text:
Big Media doesn't pay much attention to them, even though Obama makes an amazing number of errors in his public statements. And I think it's easy enough to understand why the BM largely ignores them: to report them all would totally undermine the image of the president to which a surprising number of "reporters" and pundits are wedded: that of an unusually intelligent and well educated man.
Yet someone who tells a crowd in Vienna that his "Austrian" isn't very good, who tells Marines that he's pleased to speak to the "Marine Corpse," and who, just today, said he'd given the Medal of Honor to a survivor from the 10th Mountain Division, when in fact the award was given posthumously, doesn't fit my definition of a brilliant and cultured man.
Yes, there was a Medal of Honor winner who lived to receive it, but it was a different man. The living honoree is named Giunta; the deceased hero from the 10th Mountain Division was named Monti. Both are Italian names. Did a White House speechwriter confuse the two Italians? And if so, what does that tell us about the ship under the command of President Obama? That's worth pondering for a moment.
When you add up all the mistakes he's made–not slips of the tongue, but real errors in statements and speeches he could read from the ubiquitous teleprompter–they make quite a number. So what? you may ask. The answer is that hundreds of people traditionally read the drafts of presidential speeches and statements. That happens for two good reasons. First, presidential utterances are instant policy. It's hard to walk away from a public statement. Second, the myriad political appointees want their leader to look good, and they strain to ensure the accuracy of his statements. Or at least they did when I had first-hand knowledge of such things, now a few years back.
I don't think that is happening in this administration. A friend said to me earlier today that he was really amazed at the discipline of Obama's team, specifically in the small number of leaks compared with previous administrations–especially W's years. It's a good point, and that only happens when information flow is severely restricted; when only a handful of folks know what's happening, chances to leak are reduced. (On the recent decision on force level reductions in Afghanistan, for example, most of the "inside the Beltway" rumors were dead wrong).
I suspect that drafts of presidential speeches and statements are treated the same way. I think they are only circulated among a very small number of people for comment, and those people are probably very busy, and don't have the time to check things like the precise name and history of a Medal of Honor recipient.
That would explain today's embarrassment (embarrassment to us, to the nation–he speaks for us, after all–since he doesn't seem to suffer embarrassment very often), but it doesn't explain things like the apology for his lack of fluency in "Austrian" or his lack of knowledge that we have a Marine Corps (pronounced "core"). That comes from lousy education, from lack of basic knowledge about the world. And if I'm right about the small number of administration officials who get to see his words before they're delivered in public, it tells us that they, too, aren't properly educated.
It tells us that the president and his trusted advisers are the products of the atrocious, politically correct educational system that's wrecking the country in so many ways. And it's very worrisome. It's part of the Orwellian universe that envelops many of our leaders, a universe in which they feel free to simply invent "facts" so long as they fit the emotional and ideological pattern that really matters to the elite.
And these people think they're the smart guys, and we're the dummies, even though we know that German is spoken in Vienna, and many of us would be mortified to make a glaring error about an American hero.
The gaffes are important. They tell us a lot about the nature of our leaders, and it's not good news. But it is news…even though it's not reported as often as it should be, or with the sort of concern the gaffes deserve.
227 Comments, 104 Threads
1. Josh Shahryar
I win the comment war by posting my comment first, Michael!
Re; the Austrian thing, I just had to sit back in awe for a minute. Maybe if he hadn't spent so much time perfecting his pronunciation of Pakistan, he would have gotten that one right.
But shouldn't a President of the United States know without the help of a teleprompter what language Austrians speak? That's troubling to me because what else does he not know, as you pointed out.
June 23, 2011 - 7:40 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Michael Ledeen
yes exactly. ignorance in high places is a real problem.
June 23, 2011 - 8:22 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Michael, for your viewing pleasure (in case you missed it)
June 25, 2011 - 10:00 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
I couldn't continue to watch. It was too painful.
June 26, 2011 - 11:18 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
John R.
As comprehensive as that video was, it missed a bunch more. My favorite is when sports broadcaster Rob Dibble asked him who his favorite White Sox players were and he couldn't name a single one.
June 26, 2011 - 3:05 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
We are viciously upbraided these days if we dare to use the "r-word" in describing somebody who simply does not have, and never will have, the mental candlepower to function normally in the real world without 24×7 care on the part of various "handlers."
In this case, it applies.
Why does Ubama have such a big scar on his head? Just askin'.
Our uneducated voting public has elected a president who is, for whatever reason, subnormal in intellect. He was chosen by his handlers (Soros and others on the left) precisely BECAUSE he was amenable to their control and too stupid to notice that anything is wrong with what he is doing. He won't go rogue all of a sudden.
No wonder I'm a secessionist.
June 25, 2011 - 12:22 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
Part of it is the intellectual arrogance of elitism. It is part disdain for the facts, that its "acceptable in their crowd to play fast and loose with the facts". It is part, as its been said here, of social grading, where A's are given for C quality work, where "good enough" is awarded with excellence. It is part ignorance, in that Obama and the elitists ignore the truth of the United States, its traditions and its values because they don't really care.
And, finally, these people aren't even capable of faking sincerity, which, to amend the saying, is the true last refuge of scoundrels.
June 25, 2011 - 10:34 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Michael Ledeen
conservative: you'll no doubt enjoy this very thoughtful essay on elite higher education's many dangers to us and our children
June 26, 2011 - 11:23 am Link to this Comment | Reply
I remember reading some time ago, don't remember where or why, one element in Chinese politesse is to deliberately make mistakes so the interlocuteur is pleased in finding it / them. Not suggesting for a moment that Obama uses this, but HE was chosen from a number of applicants for the job as chief engineer / Commander of the most powerful ship of state in the world.
Even after, in applying for the job, in addition to some basic knowledge faux pas, he – with the support of his loving spouse – told those with the decision i.e. American Voters, that he was "ashamed of America", the enterprise with the gift of the job.
So how dumb can he be? Dumber than all those Americans who elected him even after this calculated insult to them? Dumber than Congressmen/women and Judiciary who foster his "dirty work", and neglect their duty as equal parts of the tri-partite organisation of the Federal Government to LIMIT arrogation of powers not included in Constitutional Offices ? For procedural reasons? Or whatever?
They have all taken, and continue to take, the American People. I suspect they smirk and howl with laughter that they are permitted to "get away with it". AND as you and other commentators point out, they've been doing it for the past two generations with their "compassion" and goo-gooing of American Education and social discourse. And when that didn't do the job, slanders, libels,loss of jobs, threats and thuggery. How dumb can he and his troops be — don't forget ALL the Kennedys and Both the Clintons with their intruments in Media, entertainment as well as education, as the mentors of the "Democratic Party" and its "liberal" troops.
June 29, 2011 - 4:31 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
You're absolutely correct. I might also add, look how he totally insults those with whom he has a meeting the next day! Usually, at which meeting he will attempt to get something from them for his benefit! How stupid is that??
August 13, 2011 - 10:25 am Link to this Comment | Reply
Roy Lofquist
I don't think that "Austrian" was a gaffe, or "57 States" for that matter. First, he can't tell joke. Second, messiahs don't tell jokes.
June 24, 2011 - 6:13 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
And your point is what ROY? A gaffe is NOT a joke and its seems you have just made a gaffe by not understanding that. The point is that no one ever picks up the Obamanation for his mistakes no one highlights them especially not his tame Lame Stream EneMedia buddies and that is exactly the problem. The will sort through Palins bins and emails for hours but investigate the Obamanation not a chance he gets a FREE PASS every time and that is America's SHAME.
June 25, 2011 - 2:48 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Well, I think we all agree that he's the Messiah, right? And if, as you say, Messiahs cannot tell a joke…then, he was not joking or attempting to tell a joke when he made the gaffes, right? He was dead serious – and stupid.
August 13, 2011 - 10:28 am Link to this Comment | Reply
As horrified as the posters are, they seem to miss the most insidious problem = the functionally illiterate dnc base who will 1) not appreciate how damaging B HO's lack of knowledge is 2) worst yet, they will not care.
June 25, 2011 - 6:12 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
You nailed it. As Ellis Washington said, "President Obama's first State of the Union Address painfully exemplifies that this clear and present danger to America is not Mr. Obama, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man of this ilk with the presidency." [January 27, 2010, The National Center for Public Policy Research (Press Release)]
June 25, 2011 - 6:56 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Cracker Mike
There is a solid 30% of Americans that will vote for the person or Party that gives them the most free money. Obama's goal is to get that to 51% by addicting the remainder of the population to welfare and food stamps. Welfare addicts, just as heroin addicts, do as they are darn well told by their supplier.
June 26, 2011 - 8:25 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Free money ? Show me the way to the tree, golden or "green"? No surprise that politicians have ever larger staffs with strangely exorbitant expenses and salaries, more perks, more royal tours throughout the world, and ever growing bureaucracies to manage that free money and its recipients. If it's all Free who wouldn't take it? Life of leisure, not to worry about paying debts, always more free money if needed. Free money ? Free money for the leisured classes : politicians and their staffs/bureaucracies, universities with professoriates who sneer at those who deliver that free money to them, and the exponentially growing populations of "disadvantaged" lining up to collect that free money from benevolent officials who hand it out to them.
Not to forget the recipients in the UN and all the nations- African, Arab, Asian, AND European via defense costs paid by the purveyor Americans to support their socialist welfare programs. The free money "aid" which somehow ends in private bank accounts of the leaders, their families, their cronies, and groups especially favoured some terrorist, in nations receiving that American free money.
And of course those banks and other businesses that were bailed out with that same "free money" when they could not balance their own books. Their role model the ringmasters of the free money circus the Congress, Judiciary and Executive of the USA.
