Vicar: It's My Fault Palin Goofed on Revere

A vicar who gave Sarah Palin and her family a Paul Revere history lesson claims to have the "inside scoop" on the former Alaska governor's "Boston history massacre." I know "where all the factoids she cited came from and take responsibility for putting them in her head," confesses Rev. Stephen Ayres. "I will not take the blame for the odd order those factoids came out. Perhaps it was too much information in too short a period of time to digest properly." Ayres, the vicar of Boston's Old North Church, was asked by the National Park Service to offer the family a tour of the church where patriots, operating on a signal from Paul Revere, held two lanterns to warn Americans that the British were coming by sea.

Ayres speculates that Palin talked later about Revere "ringing bells" to warn the British about American arms because he told her that a teenage Revere had founded the church's "bell ringing guild" in 1750. He also offered the "standard talk" about Revere that included a mention of Revere's capture by the British, "warning those troops that the minutemen had been alerted," he writes in the church blog. Ayres is grateful for Palin's historical mishmash, he adds. "She succeeded in her stated intention of drawing attention to America's historical sites and inadvertently provided us with priceless free publicity by misplacing a few facts when quizzed on her visit," he notes. (More Sarah Palin stories.)