Category: Pjamasphere

The Midnight Lynching of Sarah Palin

By , June 4, 2011 12:18 pm

They’re at it again. Palin’s critics. They’re beclowning themselves even as they attempt to turn her into one. It began with this video:

Her garbled comment set the Leftosphere afire. That dumb Palin got her history wrong again! How can conservatives be soooo stupid!

Then Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection rode to her defense (many links at this link). Among other things, he posted Paul Revere’s personal account of his adventure. In the relevant part, it reads (spelling in original, bolding mine):

I observed a Wood at a Small distance, & made for that. When I got there, out Started Six officers, on Horse back,and orderd me to dismount;-one of them, who appeared to have the command, examined me, where I came from,& what my Name Was? I told him. it was Revere, he asked if it was Paul? I told him yes He asked me if I was an express? I answered in the afirmative. He demanded what time I left Boston? I told him; and aded, that their troops had catched aground in passing the River, and that There would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the Country all the way up. He imediately rode towards those who stoppd us, when all five of them came down upon a full gallop; one of them, whom I afterwards found to be Major Mitchel, of the 5th Regiment, Clapped his pistol to my head, called me by name, & told me he was going to ask me some questions, & if I did not give him true answers, he would blow my brains out. He then asked me similar questions to those above. He then orderd me to mount my Horse, after searching me for arms

Jacobson also links to David Hackett Fischer’s book, Paul Revere’s Ride at Google Books. If you’re interested, read pages 140-143, but here’s a snippet to save you the trouble:

[Revere] rode directly to the house of Captain Isaac Hall, commander of Medford’s minutemen, who instantly triggered the town’s alarm system. A townsman remembered that ‘repeated gunshots, the beating of drums and the ringing of bells filled the air’ . . . Along the North Shore of Massachusetts, church bells began to toll and the heavy beat of drums could be heard for many miles in the night air. Some towns responded to these warnings before a courier reached them. North Reading was awakened by alarm guns before sunrise. The first messenger appeared a little later (140). . . . [Another] express rider delivered the alarm to a Whig leader who went to an outcropping called Bell Rick, and rang the town bell. That prearranged signal summoned the men of Malden with their weapons . . . (141) . . . Along Paul Revere’s northern route, the town leaders and company captains instantly triggered the alarm system . . . (142).

So did Paul Revere ring bells, beat drums, and shoot guns to warn his compatriots? Probably not, but who really knows. What we do know is that he and his fellow express riders were certainly the “triggers” that set off the warning system of bells, drums, and gunshots.

Yes, Palin could have been more clear, but what she said was spot on. Revere did warn the British that they were in for a fight, and he “triggered” a pre-arranged warning system.

Meanwhile, her bitter critics on the left cling to their copies of Longfellow’s poem.

So Is Google Sucking Up?

By , November 11, 2010 10:16 am

So, the Pjamasphere has been atwitter about Google’s apparent close ties to the Obama administration. And in the past, some have criticized the technology giant for what it has and hasn’t honored on its search page by tweaking the Google logo to fit the holiday. So, my interest was tweaked just a bit by Google’s logo today, Armistice Day:

Fast and Curious: Pjamasphere Reporting on the O’Donnell Documentary Story

By , November 1, 2010 3:20 pm

The Pjamasphere is a-Twitter with the news that the MSM failed to show Christine O’Donnell’s 30-minute ad–twice–something that would tick me off if it were true. But the claim doesn’t appear to be, at least based on the sources I’ve read.

I found the story on Instapundit, who linked to the Classical Values blog, which based its story on a short piece on The AtlanticWire, which ran with the reporting of one Philip Rucker of The Washington Post. Let’s start with Rucker. He writes, in the relevant part (all emphasis in this post is mine unless otherwise noted):

The source, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive campaign operations, said the station “forgot to air [O’Donnell’s documentary]” [on Sunday as planned].

So far, so good. But farther down in the piece, Rucker quotes Tim Qualls, executive producer at Delaware Channel 28, a public access station, hardly what you’d call the MSM (okay, that’s not counting MSMBC, whose viewership approximates the population of Delaware):

Tim Qualls, executive producer at Channel 28, said in an interview the ad did not air because O’Donnell’s campaign did not bring a tape to the production studio by the agreed upon deadline. She reserved the time on Thursday, for $2,500, and agreed to bring a tape by Friday at 5 p.m., Qualls said.

“I did not receive a tape until Sunday night at one of my employees’ houses,” Qualls said. “It has nothing to do with us refusing to air it. I just didn’t get the tape by my deadline.”

Qualls added: “It was all their people’s fault.”

He said he is a Republican and had planned to vote for O’Donnell, but the tape situation changed his mind. “She’s lost my vote,” Qualls said.

In short, there was apparently no forgetting involved–unless Qualls is lying, and we have no evidence for that. In fact, the only source in Rucker’s story for the proposition that the station forgot to run the story is an unnamed source who Rucker ties loosely to O’Donnell’s campaign:

The source, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive campaign operations, said the station “forgot to air it.”

The AtlanticWire basically ran with Rucker’s story, minus all of the messy details that contradict the premise captured in The AtlanticWire’s bolded headline for the story:

TV Station ‘Forgets’ to Air O’Donnell’s 30-Minute Ad

So what did Classical Values do with the story? It ran with the station did it meme. Under the bolded headline The Insanestream Media, it reported:

In today’s “the MSM is worse than you thought possible” news, one media outlet is caught on tape plotting to tie Joe Miller to child molesters, while another “forgets” to run Christine O’Donnell’s big 30-minute ad… twice. The day before the election.

In turn, Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit linked to Classical Values and offered a typical brief comment:

Truth is stranger than fiction. And, where the nexus between “mainstream” media and political corruption is concerned, it’s worse than would be considered believable in fiction.

Now, I understand that there is some reason to be skeptical of the station’s side of the story, but from the facts/quotes at hand, the O’Donnell campaign’s side of the story doesn’t hold up. For that matter, neither does the reporting of the Pjamasphere–at least on this one.

Full disclosure: I don’t vote in Delaware, but if I could, I would vote O’Donnell simply because I’m in a throw-the-bums-out mood, even if that means a few bad bums take the their recently (tomorrow!) vacant seats. Oh, and I’m a big-C Conservative.

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