Remember ALL these purveyors of that free money are in theory AND in Law in the USA, the Servants, NOT the masters of the "Free" and Equal citizens of the USA. How and when did that CHANGE to make Americans SERFs, vassals to these privileged "elites"?
June 30, 2011 - 3:41 am Link to this Comment
Greg Ladd
I'm glad to hear you say that. I remember the day the news hit that Obama, who only speaks English, was going to make a great President because he pronounced it "Pahkistan" instead of "Pakistan". Of course, if you listened to David Brooks, it was the crease in his pants that was going to define his presidency. Forget about Obama, the joke is on the media here. They created him and now they are trying to explain him. If they had done their jobs, he never would have been elected.
June 25, 2011 - 8:41 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
I submit that Obama does not ONLY speak English. I've read from several sources that he speaks perfect Arabic, as well.
August 13, 2011 - 10:32 am Link to this Comment | Reply
The President,without his teleprompter to guide him, knew how to bow and scrape, to the Arab country leaders, who are laughing behind his and our great country's back.This is the first time, a President of The USA, apologized for America's actions,and it was disgraceful,unfortunately,it was not the last time that,I cringed at his actions. As Commander in chief,he failed to remember the many men and women, of our armed forces,who are in the line of fire every day,and those who fought and died in past wars, to keep America safe. His teleprompter may have failed him, however he has failed the USA by disrespecting its honorable past.I give him an F-in patriotism.
June 25, 2011 - 12:09 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Fair is fair. I give you an A in comment quality and an F in punctuation.
June 26, 2011 - 8:59 am Link to this Comment | Reply
white tiger
Most importantly, he does not know the difference between right and wrong.
He beoieves it is right to butcher innocent, unborn babies by the millions.
He believes it is right to promote the cause of sodomy.
He believes it is right to spend our country into bankruptcy
He believes it is right to weaken our national defenses.
He believes it is right to open our borders to "whosoever will".
He believes it is right to nationalize private enterprise.
He believes it is right to control every citizen every moment.
He believes it is right to suppress christianity and promote Islam.
"Woe to them that call evil good, and good evil", Isa.5.20June 25, 2011 - 4:37 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
Forgotten? the "fact" that Obama is an honours graduate of Columbia and Harvard Universities.Graduate in Law, reputedly a constitutional scholar. Whose credentials are by Executive Order secreted from examination by interested members of the citizenship of the USA. The Free men and women, by laws of the nation, Citizens NOT subjects of any crown/royal court?
Both Harvard and Columbia heavily tax-payers- CITIZENS -funded directly and indirectly with, among other means, student "loans". Count, if you can find the date on FOIA – how many of the students in these universities – as example – are children of government bureaucrats above middle management levels in families in the Beltway, or other "affirmative" action.
AND how many of them receive low-interest government student loans. Often never repaid because of government "amnesties".
THESE ^exclusive^, "elite" educational establishment members of the Gang of Four which includes Stanford, Yale and Princeton. Recall the definition of exclusive, in a country in which by law each citizen is "equal". And look upon the machinations of families to achieve entrance to these hallowed halls.
Above all the amount of taxpayer funds provided to these "elite" institutions with their very limited, in "class",in exclusivity of privileged lives and compare with their public comment evidencing their disdain, contempt and hatred of ordinary, common, Americans, e.g. Ronald Reagan and Sarah Palin. Those common Americans who are the taxpayer "slaves" to these citizen "Greeks". Contrast with the adoration for those Harvard graduates ALL the Kennedys – moneyed thugs. And now the !"New Kennedy" Barack Hussein Obama promoted to Messiah. Remember to "beware Greeks, even when bearing gifts" such as Hope and Change.
June 26, 2011 - 4:10 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
It's funny that you mention Pakistan and the silly way Obama makes such an effort to say it differently than Afghanistan, Taliban and any other "Stan". He constantly mentions both Afghanistan and Pakistan in the same sentence but pronounces them differently. He makes GWB look down right doctoral.
June 26, 2011 - 7:59 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
I think this is because he learned that pronunciation when he traveled to Pakistan in his college years with unknown persons for unknown purposes. I think that he is not bright enough to realize that "Pakistan" and "Afghanistan" should rhyme.
June 28, 2011 - 5:13 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
On the other hand Josh, he knows a lot that you don't. For example, I bet Obama can repeat all of Saul Alinzky's tactic by heart. Can you?
June 26, 2011 - 9:14 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Just another flub for the growing list:
Called Europe a country
Thinks Great Britain and England are the same
Thinks there is an Austrian language
The day before Cinco de Mayo is apparently "Cinco de Cuatro"
Filling out NCAA basketball bracket, he spells Syracuse "Sycacuse"
A self-proclaimed Chicago White Sox fan, Obama called Comiskey Park "Cominskey Field"
In a letter to a fan, misspells "advice" as "advise"
Coal creates asthma in kids? Breathalyzer's for kids with asthma?
"I've been in 57 states…I think one left to go."
Mispronouncing the word "corpsman" as "corpse-man", twice in the same speech
Gives a gift of incorrectly formatted DVD's to Gordon Brown
Names a tax cheat as Treasury Secretary
In introductions, forgets the name of his own Secretary of Defense
Tries to open a White House window thinking it's a door
Brain-freeze trying to figure out how to maneuver an umbrella through a gate
Attributed seances in the White House to Nancy Reagan
Thanks himself while reading the wrong line on the teleprompter
Fumbles through a teleprompter miscue at the National Academy of Sciences
Equates his terrible bowling to Special Olympics on Leno
Pronounced 10,000 dead from a Kansas storm when there were actually 12 deaths
Called Sioux Falls, SD "Sioux City"
Called Sunrise, FL "Sunshine"
"The time has changed for come!"
"John McCain is running for George Bush's fourth term."
"I'm here with the Girardo family here in St. Louis." – Obama, speaking from Kansas City
Confuses the Constitution for the DoI in his own SOTU speech (the supposed Constitutional scholar)
Cites the Constitution as having been written "twenty centuries" ago
In his own words, he's apparently able to see dead people in the audience (sounds like Dem vote counting)
His great uncle wasn't at Auschwitz as stated by Obama, he was at Buchenwald
Claimed his parents met because of the 1965 Selma march when they actually married in 1961
Credits a proverb imprinted on Oval Office rug to MLK. Its origin is from 19th century abolitionist Theodore Parker
Thought Emporer Hirohito was on the battleship Missouri signing Japanese terms of surrender
"Let me be absolutely clear…Israel is a strong friend of Israel's"
"Not having been there and not seeing all the facts…the Cambridge police acted stupidly."
"Texas has always been a pretty Republican state" – If "always" excludes about 120 years of Democratic history
"I wanna be very clear…that we are resolved to halt the rise of privacy." (pirates are okay though I guess)
"The reforms we seek would bring greater inefficiencies to our healthcare system." (a slip of truth for once)
Analogizes that the USPS is "always having problems", undercutting his own argument for government run healthcare
On the Daschle debacle – "…a mistake – probably not the first one I'm going to be making in this office."
States that inflating your tires and getting tuneups equates to the domestic oil that drilling would produce
Restaurant that Obama brags was saved by the stimulus closes the following week after 70 years of business
Confused the Presidential Medal of Freedom with the Congressional Medal of Honor
"The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries."
Sunday: "Iran does not pose a serious threat to us." – Monday: "The threat from Iran is grave."
In May of 2011, signs the Westminster Abbey guestbook and dates it May 2008
Makes a fool of himself in an awkward attempt to toast the Queen at Buckingham Palace
At state dinner for German Chancellor Merkel he botches another toast because he forgot it altogether
Obama declares we have a weak job market because of automated services; like ATM's and airport kiosks.
Relates that he presented the Medal of Honor personally to Afghanistan war hero Jared Monti – KIA 6-21-06
You Obama apologists can't defend this clown of a president, so don't even try.June 26, 2011 - 12:15 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
And yet the media and their lefty friends continue to rail on Dubya's pronunciation of "nuclear"
June 27, 2011 - 10:24 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Mark v
Attributed seances in the White House to Nancy Reagan
This is only a very slight overstatement.
Nancy Reagan was (is?) heavily involved in astrology and often pressured Reagan into changing his schedule due to her astrologer's advice.
June 27, 2011 - 2:25 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
LOOK I know I am going to be called a raciest and other good things for what I am going to say now. The news media will not talk about obamas gaffes, first because they helped put him into office. Second the media is trying to get obama reelected. Finally the media pushed obama as a well educated black man and an articulate speaker, so to say anything negative about the many gaffes obama makes,that makes you an automatic member of the klan! Which is a crock of ****, the truth will stand on it`s own.
June 26, 2011 - 5:16 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
Hey – I thought they spoke Australian in Austria.
June 26, 2011 - 8:11 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
Mark v
Re; the Austrian thing, I just had to sit back in awe for a minute.
My memory is a bit hazy on this point, but I seem to recall the press having a grand time pointing out a certain vice-president wishing he'd studied Latin in school so he could converse with his friends in Latin America.
Didn't they spend a lot of time…. a LOT of time on that gaffe?
Yeah, they did.
And what have we heard about Obama speaking Austrian?
…. chirping crickets….
But the media is NOT biased! They are NOT biased! They've researched themselves and they have assured us they are NOT biased!
And we can trust them on this because, well, they are NOT biased!
June 27, 2011 - 2:01 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
Obama does not have to perfect his pronunciation of Pakistan. As a Muslim, he's known how to pronounce it perfectly his whole life.
August 13, 2011 - 9:44 am Link to this Comment | Reply
I think he's now so close to Biden in the number of gaffes he's made, the MSM has awakened to what a dolt he really is. So, instead of reporting the gaffes, they just wince and hope nobody else notices.
