells." She defended her explanation on "Fox News Sunday," saying "Part of his ride was to warn the British that we're already there — that, 'Hey, you're not going to succeed. '"

  Experts agree that warning the British — Revere was an American patriot, remember, he was against the folks across the pond — was not crucial to the midnight ride.

• What Sarah Palin Got Wrong — And We Did, Too – It was a harrowing night for Revere. Meanwhile, our episode is thoroughly absurd. Palin got the story wrong. Big deal. It’s not worth mocking her and saying she’s a dummy. Nor is it worth trying to pull her bacon out of the fire with a lame and halfblind excuse for how she was really correct, sort of, if you look at it from the right angle, while basically ignoring her actual words. Both sides look foolish.

  Palin should have been humble and admitted she got the story wrong. She could have spun it to say that she got the spirit of the thing right. She could have done a lot of things. But persisting in a flashing-neon error as she’s done is prideful, and that kind of pigheadedness is very unattractive in someone vying for public office. Sarah’s sin was in her lack of humility.

  But then there’s us, we who revel in the cheap shot and the takedown. People make mistakes. People say cockamamie things. But high-vaulting and jumping down their throats is rarely called for. Still, we’ve cultivated a whole media culture of such acrobatics. That is also prideful and unattractive.