Okay, I live only a few miles from Valley Forge National Historical Park so maybe I have some slight advantage, but I don’t think Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi could pass his citizenship test. Doesn’t every schoolboy and girl learn that George Washington and his weary Continental Army encamped at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-78?
Republicans such as Roger Wicker of Mississippi dismissed the idea of simply skipping the final healthcare vote, even considering that their opposition to the bill would allow them such a liberty. Wicker said he recognized the historic nature of the vote and has already tentatively canceled a political event in Mississippi.
“It would be silly for the Senate to forego Christmas season with our families when you know there will be so much down time in January,” Wicker said. “But I’m not going to miss healthcare votes. If the majority leader thinks we’ll be voting between Christmas and New Year’s, I’ll be here voting.
“There are soldiers sweating in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I visualize the pictures of the bare-footed soldiers with their feet bleeding at Valley Forge in Christmas of 1776. I think we can stand to be in this splendid building for Christmas if we have to.”
Kind of reminds me of another future senator (John “Bluto” Blutarsky).
D-Day: War’s over, man. Wormer dropped the big one.
Bluto: Over? Did you say “over”? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
Otter: [whispering] Germans?
Boon: Forget it, he’s rolling.
If Washington had been shacked up at Valley Forge on Christmas Day 1776, he couldn’t have been crossing the Delaware River to ambush the Hessians at Trenton. And if he hadn’t taken over Trenton, he couldn’t have marched up Princeton Pike to win the Battle of Princeton (1777) and drive the redcoats out of New Jersey.
But Roger Wicker is even more delusional than he is misinformed. Imagine those soldiers at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-78 with their bleeding frostbit feet, thinking that they were fighting to deny their fellow citizens access to health care. Idiot.
valley forge encampment and the attack on trenton happened in different years. Wicker is still an asshole, just because he’s an asshole. trenton was 1776, valley forge was the following winter.
That’s what I said.
It’s definitely a local advantage – unless your a military history buff or live in the affected areas then you’re not too likely to be intimately familiar with the details of which battles took place when and where. He’s a first-rate jerk, but being off by a year in an offhand reference should be relatively forgivable – Bush probably would have referenced the First Battle of Molasses…
I don’t expect people to know when the Battle of Princeton took place. But two things should be well known. That Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas 1776, and that he encamped at Valley Forge the following winter. If you don’t know any other dates from the Revolutionary War, you should know about those two iconic events.
We can argue about “should” – I would argue that you absolutely need to know 1776(5) and 1783 – but I don’t think too many people outside of southeastern Pennsylvania would get bent out of shape about someone not knowing when Washington camped in Valley Forge.
Not knowing when Elvis (Tupac & Biggie in my neck of the woods) died? That’s cause for shunning…
whether you know which winter they camped at Valley Forge or not, you should be clear that it wasn’t in 1776.
Excuse me ! ! Say what? I consider myself a student of history, or at least some of the lessons that we should learn from history. But the exact date? C’mom BooMan. I know the year a lot of things happened. But IMO that is too arcane an event to know exactly what year it happened. The Senator may be a wanker for other reasons, but not that one. You are splitting too fine a hair, here.
Do you know what year we declared independence?
Are you aware that the war started that year?
It’s not like I am asking you when the War of Austrian Succession began.
It seems to me that it ought to be drummed into every American’s skull that Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas in 1776.
4 July 1776
Yes
I went to elementary school in Trumbull, CT High school in Hanover MA.
I know he crossed the Delaware (I can visualize the painting) and I’m glad I now know the year. : ~ )
Booman, I grew up in Springfield Township. My Dad was a Revolutionary War buff, and it was a family tradition to drive to the woods at Valley Forge and tromp around on Christmas Day to remember those brave “wintertime patriots.”
Right now its snowing like hell in western Michigan, with that out my window and your post, it reminded me all over of the being 13 and being led around by my dad in those woods late Christmas Eve of 1966 in nearly blizzard conditions. The sacrifices those men made were driven home as we walked around cold as hell with the snow falling all around us in the bitter cold.
btw; Don’t worry about a historicaly challenged senator from a state with such low SAT scores and the highest percentage of cases with sexually transmitted dieases; because Ronald Reagan used to confuse the Puritans with the Pilgrims constantly; and Reagan was, as we all know, a great president.
Have a merry fucking Christmas.