June 24, 2011 - 8:21 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Edmund Burke
Obama's first gaffe was selecting Biden as his VP running mate based on Biden's supposed foreign policy expertise.
June 27, 2011 - 6:36 am Link to this Comment | Reply
3. Dianna
Dear Michael Ledeen, this is what Obama said on November 16, 2010, about SSgt. Giunta:
"Now, I'm going to go off-script here for a second and just say I really like this guy. I think anybody — we all just get a sense of people and who they are, and when you meet Sal and you meet his family, you are just absolutely convinced that this is what America is all about. And it just makes you proud. And so this is a joyous occasion for me — something that I have been looking forward to."
The slap in the face to the 10th Mountain, to Jared Monti's brothers in arms, to SSgt. Giunta, to all who served, to all those who care, is beyond belief.
I'm sick with fury. Tomorrow, perhaps, I'll be calmer. Right now, now.
June 23, 2011 - 8:33 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
I bet those names, acts, and dates would be etched in Sarah Palin's mind if she were president. Not because she'd have rote-memorized them, but because she'd have sat back and tried to imagine their lives for a moment.
I don't mean to inject Palinistism, but I would like to offer a contrast.
June 24, 2011 - 11:55 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
J. H. Colter
The vast majority of us would. I am no psychologist, but He gives the impression of being emotionally stunted, which may be logical given His upbringing. Is there any evidence He is capable of empathy?
June 26, 2011 - 8:24 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
No, he's a Sociopath with a complete lack or understanding of Empathy.
June 26, 2011 - 9:14 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
No apologies, please, for injecting Palinisms. Sarah is so far above Obama in common sense, intelligence, patriotism and love of America, political instincts, honesty and integrity that we all need to be reminded at times of just how far the spread is.
August 13, 2011 - 10:47 am Link to this Comment | Reply
Dianna, I share your sentiments. For Obama to single out and speak of one surviving soldier in front of the loved ones whose beloved soldier did not survive is abhorrent and unthinkable. He may as well have added, "…as opposed to the others who didn't survive who were not what America is all about…." What's worse is, he's too stupid to comprehend what he just said and how awful it was to say it.
August 13, 2011 - 2:34 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
4. Horseradish
I rather doubt that it has been the discipline of the Obama administration in managing information through limited distribution that should be credited with the lack of leaks. I contend that it has probably been the lack of interest, for purely political reasons, by the co-opted media to disseminate such leaks lest it may adversely affect their "annointed one" (thanks Hannity). I also believe that the usual source of such leaks, the embedded and professional bureaucrats, wish no harm to their candidate in office.
June 23, 2011 - 9:04 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
I agree. I've lived here in DC all my life. Not only did Bush had to contend with the Democrats, but also their extensions who did everything in their power to sabotage anything bush said or did. These include not only the media, but the federal bureaucracy as well. I can tell you from personal experience over many decades that the bureaucrats here are overwhelmingly socialist. It is for this reason I have come to the conclusion that no reformist conservative/libertarian president could ever govern effectively. The system won't allow it.
June 25, 2011 - 8:23 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
After the Debt Ceiling increase is voted down, the Adminisatration will have to choose between servicing the debt, and funding on-going programs.
Even this group will not have the gall to default; which means that a lot of those "socialist bureaucrats" will be facing layoffs and/or RIFs.
That's they way that you impose change on an unresponsive bureaucracy,
you starve it of the Mother's Milk of Politics:
Money!June 26, 2011 - 8:51 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Miker Giles
The answer to the basic Big Government bias – if not outright socialism – of the bureaucracy is to destroy their power base. IOW, gut the bureaucracy. Cut back to the point that they have real power. Take away from the bureaucrats their power to set rules and regulations (law) which should belong to the legislature – and the legislature alone. I would also like ANY bill that comes out of Congress, to have each and every page signed by the Congresscritter who voted for it. That signature legally attesting to the fact that said Congresscritter has read and understands everything on the page he/she is approving. The penalties for NOT understanding should be criminal and severe.
Yeah, I know it's only a pipe dream. But the vision of some Congresspersons being marched out in handcuffs after saying something along the lines of" "we have to pass it to find out what's in it", just warms my heart.
June 26, 2011 - 12:54 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
To further illustrate my contention:
June 28, 2011 - 11:18 am Link to this Comment | Reply
5. cfbleachers
What bothers me most about the Make Believe Media, is that I know without a doubt how these very same statements would be treated had George W. Bush uttered them. Or Ronald Reagan. Or Gerald Ford. Or Sarah Palin.
The Commangler in Chief doesn't know much, if anything about the military. But how much does a reasonably well read, articulate (and clean, according to the human gaffe machine now serving as understudy idiot), to know how to pronounce corpsman?
And really, if I rouse you out of your deepest sleep, do not let you wipe the sand out of your eyes, having been horribly overserved the previous evening and still not fully recovered… and asked you how many states are there in America…can you conceive of your answer being any number other than 50?
Even if you had partied all day at the Cinco de Cuatro celebration?
Well, at least he likes to golf. He would have made Crosby proud.
Norm Crosby, that is. Bing was a Republican.
June 23, 2011 - 9:11 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Marc Malone
"understudy idiot" LOL
cf, sometimes you just slay me! I do not think I know anyone who can insult so eloquently as you.
June 24, 2011 - 11:13 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Or David Crosby, who also did a lot of coke.
June 24, 2011 - 1:09 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
As the esteemed David Thomson (do miss his posts) often said on these pages, Obama is a poorly-read, poorly-educated man. To my mind, he is an absolute fraud, a proverbial dim bulb who has cleverly surrounded himself with yes-men whose major roles are to see to it that he looks good. Note though how lousy they really are in that endeavor despite their boundless hubris.
June 24, 2011 - 1:32 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Don Rodrigo
"Fraud" is right on the money.
I called him that before mid-2008, it was so obvious to me. He's also The Ultimate Revenge of Affirmative Action — the final consequence of the same policy mentality that gave us our debased educational system. All the vultures who have wished us ill among our own "elites" have come home to roost.
June 24, 2011 - 3:25 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
'Fraud', is passive.
I prefer 'Con Man'.
This is the most apt and pithy descriptor for the entirety of the person of Barack Obama.
June 25, 2011 - 10:47 am Link to this Comment | Reply
6. Thrasymachus
Education, throughout most of history, has been about learning religious scriptures and being socialized with members of one's class. Scientific education at universities is a fairly recent development; practical education at public schools, learning basic mental skills and facts, is also pretty recent.
These days most university students are educated in the social sciences, which are not sciences at all, or literature or "studies" all of which are just leftist indoctrination of one kind or another. Public school education has moved away from content in much the same way.
June 23, 2011 - 9:19 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Speaking of having ones facts correct,… Your comment concerning basic mental skills was not correct. Such concepts have been taught in an organized manner to students for millennia. Socrates and Plato, Cicero, Jerome, Thomas aquinas, the entire scholastic movement and the begining of the university concept are merely the first few examples that come to mind to illustrate that basic mental skills have been taught for a long time. It used to be that a well educated person not only knew these names but had read at least some of their works.
June 24, 2011 - 8:55 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
7. danne bloome
Palin's dysfluency now out in the open: discuss it pro or con?
June 23, 2011 - 9:20 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Roy Lofquist
Funny, ordinary Americans have no trouble at all understanding her. That's like the history professor who admitted that she was essentially correct about Paul Revere but the wording would get her a poor grade on a thesis.
June 24, 2011 - 6:20 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Bogdan from Australia
Still not bad a performance for someone surrounded by dozens and dozens of enthusiastic people, everyone wanting to shake her hand, cuddle, embrace, make photo with her, have an autograph signed, ask the question, exchange at least few words.
One can only wonder how THE MESSIAH would cope in such circumstances without his teleprompter.
The GREAT CRETIN has been fed with BS by his sycophants for such a long time that his belief in his own infalibility is unshakeable.
But it looks like he is for a very rude awakening.
June 24, 2011 - 8:08 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
You got it Roy, I could surmise that Danne may be a speech writer for bozObama.
June 25, 2011 - 5:34 am Link to this Comment | Reply
Follow your link to see my opinion of your comment.
June 26, 2011 - 9:15 am Link to this Comment | Reply
8. Professor Guvinoff
In manufacturing there is a critical step before shipping. It's called quality control, and yes, it is indeed critical! If you don't have it, your sloppiness is soon broadcast for all to see, and your business prospects are compromised, just as your operating standards were in the first place.
Sloppiness in high places is more than just bad, it's destructive and dangerous. During the election, the image was polished, but there was precious little behind the projected sophistication. I would much prefer a candidate who shows some humanity, occasionally stumbles under the pressure to improvise some responses, and immediately recognizes it in good humor. Such behavior suggests one capable of listening, which is precisely what a "brilliant" character may be unable to do enough of.
June 23, 2011 - 9:24 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
But private sector manufacturing is different in that you must deliver quality within certain cost constraints or you will not be competitive. The very few things the government does well (arguably the military), are enabled only by spending several times more than would be necessary under a system of competition. And so it is even more pathetic that the Obama admnistration cannot get things right with nearly unlimited resources at their disposal.
June 25, 2011 - 10:10 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Prof G said: "During the election, the image was polished, but there was precious little behind the projected sophistication." — I beg to differ, many of his gaffs were made before the election. The press other than FOX News ignored them all. As they continue to do. The MSM are so in bed with Øbama you would think they are bought and paid for by the DNC. Oh wait…
June 26, 2011 - 7:34 am Link to this Comment | Reply
9. Greg
The BM obviously went to the same schools with the same drugs while an interim teacher presided. I'm kidding…the real teacher was there but didn't know how to teach their respective subjects either.
