Palin: When I Urged Tea Baggers ‘Don’t Retreat, Instead — RELOAD!’ What I Meant Was ‘Vote’
Sarah Palin’s latest gaffe started last Tuesday when she tried to rally her troops in the face of her party’s crushing defeat on health-care reform by posting a United States map with gunsight icons marking districts of Democratic congressmen she has targeted for defeat in the fall.
Along with the map of gun targets, Palin added, “Don’t Retreat, Instead — RELOAD!”
Now, in one of the most transparently false attempts at spin we’ve seen since the Bush administration left town, Palin is trying walk back what she intended to convey by releasing a map that certainly appears to be a hit list.
She rolled out the walk-back in Bush country — at a rally in Midland, Texas. “‘Take up your arms’ means voting,” Palin told the adoring crowd.
Of course, she didn’t say “Take up arms.” She said, “RELOAD!”
At a campaign rally in Arizona for her running mate in 2008, Sen. John “Grampy” McCain, she read the line again:
“We know violence isn’t the answer. When we take up our arms, we’re talking about our vote.”
What we learned during the Bush administration is that normal Americans have limited patience with this sort of horse hockey — especially instances like this when it’s obvious the spinner is working on the assumption that everyone listening to her is stupid.
Of course, Palin’s spin is not, sorry, targeted at regular Americans. She thinks she’s speaking just to the half-wits who worship her. It doesn’t matter to her now that the rest of us are listening — but we are.
