My Take on Palin's Latest
I get a big kick out of Sarah Palin, though I can't understand how anyone in their right mind could think that she is anywhere close to being a reasonable prospect to lead the country. Surely their respect for the Presidency must be higher than that! She skipped too many classes early in her life, being a beauty queen.
All the same, I think she has to be given credit for her enormous entertainment value. Of all the candidates whose names are kicked around, she is invariably the one most likely to tickle a person's funny bone, at times uncontrollably..
I think I know why that is. It's in her personality, and specifically in her extreme volubility, and in her absolute determination to put her point forward, whatever it might be, even if so much of the time it makes no sense at all. Her latest dust-up, about the intent of Paul Revere's ride, is a great illustration.
She was asked, "Who was Paul Revere?" That is an unusually strange, foreshortened, and -- let's face it -- dumb question, since every American schoolchild through all the generations must know that he was the guy that jumped on his horse when the American Revolution was being born and rode through the countryside, warning the rebels or the patriots, depending on which side you were on, that, "The British are coming, the British are coming!"
I can see how anybody might be taken aback by this weird question, and Sarah Palin was no exception. But, as is her custom, she didn't dally or sidestep. You ask her something, she's going to answer it, some kind of a way. And since she couldn't immediately think of something key about Paul Revere, such as that he was a silversmith, and a masterful one, she fell back on a tactic that I am sure has stood her in good stead since her earliest days in school. She grabbed a fistful of phrases and words that sounded vaguely applicable out of the ether and, without trying to put them into any logical order, just hurled the whole verbal lump back at the questioner, complete with bells ringing, while saying that he warned the British. It's called "trying to snow somebody," which fits right in, considering where she lives.
Besides seeing her doing this, it's also entertaining to see the lame defences being thrown up by her and her supporters. They claim that by his own words Revere admitted that he was warning the British. But the main writing of his that they cite has him telling some British soldiers who had surrounded him that the Rebels are arming and ready for business, and that he had already been riding for some time through the countryside raising the alarm to the Americans or rebels that the British were coming and to be ready. In my book that wasn't warning the British for their sake. Instead it sounded to me like gutsy out and out heckling, or "agitating," as the guys during my youth would have said..
As for arguing that everybody was still British at that time, including the Rebels that Revere was warning, that is like saying that the people who fired on Fort Sumter were just good Americans. At the time of Revere's ride the sides were being chosen fast, and what those sides were was very clear.
.
All the same, I think she has to be given credit for her enormous entertainment value. Of all the candidates whose names are kicked around, she is invariably the one most likely to tickle a person's funny bone, at times uncontrollably..
I think I know why that is. It's in her personality, and specifically in her extreme volubility, and in her absolute determination to put her point forward, whatever it might be, even if so much of the time it makes no sense at all. Her latest dust-up, about the intent of Paul Revere's ride, is a great illustration.
She was asked, "Who was Paul Revere?" That is an unusually strange, foreshortened, and -- let's face it -- dumb question, since every American schoolchild through all the generations must know that he was the guy that jumped on his horse when the American Revolution was being born and rode through the countryside, warning the rebels or the patriots, depending on which side you were on, that, "The British are coming, the British are coming!"
I can see how anybody might be taken aback by this weird question, and Sarah Palin was no exception. But, as is her custom, she didn't dally or sidestep. You ask her something, she's going to answer it, some kind of a way. And since she couldn't immediately think of something key about Paul Revere, such as that he was a silversmith, and a masterful one, she fell back on a tactic that I am sure has stood her in good stead since her earliest days in school. She grabbed a fistful of phrases and words that sounded vaguely applicable out of the ether and, without trying to put them into any logical order, just hurled the whole verbal lump back at the questioner, complete with bells ringing, while saying that he warned the British. It's called "trying to snow somebody," which fits right in, considering where she lives.
Besides seeing her doing this, it's also entertaining to see the lame defences being thrown up by her and her supporters. They claim that by his own words Revere admitted that he was warning the British. But the main writing of his that they cite has him telling some British soldiers who had surrounded him that the Rebels are arming and ready for business, and that he had already been riding for some time through the countryside raising the alarm to the Americans or rebels that the British were coming and to be ready. In my book that wasn't warning the British for their sake. Instead it sounded to me like gutsy out and out heckling, or "agitating," as the guys during my youth would have said..
As for arguing that everybody was still British at that time, including the Rebels that Revere was warning, that is like saying that the people who fired on Fort Sumter were just good Americans. At the time of Revere's ride the sides were being chosen fast, and what those sides were was very clear.
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posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 12:38 AM
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