June 23, 2011 - 9:49 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
10. Carol.Herman
It goes viral on the internet.
And, with technology, we've changed the old-school's business model.
Do you know McCain and Gore would have been worse choices?
Even the current pig show put on by the republicans aiming for primary voters … doesn't fit the new business model. Where the internet gets the stories out there. In spite of the "dahlngs" in the media.
Oh, by the way, when Obama came out against Officer Crowley, and said the Cambridge cop acted "studidly." You saw Obama begin his journey off-course. By the time our "dear leaders" leave office, you can tell, pretty accurately, what they've earned. From LBJ, onward. (And, to think LBJ dropped dead on the first day of Nixon's second inaugural.) Does God work in strange ways, or what?
June 23, 2011 - 10:07 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
11. impeach obama
BM for the BMOC.Thanks for the chuckle, and don't forget 57 states .
Maybe he was thinking of The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).June 23, 2011 - 10:21 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Don Rodrigo
He meant 58 states, since he's quoted as saying he'd only been to 57 of them. Incidentaly, his Stimulus Office created 440 new Congressional districts to distribute stimulus money to. There almost seems to be a pattern here
June 24, 2011 - 3:31 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
General P.Malaise
……….it is strange because there is a new story out that obama has 58 properties in various states. ..as well as several different social security numbers. (an investigator found these while tracking down debt delinquents)
.probably just some acorn like housing / mortgage scam.
June 25, 2011 - 6:57 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
I understand the 57 state mix up and would give him a pass on it, if any of his other, numerous gaffes were covered. He actually did mean fifty states, but got numbers confused in the moment. If you listen to the clip, he says that he's been to 57 states with one to go, plus Hawaii and Alaska. He probably was thinking of the 48 contiguous states and wanting to get to all 50 states. His mind combined the 47 he'd been to with the 50 he wanted to go to and out popped that he'd been to 57 states. To be honest to the clip, Obama thinks there are 60 states, not 57 states.
Now where are the comedians talking about Obama giving breathalyzers to children, seeing dead servicemen in New Mexico, honoring corpsemen, mispronouncing Pakky-stan and Tally-ban, etc.?
June 26, 2011 - 11:58 am Link to this Comment | Reply
12. El Gordo
I believe the gaffe was saying "Corpse Man", not mispronouncing Marine Corps but it is of course the same kind of mistake. Thene there was Hirohito signing the surrender to MacArthur or the claim that Texas has historically always leaned Republican. The list is long but you have to follow conservative media to know about it. These are not slips of the tongue – those can happen to everyone – but revealing the depth of his ignorance.
It is not hard to believe that he and his inner circle are the sort of people who take a certain pride in knowing nothing about military matters or the actual history of the US. We all know such people now.
June 23, 2011 - 11:56 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
…and the need for Arabic translators in Afghanistan.
Face it: this carefully crafted image of "Barack the Brilliant" is all hype. The man is Chauncey Gardner, an ignoramus who happens to have a "thoughtful demeanor" schtick down pat.
June 24, 2011 - 1:08 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
13. jd
Cheer up, they make up for it with Sarah Palin.
Even when she's right they still harp on her inability to say it clearly so they could understand what she was saying. (in other words even when she's right she's wrong.)And of course they'll even repeat gaffes she didn't make at all. (Tina Fey's little see Russia from my back yard flub…)
So they are making sure to balance their approach!
June 24, 2011 - 1:22 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
14. Jay T. McKee
No one from anywhere on the political spectrum will argue with your premise. The truth is "thats how it is". The left sees this double standard as their birthright.
Keep up the good work MichaelJune 24, 2011 - 2:20 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
15. Smoking Frog
I hadn't heard that he said "Marine Corpse," and I doubt it a lot, but he did pronounce "corpsman" as "corpse-man." That's plenty bad enough. "Marine Corpse" would have been a gaffe to beat all gaffes.
June 24, 2011 - 4:19 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
shucky ducky
I'd like to point out the writer was wrong. He said it in front of the *Navy* Corps. He said "Navy corpse-men" twice in the same sentence. It was a disgrace, for sure.
I only wish "reporters" and those who are paid (presumably) to editorialize would take the time to get their facts STRAIGHT!
June 24, 2011 - 1:53 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Michael Ledeen
Navy corpsmen are part of the Marine Corps, ducky…
June 24, 2011 - 2:12 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
I think you might have it backwards.
The Marines are part of the U.S. navy but operate autonomously.
The navy provides hospital corpsmen for the marines, becoming effectively their medics.June 24, 2011 - 6:01 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Michael Ledeen
yes, arnold, i thought that's what I was saying. thanks for the clarification.
June 24, 2011 - 7:09 pm Link to this Comment
yes, but this thread is correct, Michael. he was talking about a 'corpsman' and honestly I don't remember if he said Navy or Marine. but he mispronounced it not once, not even twice, but three times.
what this means, of course, is that Barack Obama does not know what a corpsman is. I would be willing to bet he doesn't know very many people (if any) who have served in the armed forces. it is an alien world to him. and I bet he went through his entire time at Harvard Law without hearing the word corpsman even once.
that's not a problem of not enough people vetting the speeches: that's a problem that gets to the heart of what's wrong with Barack Obama.
June 24, 2011 - 9:03 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
I guess his tele-prompter is phonetically challenged eh?
You'd think that in this land of plenty we could provide our tongue tied prez with people who can write phonetically correct words.
But I suppose this mental midget would gaffe the crap outa that too.
June 24, 2011 - 3:25 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
Steve DeMarcus
Actually they are U.S. Navy personnel and their official title is Hospital Corpsman. If you are a Marine in the Marine Corps (pronounced koaer)you will most likely be treated by a Hospital Corpsman! So actually the service and the title were both missed.
I was in the U.S. Navy and treated by Hospital Corpsmen about ten times during my tour of duty in the 1970′s!
June 25, 2011 - 10:58 am Link to this Comment | Reply
16. Jay T. McKee
In addition to the main points in this article….which include:
(1) That Obama gets a pass by the press so he doesn't feel much pain for his sloppy mistakes, and
(2) He keeps a small staff on "inside" stuff and they don't have the time or inclination to bear down on this kind of "trivia"…..There is also………
1.Obama doesn't really care enough about doing the job right to get the details right. So he doesn't jump on his staff when he makes one of these errors.
2. Obama is mentally lazy and has probably gotten away with sloppy work since childhood.
3.Obama has not surrounded himself with the kinds of people who know enough to know when some fact or other doesn't sound right and ought to be checked….and then who know where to go to check it quickly.
4.Obama's disinterest in the grunt work of his job means that he puts off preparing speeches for as long as possible, which severely cuts down on the time available to get the elements of the speech right.
5.Obama depends heavily on the TeleprompTer because he doesn't want to take the time to memorize and rehearse his speech….and activity which would catch more of his sloppy errors.June 24, 2011 - 6:26 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Nailed it JTM, couldn't have said it better myself. I have often remarked on how mentally lazy the duffer-in-chief is. What teachers used to call "head in the clouds". But his lack of discipline shows everywhere. It broadcasts his deep lack of substance.
June 24, 2011 - 12:08 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
Indeed , hence the unwritten book
All we need to knowDystel persuaded Obama to put a book proposal together, and she submitted it. Poseidon, a small imprint of Simon & Schuster, signed on and authorized a roughly $125,000 advance in November 1990 for Obama's proposed memoir.
With advance in hand, Obama repaired to Chicago, where the University of Chicago offered him an office and stipend to help him write. Obama dithered. At one point, in order to finish without interruption, he decamped to Bali for a month. Obama was supposed to have finished the book within a year. Bali or not, advance or no, he could not. He was surely in way over his head.
"Obama had missed deadlines and handed in bloated, yet incomplete drafts," David Remnick tells us in The Bridge. Simon & Schuster lost patience. In the summer of 1993, Simon & Schuster canceled the contract. According to Osnos, the publisher asked that Obama return at least some of the advance
Not surprisingly, the Obama-friendly Remnick skips some of the details that Christopher Andersen includes in his book, Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage, such as how Obama had spent $75,000 of the advance and could not pay it back.
June 24, 2011 - 12:43 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
David Majors
A successful presentation begins with a written outline and ends in front of the mirror.
Oh yes-by the way- then you do the presentation.June 24, 2011 - 7:41 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
17. JJRedfan
Regarding the repeatedly shouted claims of Obama's towering intellect, there has not been a shred of evidence in any of the horse puckey fed us by the MSM, nor in his biographical information widely available from multiple sources, nor in his alleged autobiographies, nor from his acts, reading of teleprompters, nor extemporaneous utterances, that this man has the wit needed to make change of a fiver for a one-dollar purchase.
There is no clearer, more dramatic, more disappointing proof of the failure of affirmative action.
Barack Hussein Obama is one of the people for whom designers of bathroom stalls endeavored to ensure that the toilet faces forward toward the door, so users can find their way out upon completion of their task.
June 24, 2011 - 8:09 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
18. Grantel
"simply invent "facts" so long as they fit the emotional and ideological pattern that really matters to the elite."
Cue Ann Coulter and her new book about mobs and how they thrive on images rather than coherent arguments.
June 24, 2011 - 10:30 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
19. Geoff
I would rather have a normal person of average intelligence with the right motives (e.g. proud of America) than a very smart socialist bent on destroying my country. Too bad Obama is only a socialist and not a very smart one. Don't you wonder why we have never seen his college transcripts? It would decimate the idea of Obama being "brilliant"
June 24, 2011 - 10:32 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
I would rather have a normal person of average intelligence with the right motives (e.g. proud of America) than a very smart socialist bent on destroying my country.
