Barack Potatoe Obama?

Townhall.com ^ | May 28, 2008 | Brent Bozell III

[Kaslin]

magine that John McCain named a young running mate to campaign with him, and this national rookie suggested America had 58 states, repeatedly used the wrong names for the cities he was visiting, and honored a Memorial Day crowd by acknowledging the "fallen heroes" who were present, somehow alive and standing in the audience. How long would it take for the national media to see another Dan Quayle caricature? Let's raise the stakes. What if it was the GOP presidential candidate making these thoroughly ridiculous comments? This scenario is very real, except it isn't McCain. It's the other fellow.

ABC reporter Jake Tapper follows politicians around for a living. On his blog, he suggested Barack Obama has a problem: "The man has been a one-man gaffe machine."

Just in the last few days, in Sunrise, Fla., Obama said, "How's it going, Sunshine?" He did the same thing in Sioux Falls, S.D., calling it "Sioux City." Some of his geographic struggles seem calculated. When asked why Hillary Clinton trounced him in Kentucky, Obama claimed "I'm not very well known in that part of the country ... 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." But Obama's home state of Illinois is more than "near" Kentucky -- it borders Kentucky.

In Oregon, there was a doozy. Obama said of his long campaign, "I've been in 57 states, I think, one left to go." No one in the press made much of this. As former ABC political reporter Marc Ambinder, now with the Atlantic Monthly magazine, admitted: "But if John McCain did this -- if he mistakenly said he'd visited 57 states -- the media would be all up in his grill, accusing him of a senior moment." If you doubt him, remember how most media outlets noted, then underlined McCain's error about al-Qaeda being trained and funded by Iran.

In New Mexico, Obama suggested he was like a young Haley Joel Osment in "The Sixth Sense," with the ability to see dead people: "On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong." Fallen heroes in the audience? Is this Barack Potatoe Obama? This is precisely the kind of misstatement that Dan Quayle-bashers would run ad infinitum.

But there have also been gaffes on more serious matters. ABC found that campaigning in Rush Limbaugh's hometown of Cape Girardeau, Mo., Obama argued that our military's Arabic translators in Iraq are needed in Afghanistan: "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," he claimed. But Afghans don't speak Arabic; they speak several other languages. That's a lot like McCain's gaffe -- except for the degree of media attention, which in the Democrat's case was virtually nonexistent.

McCain also would have enjoyed more media focus on Obama's completely muddled analysis of South America last week. He told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday that he would meet with Chavez to discuss "the fermentation of anti-American sentiment in Latin America, his support of FARC in Colombia and other issues he would want to talk about." But on Friday in Miami, he insisted any country supporting the Marxist guerrillas of FARC should suffer "regional isolation." This left Obama advisers scrambling to suggest that these two opposing statements can somehow be put together, that he can meet Chavez and isolate him at the same time.

Sometimes, Obama invents Bosnia-sniper-style whoppers about his personal history. In Selma, Ala., Obama claimed that the spirit of hope derived from the civil rights protests in Selma in 1965 inspired his birth -- when he was born in 1961. He also has inaccurately claimed that the Kennedys funded his Kenyan father's trip to America in 1959.

While he was making boo-boos in New Mexico on Memorial Day, Obama also (according to CBS reporter/blogger Maria Gavrilovic) talked about post-traumatic stress disorder by claiming he had an uncle "who was part of the American brigade that helped to liberate Auschwitz," and then came home and spent six months in an attic. Gavrilovic didn't note that the prisoners at Auschwitz were liberated by the Red Army. Obama earlier made the claim on his campaign site that his grandfather knew American troops who liberated Auschwitz and Treblinka (also liberated by the Red Army).

Everyone should grant these candidates a little room for error in the long slog of presidential campaigning. But what about some balance? The same national media that turned Dan Quayle's name into an instant joke are now working over time to present Obama as Captain Competent.

[Northern Yankee]

I heard part of Obama's speech about Memorial Day on Rush's show yesterday. I wonder how anyone can be so clueless.

He started talking about women in the military that were coming under abuse.

What a complete idiot this guy is.

[7thson]

A few weeks ago, I mentioned to my wife that I don’t believe all this money coming his way if from so many different people. I see George Soros behind it. Than, last week, Rush Limbaugh more or less said the same ting. This clown does have a puppeteer pullling his strings and my money is on Soros.

[Bender2]

Just yesterday I was telling my old cuz Wick... we peckerwoods have a voice, too. Hey, Rube Peckerwoods Unite!

[wtc911]

Obama declared war on Rush over the weekend. Rush's replay ad nauseum of Obama's stupidity was the counter punch, expect more.

Obama has to rely on the MSM to get his jabs out to the general public. Rush owns radio. This is going to get raw.

[Bender2]

[Cracker Jack]

The same national media that turned Dan Quayle's name into an instant joke are now working over time to present Obama as Captain Competent.

What a great amount of truth in one sentence.

[Misschuck]

What did Obama say about Rush?

[wtc911]

He blamed White xenophobia and racism on Rush.

