I won’t hold my breath..… (Boston Herald)  The vicar of Old North Church says  he’s miffed at the “gotcha”-seeking media for twisting Sarah Palin’s  stop at the Hub landmark earlier this month into an endless GOP-bashing  circus.  Palin continues to be ridiculed for her comments on Paul Revere’s  ride, but the Rev. Stephen T. Ayres told the Herald this weekend it’s  all a tempest in a Tea Party pot.

“I am amazed that this silly story refuses to die,” he said. “I  lament what’s happening to our culture. Everything is reduced to  one-upmanship or gotcha.”

Ayres said he feels somewhat responsible because he tutored Palin on  the particulars of Revere’s 1775 ride and teen exploits as a bell-ringer  at the fabled church. So he has fired back at left-leaning bloggers by  penning a post of his own on the church Web site.

Ayres said he welcomed Palin, her parents, and her daughter Piper to  the church on the morning of June 2, as she traveled the East Coast on  her “One Nation” tour. He gave them the usual “one if by land, two if by  sea” lesson, but added in how Revere founded the church’s bell-ringing  guild in 1750 as a teen and how he warned the British after being  arrested on the night of his famous ride that the minutemen had been  alerted.

Hence Palin’s quote to the press that Revere “warned the British that  they weren’t going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells  and making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those  warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were  going to be free.”  Ayres said Palin is “an easy target.” And, for anybody still gunning  for her, he added, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow took liberties, too.

“He was not subjected to thousands of newspaper stories and blog  comments attacking or defending his poem,” Ayres writes online. “One  hundred and fifty years later most of the pundits and many of us assume  Longfellow’s poem was historically correct. I hate to break it to you,  but Revere was not standing on the opposite shore, did not make it as  far as Concord that night, and finished his ride to Lexington before  midnight.”  (read article)