If I had to choose between socialists bent on destroying my country I'd rather have a dumb one than a smart one, so I guess I'm kind of grateful for Obama.
June 25, 2011 - 5:52 am Link to this Comment | Reply
20. Rick
…and we can't forget Obama's visit to "all 57 states", and that he promised his Obamacare would "reduce healthcare costs by 3,000 percent", and while awarding medals to Army personnel couldn't pronounce "Infantry", but instead called it "Infanry". The media destroyed Dan Quayle over the entire "potato/potatoe" thing but give Obama a total pass on every Gaffe.
The media destroyed GW Bush over misspeak, yet Obama makes Bush look like an Einstein genius when it comes to speaking ability! The extent of media bias among those outlets serving as part of the big Democrat propaganda machine is chilling for our nation.
June 24, 2011 - 10:37 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Bogdan from Australia
The media destroyed Bush because he hasn't had "cojones" to fight back.
Not so with BARRACUDA who as we know attacks with the breathtaking speed and ferocity when pestered. She is going to feed them (leftoids and RINOS) with so much CAVIAR that they will choke to death.
Hence the animalistic fear that permeates them.
June 24, 2011 - 8:16 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
21. Thomas_L......
Isn't "Tollybon" fluent Austrian?
June 24, 2011 - 11:06 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
22. wigglesworth
Obama flat out lies and if he can't remember he just makes stuff up.
-He lied about an uncle liberating Auschwitz during WWII
-He lied about his parents meeting at a civil rights march in Selma
Has anyone in the history of the world ever said "My Muslim faith" when they really meant to say "My [insert religion] faith"? I'm not saying he is a Muslim, but it tells me he doesn't really know who he is.
June 24, 2011 - 11:07 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
23. John
Look, you've got a president who when it comes down to it, is lazy about having to do the grunt-work things that being a political office holder, especially the president, involves, and you've got a White House that instinctively knows that these gaffes are not going to be covered by the big media outlets.
Obama likes having people work out big government policies for him so he can take the credit; he just doesn't like doing the hard work that comes in-between. Same thing with public events; he likes the idea of being in front of the camera and getting to talk, but unless it's something that really interests him, Obama doesn't really do much grunt work on the details of what he's going to say, and the staff takes their cues from him. He says what TOTUS tells him to say, and if he or it go off-message, screw-ups are the natural result.
That's why Obama and crew didn't care enough to get Monti's story right, and the media angle is also why to Team Obama, it's not really a big deal that they didn't get the story right. They know 9 times out of 10 they're not going to be called on it, and why Obama and the rest of his team are so thin-skinned when anyone besides Fox, talk radio or certain other publications or websites do call him on things, because it's almost as if one of their own is betraying them (you saw something similar with the way Anthony Weiner reacted to the questioning by CNN's Dana Bash — it's one thing to get grilled on a scandal by Brett Bair or someone else at Fox, but to have someone working for CNN do it; that's like treason to The Cause).
June 24, 2011 - 11:09 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
"Obama likes having people work out big government policies for him so he can take the credit; he just doesn't like doing the hard work that comes in-between."
This is how kings behaved in the era of the divine right of kings. To me, he is America's King James ll – the one who was run out of Britain in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. James' secret Catholicism made him a statist who looked to France for support and money to advance an agenda that threatened the traditional rights of the people. Substitute socialism for Catholicism and the parallels are surprisingly close.
June 24, 2011 - 2:39 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
24. Locomotive Breath
I think the leaks under Republican but not Democratic administrations are due to the fact that a preponderance of career civil servants are Democrats.
June 24, 2011 - 11:26 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Don Rodrigo
Washington bureaucrats regard GOP administrations as occupiers, and Democrat ones as liberators.
June 24, 2011 - 3:37 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Bogdan from Australia
Yeah… Sarah Palin will be perceived by them as a PREDATOR/ALIEN…
June 24, 2011 - 8:19 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
And funny, just realized the lyrics for that particular tune are apt for this discussion
June 25, 2011 - 11:26 am Link to this Comment | Reply
25. Sean
'You understand' that we (Americans in general) are taught to ascertain a person's level of intelligence. We are not taught, however, to determine a person's 'level of ignorance.'
It appears as though the Big Media (BM) wants us to recognize the present White House inhabitants' level of intelligence and ignorance.
Relying on political correctness (first coined by Marx and Engles in 1877) to explain away BHO's ignorance, the BM will find themselves floating to the top in an appropriate disposal facility.
June 24, 2011 - 11:28 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
26. Craig D. Hansell
Michael your observations leads one to believe that we should FIRE OBAMA!
Have a President in the White House NOT a symbolic resident;
Have a straight shooter NOT a shooter of hoops;
Have a driver of prosperity NOT a driver of golf balls;
Have capitalist advisors NOT Communist agitators setting policy;
Have a redistributor of opportunities NOT a confiscator of others possessions;
Have a supporter of the United States NOT a suppressor ;
Have a President who personifies leadership NOT leisureship;
Have more business leaders performing their talents in the White House NOT Socialist entertainers.
In other words now we know what happens when form replaces content in electing a leader; you get neither form nor content.
June 24, 2011 - 11:28 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
When you're convinced you're the Smartest People Evah, you won't conceive of the possibility of getting something wrong. The very idea of fact-checking is a confession of the possibility of fault that these narcissists can't allow. Any time spent on confirming facts would interfere with the thrilling feel of speedy execution that is the perpetual self-confirmation of their lightning brilliance.
June 24, 2011 - 11:45 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
28. pat
He is a product of an educational system that has no minimal standards. We have never seen his transcripts because they likely will reveal not only that his grades were mediocre, but that all the courses he took were soft disciplines that are graded on expressing the correct impulses. Black studies, urban studies, etc. He managed to avoid Science, American History, Modern and Ancient European History,Economics, Mathematics, Logic and Statistics, Accounting, Music, all language courses, etc. Hence he cannot pronounce common words, understand science, graphs, statistics, business, economics, engineering, logistics, etc. He is basically unemployable except as a rabblerouser.
June 24, 2011 - 11:49 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
29. BogusBob
Like others have said, he is getting a free pass from half the American people and almost all the media, he doesn't really have to do anything right to stay in office. It will be the same thing when the next village idiot (Democrat) gets in the oval office. It's pucker time America.
June 24, 2011 - 12:12 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
30. chemman
It took me a couple of seconds to type in Medal of Honor recipients and bing it. It then took me less than two minutes to find the names of the 4, soon to be 5, recipients of the MoH from the Afghanistan theater. Neither his speech writers nor he cares about what he says. What a disgrace to the office.
June 24, 2011 - 12:20 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
31. maryann
It's also been said that the support team looks like a group of freshmen. Punks right out of the swamps called Moral Relativism, Postmodernism, Nihilism, Deconstruction Theory, and Victimhood. Throw in a little Zeitgeist Movie, and Howard Zinn's versions of American History and your good to go, good for Lib cocktail parties anyway. Hey they are teaching Union organizing in Cali Kindergaartens , can we expect any less.
I like to go back and read David Solway's recent article "Infantilizing the Culture as well as a VDH gem.
Besides if the likes of Mamet never heard of Thomas Sowell of Freidman just imagine what these kids are learning in the no mans land of academia.http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/255390/defense-liberal-arts-victor-davis-hanson
June 24, 2011 - 12:28 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
32. WickedDickie--Virginia
Most of the comments were "right on". One point everyone seems to miss is that this disgusting creature obviously is not an educated person. Educated people, with or without fancy degrees, have one thing in common–they read–as in books. Everything about Obama-ayers reeks of phoney. This creature was produced and directed by BM. (Okay, that's supposed to mean big media.)
June 24, 2011 - 12:31 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
33. Libertyship46
And yet I'm reminded of how the main stream media jumped on every, single, word Gerald Ford uttered. And in those days, there was no talk radio or FOX News to try and give the guy a break. The main stream media reported every slip he made, trying to make him look like a fool. Then Saturday night live got into the act, and Ford's reputation was destroyed, even though he was a very smart and genuinely decent human being. Sort of like what the main stream media and Hollywood did to Sarah Palin in 2008. Yet you do NOT see them ever, EVER, ganging up on a Democratic president. Even during the darkest days of the Lewinsky scandal, the main stream media kept trying to minimize what Clinton did and they kept mentioning how "brilliant" he was. It's really sad to see how biased the main stream media is, but I guess we're used to it by now. The real poll takes place in November 2012, when we throw a truly incompetent president out of the oval office and bring in a more capable one.
June 24, 2011 - 12:51 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
34. wGraves
I'll try to get this right, but it's been awhile. In 1979 I was living in France working for the French CNRS. President Carter journeyed to Vienna for some meeting: SALT II or G-8 or whatever. The French press were delighted when, in his keynote speech, he thanked the Mayor of Venice for his fine reception, thereby demonstrating that the President didn't even know which country he was in and apparently couldn't tell German from Italien.
June 24, 2011 - 12:55 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
35. PattyMor
The 'Bamster is just reading words off a tel-e-prompter. He doesn't feel or care about anyone else. So Corpse-man, Pok-is-stan, Cominsky, or Austrian might as well be: whatever! Just another event, another speech, another day, another Billion or Two Spent.
June 24, 2011 - 1:11 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
36. Ken Fairbairn
Affirmative action. Q.E.D. (This concludes the proof.)
Am I the only one that sees this?
June 24, 2011 - 1:12 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
37. Steve C.
Inattention to detail is a character trait. Had enough yet?
June 24, 2011 - 1:20 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
Indeed. You are "Presented" with the Medal of Honour for actions on the field of battle.
