Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Barack Gaffes (Hoohah Boy, This Fellow Makes John Frakin' Kerry Look Principled Alert)
National Review ^ | 5/21/2008 | Michelle Malkin

Posted on 05/20/2008 10:39:08 PM PDT by goldstategop

All it takes is one gaffe to taint a Republican for life. The political establishment never let Dan Quayle live down his fateful misspelling of “potatoe.” The New York Times distorted and misreported the first President Bush’s questions about new scanner technology at a grocers’ convention to brand him permanently as out of touch.

But what about Barack Obama? The guy’s a perpetual gaffe machine. Let us count the ways, large and small, that his tongue has betrayed him throughout the campaign:

Last May, he claimed that tornadoes in Kansas killed a whopping 10,000 people: “In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed.” The actual death toll: 12.

Earlier this month in Oregon, he redrew the map of the United States: “Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.”

Last week, in front of a roaring Sioux Falls, S.D., audience, Obama exulted: “Thank you, Sioux City. ... I said it wrong. I’ve been in Iowa for too long. I’m sorry.”

Explaining last week why he was trailing Hillary Clinton in Kentucky, Obama again botched basic geography: “Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it’s not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle.” On what map is Arkansas closer to Kentucky than Illinois?

Obama has as much trouble with numbers as he has with maps. Last March, on the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Ala., he claimed his parents united as a direct result of the civil rights movement: “There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Ala., because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born.”

Obama was born in 1961. The Selma march took place in 1965. His spokesman, Bill Burton, later explained that Obama was “speaking metaphorically about the civil-rights movement as a whole.”

Earlier this month in Cape Girardeau, Mo., Obama showed off his knowledge of the war in Afghanistan by homing in on a lack of translators: “We only have a certain number of them, and if they are all in Iraq, then it’s harder for us to use them in Afghanistan.” The real reason it’s “harder for us to use them” in Afghanistan: Iraqis speak Arabic or Kurdish. The Afghanis speak Pashto, Farsi, or other non-Arabic languages.

Over the weekend in Oregon, Obama pleaded ignorance of the decades-old, multibillion-dollar massive Hanford nuclear-waste cleanup: “Here’s something that you will rarely hear from a politician, and that is that I’m not familiar with the Hanford, uuuuhh, site, so I don’t know exactly what’s going on there. (Applause.) Now, having said that, I promise you I’ll learn about it by the time I leave here on the ride back to the airport.”

I assume on that ride, a staffer reminded him that he’s voted on at least one defense-authorization bill that addressed the “costs, schedules, and technical issues” dealing with the nation’s most contaminated nuclear-waste site.

Last March, the Chicago Tribune reported this little-noticed nugget about a fake autobiographical detail in Obama’s Dreams from My Father: “Then, there’s the copy of Life magazine that Obama presents as his racial awakening at age 9. In it, he wrote, was an article and two accompanying photographs of an African-American man physically and mentally scarred by his efforts to lighten his skin. In fact, the Life article and the photographs don’t exist, say the magazine’s own historians.”

And in perhaps the most seriously troubling set of gaffes of them all, Obama told a Portland crowd over the weekend that Iran doesn’t “pose a serious threat to us” — cluelessly arguing that “tiny countries” with small defense budgets can’t do us harm — and then promptly flip-flopped the next day, claiming, “I’ve made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave.”

Barack Obama — promoted by the Left and the media as an all-knowing, articulate, transcendent Messiah — is a walking, talking gaffe machine. How many more passes does he get? How many more can we afford?


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008election; barackobama; blueturban; michellemalkin; nationalreview; obama; obamalies; obamatruthfile; obamessiah; perpetualgaffeguy
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-79 next last
Obama. He's a walking perpetual gaffe guy. He's told so many whoppers he makes John Frackin' Kerry look principled. As the Messiah, he gets away with it.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

1 posted on 05/20/2008 10:39:09 PM PDT by goldstategop
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

Little Michelle kicks his pearly whites down his throat on this one.


2 posted on 05/20/2008 10:44:51 PM PDT by pissant (THE Conservative party: www.falconparty.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop
Duplicity, ha!

Deception, ha!

An honest leader promotes not these things!


3 posted on 05/20/2008 10:48:11 PM PDT by Prole (Pray for the families of Chris and Channon.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

There’s no end to the number of passes the enemedia will give him.


4 posted on 05/20/2008 10:52:37 PM PDT by jazusamo (DefendOurMarines.org | DefendOurTroops.org)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

pssst- Obama. That Hanford...ah..”site” thingy. Its in Washington state. Not Oregon. (Umatilla - that’s in Oregon though, you could learn up on that.)


5 posted on 05/20/2008 10:53:35 PM PDT by 21twelve (Don't wish for peace. Pray for Victory.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

Of course misspelling potato was a much bigger, HUGE mistake that definitely deserved months and months of MSM ridicule. /s


6 posted on 05/20/2008 10:54:01 PM PDT by stockstrader (CHANGE--a euphemism for further dividing our country along racial, social and economic lines)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

How many gaffes are you allowed before people conclude you’re simply a moron? I guess with Chrissy and friends shilling for you in the MSM, the answer is a whole lot.


