Why do we revere Revere?

"Listen my friends and you will hear/of the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned those words mas o menos 100 years after the events he celebrated. Millions of people have memorized that snippet and often more (One if by land/two if by sea rings a bell *rimshot*) and so immortalized the deeds of Paul Revere. When heroes of the Revolution are mentioned he is right there with Nathan Hale, Washington, Gates, Hancock, Marion, Allen and a host of others. Is it deserved?
That is a more interesting question. Almost everyone has heard of the Bostonian silversmith, and a lot have also heard of William Dawes and Dr. Samuel Prescott, although that number is miniscule. Even fewer know the name Sybil Ludington.
All four rode to warn people on that same night. Ludington wrode further, unlike Revere managed to evade capture and completed her mission. Yet few people remember her. Do a google search on Revere's ride or Who rode with Revere or something similar. Dawes and Prescott make regular appearances, Ludington none.
What is the difference between Revere on the one hand, Dawes and Prescott (who always seem to be mentioned together as if they were perhaps twins riding the two humps of a three hump camel, a picnic basket on the third hump, inextricably linked in the pantheon of lesser heroes worthy of mention together because their deeds are worthy of note only when taken together but alone are not worth the mention, unlike Revere who rode a steed of thunder with lightning in his fists, death in his eyes, and the terrible power of the harpy in his mouth shouting his pornographic catch phrase, "The British are coming" who clearly, by dint of a better catch phrase than "mmm, good chicken. pass the ale" is thereby worthy of being mentioned alone without having to have another name tagged on) on the second hand, and on the third, mutant hand we find 16 year old waif Sybil Ludington. Why is 1 prominent in most history courses, the second generally mentioned together when mentioned at all, and the third probably a new name to even many of my faithful readers?
Naturally, a lot of it goes back to Longfellow and his poem. Not to minimze Revere's actions, but he played quite a minor role in theRevolution. He was not a particularly brilliant philisophical mind adding to our pantheon of literature, he was not a military genius, he did not make bold statements as he was being executed...he did provide his name to a band that did one of my favorite songs of the 60s, Cherokee Nation, but that was nearly 200 years after the events we speak of.
Revere is revered not so much for what he did as what was said, for how he is perceived and remembered in the collective memory thanks to how he was portrayed and presented. This is an interesting and important point. How things are presented determines often enough reality.
Example: Pro-life uses the term "baby". Because nobody wants to be labeled "baby killer". Abortion proponents use the phrase "fetus" because something as cold, clinical, and merely a scientific term as "fetus" carries no emotional connotation and therefore is not perceived or construed as important. Both people speak of the same thing but they have vastly different perceptions of what is being discussed and the naming of the topic has a huge impact.
That previous paragraph will get me labeled an "extremist" by a lot of people, and this brings me to the point of this rant. (Rants are quite entertaining, by the way, for the rantee, so long as they are entitled "opinion pieces" and not "rants" because an opinion piece sounds intellectual and meaningful whereas a rant sounds like the ravings of a lunatic. In my case, the second is more correct.)
It took me a long time to figure out what an extremist is. When Clinton was trying to appoint judges, the Republicans found any judge who was anti-life (I think that phrase rocks the Kasbah: pro-choice like to depict their opponents as anti-choice, pro-abortion there opponent is anti-abortion, and so forth...by naming the debate I emotionally charge it. Go me!) to be representative of the extremist left wing. "Moderate" Democrat judges were...surprise...those who agreed with their position.
Now, with Bush, it is reversed. Virtually every judge he tries to appoint is labeled as a right wing extremist. Moderates are Republican judges who happen to support abortion, for example...
See the point? A moderate is someone labeled as your opponent who happens to agree with a pet position. An extremist is anyone who disagrees with your position. What is it about being por-abortion that automatically makes someone an extremist? I would say the same thing that makes a pro-life person an extremist. The label becomes the important thing.
Politics are becoming more black and white for many people. You either agree with me or you are an extremist. The middle is disappearing not because people are changing but because the verbiage surrounding it is. Someone who disagrees with a precedent THAT HAD A VERY SPLIT VOTE is nowadays labeled an extremist.
Decisions with a 5-4 split are precedent. Nearly half the people can disagree with a precedent...but because at that given moment in history one more person agreed with it, anyone who later disagrees is an extremist.
Extremist itself is a connotative label that bears hostility with it that is often unjustified. And is being an extremist always a bad thing? being in the center does not mean a person is right. Often it means they simply have no principles they are willing to stand up for. They are riding the fence, often enough.
Extremists in U.S. history include people such as Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Revere, Hale, Paine, Franklin, Wilson, Roosevelt...lets look at some moderates and their effects.
Andrew Jackson was a centrist. He followed the will of a lot of people in the removal of the 5 Civilized Tribes which led to the Trail of Tears, the Seminole Wars, and much more destruction. If the human misery does not move you perhaps the vast economic impact of those actions would. But he had supporters across the spectrum because he represented the middle of the road.
Abraham Lincoln was a centrist. He abhorred slavery but tried to preserve it to preserve the Union. It has been speculated that a more hardline approach by a President might have prevented the Civil War, one of the bloodiest wars in our history over highly controversial causes: whose economic system and system of government would prevail?
Being a centrist means a person is right no more and no less than being an extremist means right or wrong. We need to stop throwing labels around and start changing perceptions of discourse. Labels don't determine right and wrong, actions do.
False history (such as found in Longfellows poem) can and does enter the public memory and becomes established as fact. It is our job to make sure that we change the verbiage we use so our current accusations do not become the false history later generations "remember" because then, as now, it will color reality just as the memory of Revere is colored. Sometimes memorable words are worth more than memorable deeds.