Alright, class, are we ready for our American History class, courtesy of Sarah Palin? You betcha!
It's been at least a few seconds since we last checked in on Sarah Palin's Tour de Grift, which stopped yesterday in Olde Boston Towne. Her bus visited such historical sights as Paul Revere's old shack, where Palin explained the colonist's famous "midnight ride" before the 1775 battles at Lexington and Concord.
The Internet is aflame in scholarly debate over this interpretation:
He who warned, uh, the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms uh 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 and we were going to be armed.
::facepalm:: There's a very well known saying that history is written by the victors. Can someone please tell Sarah she's not winning??? Can we all just breathe a collective sigh of relief that this is not the person one heartbeat away from the Oval Office?
But this brings me to my current state of disgust at the breathless way she is covered by the traditional media--or the "lamestream media" as she refers to them. She cannot even recall the most dumbed-down conventional history of Revere's claim to fame (remember "One if by land, two if by sea?"), turning it instead into some bizarro treatise on gun rights and the inherent liberty of being armed. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is a non-serious person. Why does the media insist on treating her otherwise? Greg Sargent:
Come on, this is just crazy. Palin is not in this race, and even if she does run, most credible observers agree that she will be a weak candidate. Just imagine this kind of thing happening with regularity on the campaign trail. The GOP establishment doesn’t want her to run. If polls are to be believed, not even her own supporters want her to run. The other day, her camp actually leaked word that she would not be meeting with party leaders in key primary states in order to encourage a sense that she’s planning an unconventional presidential campaign! To put it mildly, that's not exactly credible. The bus tour itself has no coherent rationale whatsoever. She launched it, transparently, after media interest in her had died down precipitously. Palin is openly mocking reporters who are treating it as real news. Until she actually declares her candidacy, mark this his whole thing down as a complete con job.
I’m with Justin Elliott on this: The sight of scores of reporters chasing after Palin’s shiny new bus is one of the most dispiriting media displays we’ve seen in a very long time. Even worse, it’s happening barely days after the political media got whipsawed badly by Donald Trump’s birther hucksterism! Please make it stop.
