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December 2008 · Notebook · Previous · Next   PDF

Of mohawks and mavericks

By Garret Keizer

I was just your average hockey mom.

—Sarah Palin

I have never gotten over the notion that the history of the United States begins with an act of masquerade. On the night of December 16, 1773, “a number of resolute men (dressed like Mohawks or Indians),” as later reported in the Boston Gazette, managed to dump some 90,000 pounds of East India Company tea into Boston Harbor. They did this, again as reported by the Gazette, “to save their country from the ruin which their enemies had plotted.” From a distance it is hard to say which disguise was the more outlandish, that of the local merchants got up as Hiawatha or that of a beverage tax got up as the tyrant’s scourge. To come even close you would have to dress up a million- dollar-a-month AIG booty bag as a “consulting fee.”

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SEE ALSO: Campaign for U.S. president, 2008; Campaign for U.S. vice-president, 2008; McCain, John; Populism; Palin, Sarah

Response: January 2009, page 4 · January 2009, page 4

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