On Reflection of Paul Revere's Ride

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.


Most of us have been able to quote that particular stanza of Longfellow’s from memory since childhood. I don’t know if it is still taught in public schools or not.
But, I bet when old Paul leaped into the saddle that night and spurred the animal for Lexington, he had no idea the furor his ride would create over two hundred and thirty-odd years later.

Of course, everyone reading this knows exactly to what I am referring, the brouhaha a few weeks back over Palin’s remark about Paul Revere warning the British.

I’ll be honest. I thought she had goofed. Warn the British? No way!

So, I did what many of her critics should have done. I researched the ride, discovering a letter Revere had written of that particular ride to Clergyman Jeremy Belknap, a gentlemen who held counsel with many of the rebels like Revere.

On page four of his letter, he writes of being captured by the British. They asked his name. Here is what he wrote, without editing. “I told him. it was Revere, he asked if it was Paul? I told him yes He asked me if I was an express? I answered in the afirmative. He demanded what time I left Boston? 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.”

His words, as he wrote them.

‘There would be five hundred Americans there in a short time.’ Now I don’t about you, but to me, that is a warning.

So why all the fuss about Palin?

Some say she is intellectually dishonest; some say she tries to dictate other people’s opinions; and others claim she is ignorant. (and all this time, I thought those were the prime prerequisites for a successful politician)

Not being a national pundit who is smarter than everyone else, I can’t say whether she is guilty of the assertions.

I do know it was not Sarah Palin who said “I’ve been in fifty-seven states. I have one left to go.” Nor was it Palin who uttered the unbelievably insensitive remark “On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes, and I see many of them in the audience here today. . .”

Nope, those eloquent observations were delivered by the silvery, but slippery tongue of President Barack Obama.

One pundit jumped her case because in her discussion of Paul Revere, she rambled. I saw the video, and she did. Who doesn’t as Obama’s speech at a recent campaign stop illustrates all too clearly.

“What they'll say is, 'Well it costs too much money,' but you know what? It would cost, about... it. .it. . . it would cost about the same as what we would spend. Over the course of ten years it would cost what it would costs us. All right. Okay. We're going to. It. . . It would cost us about the same as it would cost for about. . hold on one second. I can't hear myself. But I'm glad you're fired up, though. I'm glad."

Now the previous paragraph has to be a strong contender for a playoff spot in the World Series of ‘Rambling’.

All politicians ramble. That’s how they avoid answering us, but the media plays favorites, and Palin makes a good target, which gets them off the hook when they overlook Obama’s pathetic explanation for health reform in this disjointed remark.

“Everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma, they end up taking up a hospital bed, it costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early and they got some treatment, and a, a breathalyzer, or inhalator, not a breathalyzer. I haven't had much sleep in the last 48 hours."

All of us garble our messages at times. I always got a big kick out of George W and his Bushisms, but Barack O can match the W goof for goof.

When I first read the following remark, I honestly attributed it to George, but it belongs to our president, “The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings, and inefficiencies to our health care system."

I knew immediately the source of the next remark because of the first sentence. “Let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s.”

Obama? Right. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never known someone to want to be so absolutely clear about everything.

Palin is a politician like the others. Good points, bad points.

You know what tickles me. The media who pushed to have her emails made public came up with zilch—called egg-on-the-face.

If the media isn’t careful, they’ll start pushing voters her way. No one likes to see another treated unfairly, and that’s they way it seems to be going.


rconwell@gt.rr.com
www.kentconwell.blogspot.com
www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell
www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26



www.kentconwell.blogspot.com