the "gotcha" question:

here it is--here is the "gotcha" question that "got" sarah palin (though if she's so right, it's hard to know what's "gotcha" about it, other than the inarguable truth that she got "got" all by herself):

"what have you seen so far today, and what are you going to take away from your visit?"

yes, THIS is the kind of unfair journalism that prompts only a moron to sputter a moron's inanities, and then sputter further moronic inanities to cover up the first set of moron's inanities, only to be trumped by the crowning moronic inanities of some "experts" who bought her twisted "poetic license" excuse, on the grounds that paul revere talked to a small knot of british army sergeants on the road after they captured him that fateful night, who had threatened to "blow his brains out" (that was the literal threat--mr. revere quoted it several times in his affadavits and letters afterwards) while he then told them that there was to be an armed resistance to british sortie into the countryside about boston. most interpret this as a bold boast calculated to expedite his escape, which, by the way, was successful, though, apparently, there are still some morons who will tell you that paul revere's original and final intent was to warn the british as they marched out from boston that the militia was on to them. (or something like that).

heres' some of the actual truth: paul revere's remit was to warn hancock et al. that the british army was out to seize them and their papers. (the british army was actually out to destroy weapon stores they believed were in concord, but, hey, who's counting). in point of fact, NOBODY was out trying to warn the british army about anything as part of any of this--the british army was invading a hostile countryside, and looking for stealth any way they could buy it.

brendan mcconville can kiss my self-educated ass on this one. i've read daniel french backwards and forwards to the point of almost having his book memorized. i've read revere's affadavits and letters. i've read the whole brouhaha over whether or not dr. church was a spy, a double agent, or just a guy who liked one particular british army officer a little more than seems seemly, even in silk stockings and a powdered wig. i've walked the entire battle road from lexington to concord, reading every single marker and engraving along the way, and even gone the whole nine yards and the rest of the way out to barrett's farm, too. i've sat and contemplated life from the bloody angle, and risen hours before dawn to walk the route of march of the boxborough companies from littleton through acton and on to the hillside beneath buttrick's house where the militia companies finally assembled for the battle, and listened to the park historians recount the orders and the formations and watched while volunteers re-enacted the battle time and time again. i can tell you that isaac davis told his fellow revolutionaries that "i haven't a man who is afraid to go" just moments before he and abner hosmer fell before reaching the bridge, and i can tell you that captain laurie was an idiot not to realize that the colonials would flank him in addition to charging the bridge. i can tell you the names of the first three english privates to fall in the war, (smith, gray and hall), though i can't recall the names of the four officers and sergeants who fell wounded and left the british soldiers without leadership to stop them from panicking and fleeing the field without even carrying off their wounded. (hey--nobody knows everything who isn't named palin, right?)

there's more i know about a crazy local lunatic wandering the battlefield trying to sell hard cider to the combatants, and a legend of a hatcheted british casualty, but none of it, and i mean NONE of it was, before this day, ever interpreted as a "warning" to the british as opposed to a rebel call to arms, and subsequent armed resistance. if brendan mcconville would like you to believe such tripe, then he can perhaps produce for us today anything he's ever written before this day espousing such an opinion. i, for one, am completely unaware of any such thing, and i'll invite anyone at all to disabuse me of that opinion, and brendan mcconville most of all.

i'll say it plain--brendan mcconville is a horse's ass, and so is the braying donkey of a publicity whore he's attempting to exonerate for her unparsimonious bullshit. paul revere rode to warn the colonials, full stop.