[syriacus]

In his Memorial Day speech, Obama said about his uncle, "Now, obviously something had really affected him, but at that time there just weren't the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain."

Barack is wrong when he implies men returning from WWII did not get psychological help.

Huston made a film about this, Let There Be Light

[BARLF]

I have seen enough of this mutt to believe that there is a "hidden planet" out there controlling the guy. Who is it?

bump

[Miss Didi]

Obama Slams Rush at Fundraiser, as Disenfranchised Protest Outside

[Miss Didi]

My question is; who holds the strings that are making Obama dance?



RUSH: Snerdley, I'm still not sure I read that right. Obama is down in Miami, he's talking to the Cuban exile community, they hate the Castros, they despise the Castros, they want the Castros overthrown, they want their island nation back. They don't want the embargo lifted, and Obama is telling them that we need to have diplomatic relations with no preconditions with the Castros and he's still standing there? They have not run him out of the building?

JOHNNY DONOVAN: Live from the Southern Command in sunny south Florida via New York City, it's Open Line Friday!

RUSH: He then said something about democracy is more than just the ballot box. I really think this dweeb is making it up as he goes along. I don't even think he's writing this stuff. Axelrod or somebody else is writing. I think he's not on the prompter, that's why he makes so many gaffes. He forgets what other people have written for him and what he said, and he goes out there and when he's on his own he makes all these gaffes. He made some kind of gaffe about the Cuban exile community, which is why he's down there trying to save face and fix it. But I can't imagine what he said to them fixed it. I didn't hear any applause. The sound was down, I was watching on closed-captioning. But I know the Cuban exile community and the last thing they want to hear is diplomatic relations with the Castros without any preconditions. He's saying this on the heels of putting his foot in his mouth over Iran on the same basis?

Something about this guy is not right. There's something about this that doesn't jibe. This guy, two years ago in the United States Senate barely could find the men's room. He was still preoccupied with trying to figure out how to ingratiate himself with the Chicago machine politics. He didn't do one thing of any significance in the Senate. He'd had more "I don't care" votes or "I'm not here" votes or "present" votes or whatever in the Illinois Senate. Somebody's gotta be behind this. None of this Obama campaign makes any sense whatsoever, particularly him.

Obama Not What He Appears to Be

[sergeantdave]

Obama is so stupid you could set him in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, give him a stick, ask him to point where the ocean might be and he’d miss.

If we had a decent conservative candidate, we’d be looking at a Reagan-like sweep of the nation.

Every democrat I know - mostly vets, property owners and 2nd amendment supporters - say they will not vote for obama.

[Miss Didi]

RUSH:...Here's a final sound bite from President Bush.

THE PRESIDENT: On this Memorial Day, I stand before you as the commander-in-chief and try to tell you how proud I am of the sacrifice and service of the men and women who wear our uniform. They're an awesome bunch of people, and the United States is blessed to have such citizens. I am humbled by those who have made the ultimate sacrifice that allow our free civilization to endure and flourish. It only remains for us, the heirs of their legacy, to have the courage and the character to follow their lead and to preserve America as the greatest nation on earth and the last, best hope for mankind. May God bless you, and may God bless America.

RUSH: Again, that's the stupid idiot George Bush who can't speak, on Memorial Day. This was Barack Obama in Las Cruces, New Mexico, yesterday.

OBAMA: On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in...in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.

Barack Obama Sees Dead People

[carmody]

In Indonesia, where Obama attended elementary school, they don't teach children basic American history. Not being raised in an American environment, he doesn't really 'feel' American. Continuing his teen years in Hawaii, he didn't have easy access to school trips to Washington DC or the Grand Canyon, or DisneyLand for that matter. He grew up less 'American' than even some illegal Mexican immigrants.

Obama didn't start his elementary school day pledging Allegiance to the flag.
He didn't learn about the 50 states and their capitols.
He never had to memorize the Presidents names.
He didn't learn about Paul Revere, Betsy Ross, George Washington and the cherry tree, or Honest Abe.
Those lessons are not taught in Indonesian schools. Coupled with the fact that his mother was apparently an atheist, who twice married men who were not American, it's not surprising the man knows very little about his own country.

[Reader Poster]

You’re not allowed to use Obama’s middle name so maybe potatoe works.

[syriacus]

t's not surprising the man knows very little about his own country.

Great point.

[Piquaboy]

So what if Denny Dimwit with the big ears is stupid, he is black and should be president.

[weegee]

Jive talkin
Its just your jive talkin
Youre telling me lies, yeah
Jive talkin
You wear a disguise
Jive talkin
So misunderstood, yeah
Jive talkin
You really no good

[reformed_dem]

That's no excuse. I was born in the US, then when I was 3 my family emigrated to Australia where we lived for 14 years. I returned to the US when I was 17. I may not be able to name all the states' capitols, but I have learned about my country's history. I am a proud American.

You know, growing up in another country, I guess that qualifies me to be the president because of all my foreign policy experience. ;^)