Sarah Palin maintained Sunday that her recollection of Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride was correct, saying “I didn’t mess up about Paul Revere.”
Appearing on Fox News Sunday at the tail end of her bus tour last week, the former Alaska governor and potential presidential candidate said she was referring to the less well-known part of the story in which Revere is captured by the British and warns them that the Americans are ready for them.
“Part of his ride was to warn the British that we’re already there – that, ‘Hey, you’re not going to succeed. You’re not going to take American arms. You are not going to beat our own well-armed persons, individual, private militia that we have,’” Palin said, according to a transcript. “He did warn the British.”
Palin appears to be referring to a part of the story which is not in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem but is described elsewhere in historical accounts, in which Revere is detained by the British and warns them, while at gunpoint, that 500 American militiamen awaited in Concord.
In her initial comment and on Sunday, Palin seemed to blend this aspect of the story with Revere actually riding around to warn the Americans that the British were coming. She described Revere warning the British by riding through town, firing warning shots and ringing bells. Warning shots and bells are not included in historical accounts of the ride, either.
“He who warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms 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,” Palin said to a local TV reporter.
Palin’s bus tour was seen as part of a prospective presidential campaign, but Palin said the tour wasn’t about her personal political ambitions, and that she remains “right in the middle” when it comes to running for president.
In a wide-ranging interview with Fox’s Chris Wallace, she also said she would vote ‘no’ on raising the debt limit and supports Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) plan for Medicare reform.
“I am very frustrated with Democrats and with the media trying to spin Paul Ryan’s efforts here in trying to save and shore up Medicare, because what’s being spun, Chris, this misperception, this misconception that he’s trying to do away with Medicare,” Palin said.
