Sarah Palin attracted ridicule on Twitter today for tweeting a happy birthday message to George Washington.
The former Vice-Presidential candidate was apparently confused by the meaning of today’s July 4th holiday, which celebrates America’s independence from Great Britain.
In a tweet posted this morning she wrote: ‘It’s #July4th. Happy birthday to George Washington, a great American patriot and conservative.”
It's #July4th. Happy Birthday to George Washington, a great American patriot and conservative.
— Sarah Palin (@sarahpalinuss) July 4, 2014
Unfortunately for Palin, George Washington was born on February 22, 1732 and his birthday is celebrated as a national holiday in the United States on the third monday of that month.
Often this day is known simply as Presidents’ Day and has more recently come to be associated more broadly with any U.S. president.
Meanwhile Independence Day in the United States - commonly known as the Fourth of July - celebrates the adoption of the Declaration of independence on July 4th 1776, which severed sovereign ties with the British crown.
Palin’s inability to distinguish between these two major American holidays invited comments on Twitter that she is “dumber than a bag of nails inside George Bush’s asshole” and “the modern face of lead poisoning in America”.
In a post on her Facebook page, however, Palin defended her tweet and claimed that any criticism of her remarks was politically motivated.
“All this nonsense on Twitter is just another example of the gotcha liberal media trying to play politics with our nation’s most sacred holidays,” she wrote.
