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?
I think I might pronounce that cacastocracy. Government by caca.
I would also deny the vote to all civil servants....
They should not have the right to vote for the persons who will hire them, set their salaries and determine their benefits and pensions....
The ONLY exception to this rule, would be the military..
They would retain their right to vote. (Yes, I’m biased)
Huey Long redux????
As many as he needs.
I’m with you.
see post #60
Under a Democrat government all military personel,considered too stupid to breath,must pass a poll test before they can vote.
A marine goes to vote:
Poll staffer,”First you must prove you can read,dumnass!”then he hands the jarhead a German newspaper,”Can you read that?”
Marine,”Hell no!”
“No vote for you grunt!”
Two year later after learning to read German,the marine tries to vote again:
Poll staffer,”Well,war-pig baby-killer,did you learn to read?”
Marine,”Yes suh!”
“OK,read this!” he hands the marine a Chinese newspaper.The marine looks at it and scratches his head.
Poll staffer,”Well,can you read it? What’s it say?”
Marine,”Sure I can—it says that this marine don’t get to vote again.”
Illinois shares a 120 mile common border with Kentucky.
Arkansas does NOT share any common border with Kentucky.
Arkansas’ closest point to Kentucky is 36 miles.
Arkansas is separated from Kentucky by State of Missouri.
BTTT!
See post #60.
Pop culture alert! BSG reference...
Thanks neverdem.
Democrats and Our Enemies (Joe Lieberman Op-Ed)
Wall Street Journal | May 21, 2008 | Senator Joseph Lieberman
Posted on 05/20/2008 9:31:32 PM PDT by RWR8189
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2019031/posts
Is 2008 to be a Transformational Election? (Must read!)
American Thinker | May 21, 2008 | J.R. Dunn
Posted on 05/21/2008 12:04:32 AM PDT by neverdem
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2019055/posts
Thanks grellis:
D.C. meeting could bring compromise on Michigan, Florida delegates
(protests expected)
NY Daily News ^ | 5/22/08 | MICHAEL SAUL, KENNETH R. BAZINET
Posted on 05/22/2008 5:26:27 AM PDT by Libloather
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2019629/posts
Being glib and likeable is easier than being brilliant.
Obama never seems to have mastered one critical aspect of life: work.
Clinton was notably lazy, too. And we all know where that got us.
Er...might I suggest you examine your maps more closely?
Illinois is adjacent to Kentucky, just across the Ohio River.
Arkansas is removed from Kentucky. You would have to cross either Tennessee or Missouri to get from Kentucky to Arkansas.
The sentence is an incorrect way to phrase what is intended.
Beg to differ. The sentence says exactly what it means.
For it to mean as you suggest, the proper construction would have been: On what map is Arkansas closer to Kentucky than (TO) Illinois?
As is, it might be read: On what map is Arkansas closer to Kentucky than Illinois (IS)?
The extra "to" is necessary to produce the meaning your suggesting. The extra "is" is optional to clarify the writer's meaning -- but is grammatically bad form.
His biggest gaffe is thinking he can run this country. He’s got some ego.
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