Sarah Palin's 'botched' Paul Revere history lesson

The potential GOP presidential candidate gives an unusual version of the heroic messenger's famous ride. Is she rewriting history — or teaching it?

Sarah Palin
(Image credit: REUTERS/Gary Hershorn)

As Sarah Palin wraps up her "One Nation" bus tour of historic sites, she's dealing with backlash to her claim that Paul Revere delivered a warning to both British soldiers and his fellow American colonists during his famous midnight ride. Critics accused Palin and her supporters of rewriting Revolutionary War history — quite literally: Palin fans tried to rewrite Revere's Wikipedia page to reflect her version of events. But Palin said she "didn't mess up," maintaining that the famous messenger really did warn British soldiers that they wouldn't be able to seize colonists' guns. What does Palin's history lesson say about her and her critics?

Palin is simply clueless: The former Alaska governor's "latest piece of nuttery" merely demonstrates again how remarkably uninformed she is, says Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Beast. And the refusal to acknowledge the error — by both Palin and the "cultists" who rewrote the Revere Wiki page — proves that she won't let truth stand in her way. This would be funny except that "someone who can lie that readily and manipulate religious and cultural resentment as well as she does is a danger," especially in a long recession.

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