Oh, no.
Among other highlights of her Maybe It’s Just A Vacation Bus Tour, Sarah Palin attempted to retell the story of Paul Revere. It went badly. Admittedly, it always goes badly when anyone tries to retell history, even when sober, since we collectively have the historical and civics knowledge of a group of pigeons who paid limited attention in middle school.
But this was almost poetic. So here, with apologies to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow about the scansion, is the Sarah Palin edition of the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere
As told by the Palin who comes from AK
With fire in the belly and things to say
With regard to that famous day and year.
He warned all the – British? (now Sarah tells)
“uh, the … the British that they weren’t gonna be
takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringin’ those bells
and, um, by makin’ sure that as he’s
ridin’ his horse through town to send
those warnin’ shots and bells that, uh, we
were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free
… and we were gonna be armed.” The end!
Quoth she, and it sort of made sense, I guess
After all, our history’s sort of a mess.
And that’s not all Palin’s got to tell
Of how our country was formed so well
She sits in the back of the Magic Bus
And glibly recounts the Story of US
From the Statute of Liberty on south
A classic case of the foot-in-mouth
(Not to mention the help that Washington got
On his farm, where no doubt he worked quite a lot
Though help from some “African volunteers”
As Colbert said, might have eased his years.)
Some man once said, and I thought it neat
If you don’t learn history, you’re doomed to repeat.
But I don’t think that a sorry state --
The way Sarah tells, history’s pretty great!
By Alexandra Petri | 05:40 PM ET, 06/03/2011
