Michele Bachmann and What?

               


      

Some years ago, not too many, but some, a young Michele Bachmann was a little girl in elementary school, and I am sure at least one of her teachers taught her Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "Paul Revere's Ride." That poem begins this way:

"Listen my children and shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the Eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year."

Yes, sir, Paul Revere told his friend to hang lanterns in the belfry of the Old North Church in Boston, Massachusetts, as a signal if the British were coming: "One if by land, and two if by sea." One lantern if the British attacked by land, two lanterns if the British attacked by sea. Revere promised that he would be "Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm, For the country folk to be up and to arm." Among the villages in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, were two called Lexington and Concord. Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts.

Revere told his friend goodnight and rowed his boat across the bay to the Charlestown, Massachusetts, shore. The friend heard men, and arms, and the tramp of feet. He climbed to the tower of the Old North Church in Boston, Massachusetts. He looked. He listened and then

"[S]uddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats."

Paul Revere and his horse are restless and ready on the other side.  Suddenly Revere sees a light in the belfry of the Old North Church in Boston, Massachusetts, and then - a second light. They are coming by sea! He mounts his horse and begins his ride, reaching Medford, Massachusetts, at midnight. The poem says

"It was one by the village clock.
When he galloped into Lexington."

and

"It was two by the village clock
When he came to the bridge in Concord town."

Longfellow presumes to say

"You know the rest in the books you have read,
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and barnyard wall.
 ...
So through the night rode Paul Revere,
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm."

Of course by now it is early morning, the wee hours of April 19, 1775, the day that went down in history for the battles at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, and the Shot Heard 'Round the World - it was that important. The American Revolution changed the course of history, changed the destiny of mankind. That first shot reverberated around the entire world.

All of us learned about that shot and the war it started, not just from Longfellow's poem but in our history and social studies classes, too. All of us learned about the beginning of that truly revolutionary Revolution. We all learned that the following year, a Declaration would be signed, a Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. We learned about the winter at Valley Forge, about General George Washington, about his crossing the Delaware on Christmas night, about Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell, and so much more that is our shared knowledge of our shared history.

On Saturday, March 12, 2011, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), a possible presidential candidate, visited Manchester, New Hampshire, in the state that hosts the first primary of each election cycle. She stood before a crowd of conservative activists and students and said, "What I love about New Hampshire and what we have in common is our extreme love for liberty. You're the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord."

How could she? How could anybody? Massachusetts, Massachusetts, Massachusetts.

She thought Lexington and Concord were in New Hampshire? Did she think the Old North Church is in New Hampshire? Does she think that Boston - - no, surely not. This was no slip of the tongue either, this was no error of exhaustion. This was from a prepared text, a written speech. Neither she nor her staff caught the error. She stood there in New Hampshire and congratulated the state for the shot heard around the world. And she did it again the next day, no one bothering to correct her speech. The fact that the shot heard round the world was fired in Massachusetts is something every school child knows.

Isn't it?

It is, isn't it?

Isn't it?