There we are then, pdq. I thought all you Amercans would have known about Henry Ford's gaffe while being cross- examined during a libel case he'd brought against a newspaper.

"Henry Ford was battling another set of demons. In May 1919, his million-dollar libel suit against the Chicago Tribune finally came to trial in the town of Mount Clemens, Michigan....Weeks of detailed questioning by the Tribune's adept attorney, Elliott G. Stevenson, sought to "expose Ford's mind bare" and establish him as pitiably naïve, ill-educated, and unpatriotic. It became painfully clear that the Flivver King was ignorant of most basic textbook facts: the fundamental principles of government, the dates of the Revolutionary War ("1812?" he asked tentatively), and the identity of Benedict Arnold (Ford thought Arnold was "a writer," confusing the traitor with Arnold Bennett..."
(from "Henry Ford and the Jews" by Neil Baldwin).

Ms Palin continues an old American tradition.