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Rightwing lunatic and Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who has been exploring a presidential campaign run, was giving a speech in New Hampshire, where she uttered the following (italics mine):
"What I love about New Hampshire and what we have in common is our extreme love for liberty," the potential GOP presidential candidate said. "You're the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord. And you put a marker in the ground and paid with the blood of your ancestors the very first price that had to be paid to make this the most magnificent nation that has ever arisen in the annals of man in 5,000 years of recorded history."
She repeated that statement in the same speech.
I would note that I write this post in Boston, Massachusetts, ten miles from Lexington.
This wasn't an off-the-cuff statement either: someone actually wrote this. There was a teleprompter. Movement conservatives just make shit up because they're lazy. I don't know if this was simply incompetent pandering, or if conservatives can't handle the idea that the American Revolution started in the People's Republic of Massachusetts, home of liberals and gays (AAAIIEEE!!!). Either way, it's a complete divorce from reality--and, again, this was in a prepared speech.
By the way, Bachmann also had some remarks about education:
"I don't think that our public schools are necessarily the place where one fixed set of political beliefs should be imposed on students," Bachmann said. "I think that knowledge, facts, and information should be on the table, and let students decide what their beliefs should be."
I guess Bachmann has decided to believe that the American Revolution started in New Hampshire.
In a sane political system, Bachmann would be given as much credence as the crazy guy on the subway.
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Later, when called out on the gaffe, she said (I'm quoting from memory, but the gist is true): "Massachussets is where it happened, but New Hampshire is where you are still proud of it."
Makes some sense--since there isn't a chance in hell of her being accepted in MA, might as well try to suck up to NH. Where, sadly for her, they have sufficient ego to be offended by both her original mistake and her suck-up "explanation".
Posted by: Cuttlefish | March 13, 2011 10:55 AM
This wasn't an off-the-cuff statement either: someone actually wrote this.
I could see how this might happen in an off-the-cuff statement. New Hampshire's capital is called Concord. But there is no Lexington in the state, something a speechwriter should have been aware of.
Posted by: Eric Lund | March 13, 2011 11:39 AM
Actually the really GOOD stuff happened a full year before the Boston Tea Party here in RI, when that wonderful band of colonists burned the British tax ship Gaspee in Pawtuxet cove.
They still celebrate the Gaspee days here. Of course they completely miss the point. But it did happen a full YEAR before the Boston Tea Party.
Posted by: Tony P | March 13, 2011 12:13 PM
I would note that I write this post in Boston, Massachusetts, ten miles from Lexington.
Mike can see Lexington from his house.
As Deval Patrick rears his head and enters the airspace of New Hampshire...
Posted by: coeruleus | March 13, 2011 12:19 PM
...and of course to the Granite Staters there is no insult worse than being confused with the flatlandahs.
Posted by: BikeMonkey | March 13, 2011 12:20 PM
In Chicago we still have a park where the nuts are allowed to get up on their soap boxes and rant and rave. It's been called Bughouse Square for many decades and once per year we celebrate the notion that, if you give the whackos somewhere to preach their nonsense, fewer run for office just to get access to that pulpit.
Posted by: Ken | March 13, 2011 2:38 PM
Pardon me for not being an American Patriot (or, indeed, an American anything), but I was under the impression that the shot heard around the world occured in Sarajevo in July of 1914. But of course, that is totally insignificant compared to anything that happened anywhere in the United States.
Posted by: Keith Harwood | March 14, 2011 1:35 AM
No Conservative Left Behind
Posted by: NCLB!!! | March 14, 2011 6:00 AM
Keith,
We used to have a series of educational short subjects on Saturday Mornings for kids. One of them starts off with a Jingle that goes, "And the shot heard around the world, was the start of the Revolution." It's a very Americentric cartoon for American kids. Presumably Bachmann's speech writer has heard it.
I do agree with you though that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand can also be described as a shot heard around the world. But you can also say that is a very Eurocentric claim, since WWI really had more of an effect on Europe than anyplace else. How much fighting took place in the Far East or the Americas? How much in Africa? And how much did that shot change the world?
Posted by: Silent Service | March 14, 2011 8:40 AM
-since WWI really had more of an effect on Europe than anyplace else. How much fighting took place in the Far East or the Americas? How much in Africa? And how much did that shot change the world?-
Silent Service
Ever heard of the Russian Revolutions of 1917,the collapse of the German Empire, the great depression, WW2...
Also the Tanganeka and Kenya campaigns were WW1 combat in Africa
And that is just of the top of this Europeans head.
Andrew
Posted by: AndrewD | March 14, 2011 11:23 AM
At least she knew the shot heard 'round the world didn't come from the grassy knoll.
Posted by: Rob Jase | March 14, 2011 12:16 PM
From 'Concord Hymn' by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1837):
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
It's not from Schoolhouse Rock, and it predates Ferdinand's demise by almost eighty years.
Posted by: mingfrommongo | March 14, 2011 12:27 PM