7 posted on 05/20/2008 10:55:33 PM PDT by TheWasteLand
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop
It's a grin watching my Lib friends using pretzel logic and semantic gymnastics to explain why Obama's gaffes are different than Bush's.

“Here’s something that you will rarely hear from a politician, and that is that I’m not familiar with the Hanford, uuuuhh, site, so I don’t know exactly what’s going on there.

The self-congratulatory preface is a hoot. "Ain't I special? And here's why I'm so special?"

8 posted on 05/20/2008 10:59:17 PM PDT by AHerald ("Be faithful to God ... do not bother about the ridicule of the foolish." - St. Pio of Pietrelcina)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

The Greeks had a word for what has become of our Republic.

kakistocracy (kak·is·toc·ra·cy) n.
Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.

YES-— it is a REAL word, and perfectly describes what America has become.

Resulting from the bad idea of granting everyone the “right to vote”....contrary to the warnings from John Adams.


9 posted on 05/20/2008 11:00:15 PM PDT by river rat (Semper Fi - You may turn the other cheek, but I prefer to look into my enemy's vacant dead eyes.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

""Ain't I special? And here's why I'm so special?"

He isn't so "special"...

All evidence points to a level of corruption, duplicity, dishonesty, racist pandering and rabble rousing expected from all current black Congress Critters and many of the White and Brown ones too.

10 posted on 05/20/2008 11:03:12 PM PDT by river rat (Semper Fi - You may turn the other cheek, but I prefer to look into my enemy's vacant dead eyes.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

And the corrupt slithery souled “mainstream” press...covers for him.

Anyone else old enough to remember the days when a journalists reputation for telling the truth, meant more to him than any job, or in some cases, even bodily harm?

Now, you threaten them with cutting off their access to the cappuccino’s, and they lie like trained wiener dogs.


11 posted on 05/20/2008 11:08:42 PM PDT by DGHoodini ("I never did believe you much, anyway...")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

And the corrupt slithery souled “mainstream” press...covers for him.

Anyone else old enough to remember the days when a journalists reputation for telling the truth, meant more to him than any job, or in some cases, even bodily harm?

Now, you threaten them with cutting off their access to the cappuccino’s, and they lie like trained wiener dogs.


12 posted on 05/20/2008 11:12:05 PM PDT by DGHoodini ("I never did believe you much, anyway...")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

Obama is an idiot!


13 posted on 05/20/2008 11:16:59 PM PDT by 1035rep
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop
B-but Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School. The top 5% of a class filled with stellar students. He's brilliant.

Of course, after having been Editor of the Harvard Law Review, Obama went on to zilch accomplishments in his legal profession, which must be unique among Harvard Law Review editors in its entire history. The whole Harvard Law School thing is surreal. He starts out at Occidental college, manages to transfer to Columbia, then like a comet tears up at Harvard Law, then after graduating...nothing. He accomplishes nothing requiring brilliance, and concentrates on being glib and likeable.

14 posted on 05/20/2008 11:21:20 PM PDT by Plutarch
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

You know, when people are out in front of cameras 25 hours a day campaigning, they are bound to make some errors. Obviously, they have on both sides of the aisle. But only one party’s candidates and leaders are excoriated for it. Only Republicans are mocked in headlines and late night talk shows for months about each misstep.

Obama’s gaffes are almost never brought to light in any mainstream media.


15 posted on 05/20/2008 11:22:12 PM PDT by Yaelle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

The Presidency, unlike admission to Ivy League Colleges, should not be subject to affirmative action.


16 posted on 05/20/2008 11:25:17 PM PDT by Catmom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

The Presidency, unlike admission to Ivy League Colleges, should not be subject to affirmative action.


17 posted on 05/20/2008 11:26:24 PM PDT by Catmom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TheWasteLand

“...For so far we have heard only of the duty which society imposes in order to exist: to be truthful means to employ the usual metaphors. Thus, to express it morally, this is the duty to lie according to a fixed convention, to lie with the herd and in a manner binding upon everyone. Now man of course forgets that this is the way things stand for him. Thus he lies in the manner indicated, unconsciously and in accordance with habits which are centuries’ old; and precisely by means of this unconsciousness and forgetfulness he arrives at his sense of truth.” - Nietzsche

... eh? eh?


18 posted on 05/21/2008 12:10:58 AM PDT by dr_lew
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: TheWasteLand

“...For so far we have heard only of the duty which society imposes in order to exist: to be truthful means to employ the usual metaphors. Thus, to express it morally, this is the duty to lie according to a fixed convention, to lie with the herd and in a manner binding upon everyone. Now man of course forgets that this is the way things stand for him. Thus he lies in the manner indicated, unconsciously and in accordance with habits which are centuries’ old; and precisely by means of this unconsciousness and forgetfulness he arrives at his sense of truth.” - Nietzsche

... eh? eh?


19 posted on 05/21/2008 12:12:15 AM PDT by dr_lew
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

ping to forward to an Obama supporter who points out every Bush verbal stunble


20 posted on 05/21/2008 12:32:39 AM PDT by NavVet ( If you don't defend Conservatism in the Primaries, you won't have it to defend in November)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-79 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson