Prudence Palin's Favorite Founder

I don't want to write about Prudence Palin anymore. But the lady just keeps on walking into rakes.

She's asked by Fox "News'" resident academic Glenn Beck, so, who's your favorite Founder? Which reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry and George discuss their favorite explorer. She says:

You know...well, all of them because they came collectively together with so much diverse opinion and diversity in terms of belief but collectively they came together to form this union...and they were led by of course George Washington...so he's got to rise to the top. Washington was the consumate statesman. He served. He returned power to the popel. He didn't want to be a king, he returned power to the people, then he went back to mount vernon, he went back to his farm.

I'm not making this up. See for yourself.

(Am I hearing right, or does Beck say "bullcrap" to her at some point?) Now. I don't want to dis the "Faddah of the Country" and whatnot. But it's clear that "all of them" is a stall technique for Palin when she's having trouble thinking on her feet. And second, "George Washington" (or, as Butthead referred to him, "that dude on the dollar") is not a terrible answer. But it is one a second grader could offer. And even her understanding of Washington is a bit simplistic and eerily self-serving. Washington didn't sign the Declaration of Independence. He had been included in the Continental Congress as a delegate from Virginia, but he resigned to act as commander general of the Continental Army and therefore could not participate. And let's not pretend that Washington didn't have his detractors at the time. He most certainly did. There was in fact a plot to remove him as general, an effort that included fellow "Founder" Benjamin Rush, among others. The Conway Cabal, led of course by an Irishman, was eventually exposed and therefore thwarted. Later in his life, Rush would express regret for his role in the matter, though this expression sounds to be to be a bit grudging:

[Washington] was the highly favored instrument whose patriotism and name contributed greatly to the establishment of the independence of the United States.

Bear in mind, Palin and Beck are both visible political figures in a "movement" that purports to worship the "Founding Fathers," although Beck has done so much to rub shit into Thomas Paine's hair. But you stutter when asked to name one and then you blurt out such a hackneyed choice such as George Washington? Couldn't she and Beck have worked on that softball question beforehand so she could offer a more interesting answer than that and not look like a dolt? How about George Mason, whose refusal to sign the Constitution in part led to the creation of a Bill of Rights? Or Richard Henry Lee, whose motion in the Second Continental Congress caused the Declaration of Independence to be, um, declared? Oh, you'd like him, Prudence:

To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.

Or, for hell's sake, why not just go all the way and name the greatest Founder of them all? Jefferson? Ring a bell? And no, I do not mean George Jefferson...dolt. See, it's great to think you're leading a history cult that worships "the Founders" on the one hand. It's even better to have some modicum of intellectual curiosity to bother to do a Google search or three or even to READ A DAMNED BOOK. (I suggest "What Would Jefferson Do" by Thom Hartmann for starters.)