June 26, 2011 - 9:22 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
39. sammy. D
Could be he's still doing the drugs he spoke about in the books he "wrote."
June 24, 2011 - 1:32 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
This has my vote. Our president is clearly not bright, aware, or paying attention to anything other than his own reflection. Hopefully he is spending a little bit of time planning his next career move, he'd be great in Cuba.
June 25, 2011 - 10:43 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Steve DeMarcus
No his next position should be President of Antarctica all the fish and penguins wouldn't mind at all.
He can sit in his Igloo and make speeches all the time and life will go as planned!
June 25, 2011 - 2:48 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
40. Ran
Too kind, Michael. One does not give Madam Hillary the birdie in public – twice – by accident. Something tells me that the Chicago bully who threatened American bankers with SEIU thugs knows exactly what he's saying.
June 24, 2011 - 2:05 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
41. Andrew B
I went to a small, second tier college and maintained a C average. I was never in the top of my class, never considered a genius and certainly never considered especially gifted nor promising. Despite this, somehow, I have managed to accumulate a decent store of simple, practical knowledge.
What eludes me is how many supposedly brilliant, "articulate" and all-around superior people can be so…stupid. Our President and his inner circle, alas, are perfect examples. When I recall some historical fact or piece of geographical trivia, the usual reaction from people is "Did you learn that is school?"
No, I just lived for 49 years with my eyes and ears open. I read, listened and observed the world around me. No special class was required to know that Austrians speak German or how to pronounce "corpsman" (that last one you could learn from watching MASH re-runs.)Too bad our well-paid political class was all too busy with more important things, like class-envy and crisis exploitation.
June 24, 2011 - 2:08 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Well, true. Haven't you ever noticed how giddy with delight they act as to how clever they believe they are?
June 24, 2011 - 3:55 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
Smoking Frog
Andrew B., that's an idea that I've had for a very long time, but I think you may have expressed it better than I ever have. Actually I should say, an idea something like mine, because not only the elite but many ordinary people exhibit the same amazing lack of general knowledge, knowledge that they should have picked up just by paying attention.
June 25, 2011 - 5:17 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
General P.Malaise
…unfortunately MASH is one of those progressive programs that softened the minds of many.
……a pure socialism delivery device.
June 25, 2011 - 7:11 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
"… a pure socialism delivery device.."
Correction –
"… a pure (but very funny) socialism delivery device…"
June 25, 2011 - 10:58 am Link to this Comment | Reply
I do beleive that in this current day and age we have a genuine confusion between Intelligence and Education.
Education is generally measured by one's ability to Eat and Regurgitate what is printed in a book.
Intelligence is the capacity to reason through a situation and reach a conclusion that is pertinant and workable.
When I was in the fifth grade I figured out something by observation that the School was telling me the opposite was true.
SCHOOL: It Takes Two To Fight!
ME: No, One not fighting back will still get the snot kicked out of him. Therefore it actually takes Two to Make Peace, only one is needed to fight.Had I accepted their premise I'd have been 'Educated.'
By believing my own logic I exhibited Intelligence!June 25, 2011 - 9:56 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Matt from Texas
Is this Andrew Breitbart? I read Righteous Indignation and it seems to fit.
Anyway to make this actually relevant, as a National Guardsman the MoH thing still has me enraged. How can you possibly be bestowed the most hallowed of honors, presenting the MoH, and NOT REMEMBER THE FRIGGIN NAMES!?!?! These are among the greatest heroes in the history of the world and you can't remember their names. unbelievable.June 25, 2011 - 10:50 am Link to this Comment | Reply
42. malclave
Questioning anything the First Black President says or does is racist.
June 24, 2011 - 2:15 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Steve DeMarcus
No it is not, and being the worst president ever, and a Marxist to boot means all criticism is earned. Redistribution of wealth is wrong under any circumstance and his policies to date have not only proven that but given me hope that the rest of the unthinking and ignorant will remove him from office in the next election cycle…it is time to shed ourselves of political correctness and affirmative action by whatever name!
What a putz we have as President!
June 25, 2011 - 2:27 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
43. Rock
Just another example of his disdain for America, like his single finger salutes he does this only to poke the American public in the eye, then tells his friends "See, yes I can"
June 24, 2011 - 2:15 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
44. Berlet98
Recent White House Deceptions: Transcripts, Dreams, and Muslims
In our high-speed Internet, our 24/7 cable news age, we tend to get complacent insofar as the news and information we're getting, innocently believing that what we're seeing and hearing is substantially everything that's out there, that it's relatively accurate and reliable.
That ain't necessarily so, especially when the news and information relate to the White House and its current residents.
Cases in point: White House transcripts which aren't transcripted as much as they are scripted, the nightmarish Dream Act which seemed dead yet is very much alive, and the prosecution of Muslim terrorists who may very well be merely misunderstood conscientious objectors. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4876)June 24, 2011 - 2:37 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
45. Steve D
"I will call my Joint Chiefs of Staff in and give them a new assignment and that is to end the war."
Candidate Obama.
OK I can admit – when I heard this statement, I did not know that the JCoS were not part of the chain of command. But I was not running for the position of Commander In Chief.
June 24, 2011 - 2:41 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
General P.Malaise
that is impeachable stupid comment. it really shows how shallow an understanding of the military the clown called obama is.
June 25, 2011 - 7:08 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Marc Malone
Technically, any officer can negotiate a peace treaty, or armistice, or whatever to do with the conflict in his area. In practice, it is rarely done. Just like with any treaty though, it would have to be confirmed by the Senate.
As President, Obama is CinC. He can call off the war. He can recall the troops, because he has that absolute authority in the physical deployment of troops. He needs no Senate confirmation to recall troops; he just needs it for treaties.
He can even surrender the troops. He can order them to lay down their arms and submit to the enemy. ALL of them. The entire Army, Navy, and Air Force… and there is nothing the Congress or the American people could do about it. Isn't that a scary thought? That is specifically why the Founders put in the "natural-born citizen" requirement for the Presidency. (That is why his records matter so much.)
Saying he would call the JCoS to have them call off the war was even greater ignorance than you think. He does not need to order anyone to order the troops home. He just orders them home.
June 26, 2011 - 12:22 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
46. buzzsawmonkey
People here have left out the series of howlers Obama told in his immigration speech last year, in which he claimed that Emma Lazarus raised funds to build the Statue of Liberty. It was totally wrong, and got no mention whatsoever—he did not even seem aware the the Statue itself was a gift to the US from the French Government, nor that what Americans did was raise money for the base, nor that Lazarus' poem was written after the statue was erected and only later added to the base.
Didn't matter. He was working the "immigration reform" narrative and pandering to the descendants-of-immigrants base with all his might, particularly the wealthy-Jewish-Democrat-donor portion of it. But it was disgusting.
Equally disgusting was his fairy tale about how his grandfather or uncle or fairy godmother or somebody "helped to liberate Auschwitz," which no American troops did. That, at least, he caught a little flak for.
Barack Obama is an abysmally ignorant, ill-read, and incurious man. It comes through constantly in everything he says, everything he permits his scriptwriters to craft for him, and every inept mumblefest he engages in when he doesn't have the Magic Prompter to bail him out.
June 24, 2011 - 3:04 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
I mentioned the "uncle who liberated Auschwitz" story in comment #22
June 24, 2011 - 7:40 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
47. Rosa
The crux of this issue is that Americans have long believed that Academicians are the intellectual giants of our society. However, this is far from the truth. A majority of Academicians are those that could not perform at or above standard in their field of expertise.
When you have university after university tenuring what are basically intellectual "failures", you can only expect below par results. Add to the fact that these same professors believe they are demigods and you have a receipt for social disaster. I can remember arguing with professors over information that was obviously inaccurate – even at the ripe age of 20.
I don't believe all professors are this way – there are excellent ones out there. However, most of those were considered gifted in their fields of expertise BEFORE they entered Academia. As such, I believe colleges should demand at least 15 years of hands-on field experience BEFORE allowing someone to teach.
Such a plan would have prevented Obama from teaching or receiving any kind of recognition. It would also have shut out most of our elitist liberals – since they never really worked before teaching. Just think, they would have learned how to actually earn their money! This may have helped them to understand why hardworking citizens do not want to share their wealth.
June 24, 2011 - 3:09 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Now that we've seen what happens when academia rather than those with practical eperience are allowed to run the country, I hope that we can make the connection and stop letting them decide how and what our children are taught in schools. The pressure to put aside what one knows is best for the student in order to meet the demands of administrators pushing the latest fad or theory is intense and for many, overwhelming.
June 26, 2011 - 2:49 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
48. SpySmasher
None of the stations mentioned in the article compare to Obama blaming ATMs for causing the recession.
June 24, 2011 - 3:10 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Bob Beasley
Let's not compound his gaffe with a gaffe of our own. Mr. Obama did not blame ATMs for causing the recession. He suggested, as a secondary comment, that automation – including such things as ATMs – are helping to prolong a very slow recovery from the recent recession, because these devices were replacing people who formerly did the functions they now perform. Dimwitted, but not the same thing as saying ATMs caused the recession.
June 25, 2011 - 4:11 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
49. Mr. Potato Head
"First time I saw 10th Mountain Division, you guys were in southern Iraq. When I went back to visit Afghanistan, you guys were the first ones there. I had the great honor of seeing some of you because a comrade of yours, Jared Monti, was the first person who I was able to award the Medal of Honor to who actually came back and wasn't receiving it posthumously."
As we all know, SSG Sal Giunta, of the 173rd Airborne, was the first living recipient (2011) of the MOH who fought in Iraq/Afganistan. SFC Jared Monti, 10th Mountain Division, was KIA in Afghanistan in 2006. He was posthumously awarded the MOH by Obama in 2009. (June 23, 2011)
* "The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries."
–Barack Obama, Tampa, Fla., Jan. 28, 2010* "Just this past week, we passed out of the out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee — which is my committee — a bill to call for divestment from Iran as way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don't obtain a nuclear weapon."
–Barack Obama, Sderot, Israel, July 23, 2008. Obama was not on the Senate Banking Committee.* "The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings and inefficiencies to our health care system." –Barack Obama, health care roundtable, Washington, D.C., July 20, 2009
* "The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn't. But she is a typical white person, who, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know, you know, there's a reaction that's been bred in our experiences that don't go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way, and that's just the nature of race in our society."
–Barack Obama, 2008 campaign* "What I was suggesting — you're absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith…"
–Barack Obama interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos who corrected him: "on his Christian faith."* "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."
–Barack Obama, Memorial Day commemoration,* I'm always worried about using the word ˜victory,™ because it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur. "Barack Obama, July, 2009 on Iraq
* "I've now been in 57 states — I think one left to."
–Obama 2008 campaign event, Beaverton, OR* It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
–Obama on the working class at SF fundraiser, 2008* "In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed."
–Barack Obama, 2007 campaign speech on a Kansas tornado that killed 12 people.* "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
– Barack Obama defending his tax plan to Joe the Plumber , Toledo, OH, Oct. 12, 2008* "The Cambridge police acted stupidly."
–Barack Obama, commenting on a white police officer's arrest of black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr ., at a news conference, July 22, 2009.President Obama's next job starting 2013, Vegas lounge comedian
June 24, 2011 - 3:15 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Never been to Vegas…they have teleprompters there?
June 24, 2011 - 6:44 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
For lounge comedian one needs a certain amount of cleverness as well as spontaneity. I would suggest he be a greeter instead
June 25, 2011 - 7:02 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
50. a. kittredge
How about his star performance toasting Queen Elizabeth at her state dinner? The man talked his unctuous way through the British National Anthem while every other person in the hall stood respectfully and motionlessly, including the Queen. He ended up not even drinking to her, which I would say was because by that time he was so lost about how to behave he just did whatever she did. And of course she doesn't drink to herself. So he, totally out of the loop, didn't either. What did he tell his protocal team? "Yeah, yeah, I know, lemme just finish watching this great golf tournament before I have to go down to dinner."?
June 24, 2011 - 3:23 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
I had forgotten about that! Here I was, busy being embarrassed when he sent her majesty a cd player. I was absolutely stunned by that.
June 25, 2011 - 1:27 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
51. Windfall
As far as presidential gaffes are concerned, there is one that is at once the greatest and most absurd.
In the third line of his Inaugural Address, Clueless Comrade Barry stated,
"Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath."
Actually, 43 Americans have taken the presidential oath. The reason why Comrade Barry is considered president number 44 is because Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms and is thus counted as presidents numbered 22 and 24.
You can maybe, sort of, make the excuse that Comrade Barry was tired and misspoke with his "we've now campaigned in all 57 states" remark but his statement: "Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath" is still posted at Whitehouse.gov.
We're now some 28 months into an administration headed by a President who still doesn't know who Grover Cleveland is!
There can be no doubt. Clueless Comrade Barry has less than a schoolboy's understanding of American history.
And the Useful Idiots think Governor Palin is stupid?
Addressing the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, The Clueless One said, "Long before America was even an idea, this land of plenty was home to many peoples. The British and French, the Dutch and Spanish, to Mexicans, to countless Indian tribes. We all shared the same land."
Actually, the United States of America declared its independence on 4 July 1776.
Mexico didn't exist until 34 years later (16 September 1810).
Now how is it that Mexicans shared the same land before there was even such a country as Mexico?
Don't you have to exist before you can share?
What we have in the White House today is nothing more or less than an ignorant, incompetent, narcissistic Marxist miscreant – the living embodiment of The Peter Principal in (Affirmative) Action – who the media refuse to hold accountable for anything.
By the way, they speak German in Austria (not "Austrian"), the automobile was invented in Germany (not the U.S.), the "ps" is silent in "corpsman", the U.S. Constitution was not written "20 centuries ago", Europe is a continent not a country and Abraham Lincoln was a Republican but, yes, Israel is indeed a "strong friend of Israel".
The Ruling Class must perpetuate the myth that they are the "best and brightest" in order to give them license to organize and legislate against the interest of those whom they are supposed to serve.
They are neither and their Beloved Dear Leader Clueless Comrade Barry is, in fact, nothing more – or less – than a complete dullard.
June 24, 2011 - 3:44 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
52. f1guyus
Hey guys, lighten up on Barry and his merry band. They are doing the best they can. The absolute best. Really. Honest. The best. And Barry was probably the best community organizer Chi-Town ever saw. No doubt.
June 24, 2011 - 3:46 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
53. Buck O'Fama
The emperor has no clothes… or brains.
June 24, 2011 - 4:06 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
54. retlaw
It's education, yes, but it also goes to "temperament", D. Brooks's favorite thing about Obama. On the campaign trail, he claimed he'd been to 57 states on two separate occasions – as if the first time his staff thought he just misspoke, but pulled him aside after the second.
The guy was a U.S. Senator at the time!
How many Senators are there in the Senate, Senator? And how many Senators are from Illinois, Senator? So how many states are there, Senator?
He's not curious, and what he doesn't know can't be very important. Dangerous to have such a leader.
Mr. Ledeen, are you talking about the "Navy Corpse-man" gaffe? Or did he really double down with a "Marine Corpse" one?
June 24, 2011 - 4:20 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
The Left and Progressives love credentials. They are credentialists par excellence. Which is why the President must be protected at all costs. To the Left, he has the perfect CV. Occidental College; Masters from Columbia; Editor of the Harvard Law Review; lecturer at the Univ of Chicago. His mutli-culti background, his years spent in Indonesia at Madrassa, and "troubled youth" only added whip cream to the Progressive dish.
Axelrod spent considerable time and money perfecting the narrative, which received a huge assist from the uncurious MSM. There is no way the MSM is going to allow any gaffes to destroy thier fantasy -even if he made them twice a day.
June 24, 2011 - 4:53 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
I don't dispute anything here, but I have a question:
what's the significance of Occidental College?
Maybe it's because I live in the East, but I never heard of it (except for that obnoxious woman that O'Reilly used to have on, to give silly left-liberal knee-jerk opinions) before Obama, whereas I've certainly heard of Pomona, Claremont College, Scripps, etc.
One understands why the quest for a perfect resume might take one to Columbia and Harvard Law, but what's the significance of Occidental?
June 27, 2011 - 8:54 am Link to this Comment | Reply
56. maryann
JP I cut and copied your first paragraph . It now sits at the bottom of a long list of quotes from Sowell, VDH, Steyn, PJM commenters,etc.. Fantastic.
June 24, 2011 - 5:02 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
57. Cybergeezer
What do you expect from the poster boy for "Affirmative Action"?
He's demonstrating what a success the program is, and promises to be.
And there are multitudes that are SO PROUD!!!!!!
Does anyone besides me, smell something rotten?June 24, 2011 - 5:12 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
58. stuart williamson
Universsal agreement on on the conservative side that that President Twinky despite his Harvard degree is ill-informed, displays little intellect, has no management or leadership skills, is a communism-steeped fully dedicated radical socialist, who refuses to divulge his academic records. Yet NOBODY in the Republican Party has ever confronted him and the Democrat party on these imperative issues. Donald Trump has come closest. McCain lost victory because he refused to say "Socialist" or Chicago Machine" at any time, much less in debate. He was never vetted. The One-Party Pravda Press covered for him, but there was absolutely no attck mode in the RNC or in the punditry.
And no viable candidate on the right side is going after him, head-don, for what it is evident he is _A SOCIALIST. "Leftist" or "Left-Leaning" doesn't cut it. The Dems claim that Socialism is OK with them. So why the pussy-footing? The candidate that defeats BO will be the one who tears into him.
June 24, 2011 - 5:13 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Your comment underscores a point that I've been trying to make to anyone who will listen: The way to beat Obama in 2012 is to go after him PERSONALLY. This is the exact opposite of what everyone says (go after the policies, not the man).
Only Trump was smart enough to know that you go after a bully in a bubble by first poking through the bubble. Demanding first the birth certificate and then (starting to demand) the school records (after which point he unfortunately turned his attention to other things) is the way to get to Obama. Then the travel records. Then his academic writing. Then go after his associations (Ayers, Wright, the Islamist guy at the dinner whose name I forget, etc). Then his gaffes. Then his rampant insensitivity during solemn/tragic occasions (like the shout out right after Ft. Hood and the golfing on Memorial Day, etc). Then his bowing down and cuddling up to enemies and his alienation of allies.
Etc, etc, etc. Obama cannot take it when someone goes after him personally – his thin veneer starts to crack and his conning and false ways are exposed. The real personna (empty, arrogant, fearful, self-protective) starts to emerge for public view.
I don't have faith than >anyoneperson<.
If anyone has any friends in high places – please put this point out there. It is imperative for a successful 2012 campaign, in which (no matter how bad things get) Obama's chances of winning will never be below 50/50.
June 25, 2011 - 11:12 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Part of above comment was lost:
I dont have faith that >anyone< in the present list of candidates (including prospective candidates like Palin and Perry) understand this point. They all – with differing degrees of aggressiveness – go after the policies, not the man. This approach will be only partially successful.
June 25, 2011 - 11:17 am Link to this Comment | Reply
I so agree. I blame McCain more than anyone else for Obama's election. Obama needed to be attacked, BM wasn't going to do it, McCain was BUYING time on radio and television–but was just too darned much of a gentleman to tell the truth(s).
Was he afraid BM wouldn't love him anymore? Was he slow to notice BM had moved on to a new love, BO? Or was he just an idiot? It doesn't matter except to the extent that it should warn us to never again nominate a mealy-mouthed "gentleman" to do battle with a junkyard dog — or an experienced community organizer from Chicago.
June 25, 2011 - 2:26 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
59. Liz
If the moron would get off the golf course and crack a book, maybe. Meanwhile, this country is on auto pilot.
June 24, 2011 - 5:46 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
I wish the country were on auto-pilot. If it were, wouldn't have the mess we have today thanks to the brilliant One's policies.
June 25, 2011 - 2:57 am Link to this Comment | Reply
I use the words 'Mexican' and 'Spanish' interchangeably, for laughs. So, I don't hold the 'Austrian' gaffe against Obama.
But one would think that he would have proof readers and fact checkers and that he would do some rehearsing instead of cold reading from the teleprompter. I guess they think the President is so rich in B.S. that he doesn't need preparation.June 24, 2011 - 6:35 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Of course you dont Patrick because you are as stupid as he is . LOL
June 25, 2011 - 2:50 am Link to this Comment | Reply
61. Ediv710
Why does he pronounce Pakistan, "Pokeestan"? Or the Taliban, as the "Talee-band"?
June 24, 2011 - 7:07 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
62. Wade
Imagine the media frenzy if Sarah Palin or, two decades ago, Dan Quayle had made these statements.
June 24, 2011 - 8:05 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
63. Gerri
Oh come on!!!! As if Dan Quayle and Shrub, that texass rodeo clown NEVER made any mistakes. The biggest mistake we as amerikkkans made was voting that cretin for 8 years and made a big mess for a visionary like Obama to clean up. Please stop the bigotry and hatred and give Obama the chance he deserves. And what about Sarah Palin being able to "see Russia" from her house. Oy, veh! Repuglicans!
June 24, 2011 - 9:06 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Where do I begin with such nonsense as this? I'll just say that you should check your facts before you vent. The "I can see Russia from my house" comment was made by Tina Fey in a Saturday Night Live skit. Palin never uttered those words.
June 25, 2011 - 7:49 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Please Note what I said in 13 above to see how clearly this dweeb screwed that one up.
Next, note that what we are complaining about is the fact that the Media "IGNORES" the gaffes by Obozo and highlights the slightest error by Republicans, not that Republicans never make them.
So in typical liberal fashion he deflects the argument to something tangientally related to appear as if he's the intelligent one and everyone else is wrong.
Thus proving the premise of the above article.
June 25, 2011 - 10:17 am Link to this Comment | Reply
Whenever a troll asserts that Palin said that she could see Russia from her house, it is impossible to take him or her seriously. In this case, it is impossible to take the troll seriously even without that confirmation of profound ignorance.
Americans gave the Democrats the presidency and overwhelming control of both the House and the Senate in 2008. The Republicans have never had that level of control in the past 80 years. Despite that or maybe because of that, the lowest unemployment rate of the Obama years is higher than the highest unemployment rate of the Bush years. How long are we supposed to give Obama a chance? Will four years be enough? Will eight years be enough? Should we make him a lifetime president so that he can have the chance he deserves? That the Obama presidency has been a disaster is obvious to anyone who is not part of the loony-left cult. Unlike our troll, people who do not have a religious faith in a man or party cut their loses when it is apparent that things are not working out.
Finally, suppose you had told this troll in 2008 that voting for Obama would mean that in two and a half years the country would have bombed Libya, had an unemployment rate of 9.1%, and a government deficit over $1.5 trillion, about equal to 10% of GDP. How would he or she have responded?
a) You are a crazy wingnut. The visionary genius and ideal temperament of Obama will bring us peace and prosperity.
b) We accept that we will get war and depression, but it is all Bush's fault.
c) We expect that the numbers will be bad, but the Republicans would do worse.
d) War, unemployment, and debt are what Republicans, not Democrats, deliver and if you were not racist, you would understand that.In 2008 all Obama supporters would have responded with some variant of a or d. Now that a and d are not tenable (OK–a few may still hold out for d), they give some variant of b or c. Our troll is giving us b. Based on what the Obama cultists themselves expected in 2008, the Obama administration has been a disaster, but commitment bias prevents them from acknowledging that.
June 26, 2011 - 7:01 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
64. Words Are Great Except the Ones You Don't Like
There is such a thing as an Austrian dictionary called, the "Austrian Dictionary".
He made a mistake but it's not like he said they spoke Chinese.
Obama's religious mentor and the mentor of that mentor both speak Nazi. Try that blunder on for size and attack it cuz you're not gonna beat Obama by laying out gaffes that amount to little more than pedantry.
Get it through your heads that this is a guy who simply doesn't like white people and thinks they're all racists. His background screams it, his wife does, Holder does, Holder's wife does, Van Jones does and virtually every black voice in America supports the same view. Look at his policies.
Why do you give him a pass on this? Why be scared of calling a bunch of frickin' Nazis a bunch of frickin' Nazis? That's how you'll beat this paperhanging bum – by comparing him to that other paperhanging bum who also spoke Austrian.
June 24, 2011 - 10:51 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Wow….so true. Similar statements have cost me friends or I thought they were friends. They voted for Obama because of white guilt. Anyway, recently while driving with one of those aforementioned friends she was cut off by another driver and got mad to which I said "oh it must be an Obama voter". Well that was that.
June 25, 2011 - 6:15 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
65. Moro1978
Why is anybody surprised by the gaffes? Or that they are largely unreported by the mainstream media? This is our first Affirmative Action President. He was not vetted by the mainstream media as "Hubert Humphrey Conservatives" like David Brooks talked about "the crispness of the crease of his pants" and Leftist Chris Matthews spoke of a "tingle going up my leg" when describing Obama's oratory skills (i.e., ability to read from a teleprompter). [NB: Has anybody noticed that as President Obama consistently dresses like a slob? Saw him exiting the Presidential limousine the other day in sandals sans socks, what appeared to be chinos and a short sleeve white shirt worn outside his pants. Contrast with Reagan who wouldn't enter the Oval Office unless he wore a jacket and tie. Obama's slovenliness in dress and his constant gaffes are indicative of a man who is lazy and content that he is the smartest guy in the room because that's what he has always been told by those orbiting his sphere. In short, "The Emperor's New Clothes" writ modern.]
There are two issues that troubled me during the 2008 Presidential campaign and one that continues to trouble me since the election, perhaps more so than the gaffes: (1) Candidate Obama never produced a transcript for any school that he ever attended, namely Occidental College, Columbia University and Harvard Law School. And yet the main stream media, picking up on the blathering of historians like Michael Beschloss, immediately proclaimed Obama a genius and in possession of the highest IQ of anybody who has ever occupied the Oval Office. I saw a drooling Chris Matthews just two nights ago proclaim Obama an unsurpassed genius (you would think that this would wear off after a while, especially in view of the increasing evidence of Obama's dithering incompetence, but it just seems to go on and on). What evidence is there that Obama is a genius? "Hey, he went to Harvard", as some of my leftist friends like to point out. To which I respond, "Hey, so did George Bush." The retort is "but Obama was President of the Harvard Law Review" which must confirm his unsurpassed genius and that he must have had high grades. Turns out this is not necessarily true. The position is an elected position and elections can be rigged to favor, for example, Obama's "life experience" as a community organizer. In short, I contend that Obama's election as the first Black President of the Harvard Law Review back in 1990 was an Affirmative Action move. Until the 1970's the editors were picked on the basis of grades, and the President of the Law Review was the student with the highest academic rank. That system came under attack in the 1970's and was replaced by a program in which about half the editors are chosen for their grades and the other half are chosen by fellow students after a special writing competition. [Anybody see Obama's entry?]. The new system (i.e., Affirmative Action), disputed when it began, was meant to help insure that minority students became editors of The Law Review. To further undermine the notion that Obama is a genius, he never published a single paper while occupying the top spot at the Harvard Law Review. Ditto for his decade plus time as a lecturer at the University of Chicago School of Law (contrary to his phony portrayal by the main stream media, he was not a Professor of Constitutional Law, he was a lecturer). The school transcripts of every other modern President or candidate for the presidency are in the public domain. Not Obama's. Why? Probably because releasing those transcripts would prove that he advanced via Affirmative Action and that (unlike other Blacks who are true geniuses like Condolezza Rice, Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell or Shelby Steele), Obama just doesn't live up to the hype. He's just a lazy guy with slightly above average intelligence who "got over" on the system by playing his biracial roots to wring maximum results out of the Affirmative Action system at a period in our history when Affirmative Action had achieved maximum penetration of the American education system. (2) Candidate Obama never released his medical records. Instead he produced a half page note from a doctor who proclaimed him to be in a super great state of health. Contrast with John McCain who produced 1,300 pages documenting a "Fantastic Voyage" through and over every millimeter of his body. What are they hiding? Obama's Caucasian mother died of ovarian cancer in her very early 50s. Obama's Black father was killed in a car accident in his mid 30s. Obama reputedly had (has?) a two to four pack a day cigarette habit and he has admitted to past drug use (cocaine, marijuana). Obama's gene pool is sufficiently suspect (cancer on his mother's side, who knows what on the father's side…perhaps Sickle Cell Anemia?) complicated by additional extrinsic factors (drugs, cigarettes, probably alcohol) that the main stream media should have demanded much more medical information. Remember those Occidental College photos of Obama that were released after the election? Looks like he did more than an occasional joint or "some blow" as he admitted on one of the daytime shows back then. Could he have passed a drug test in 2008? What is he hiding?
Post election, the thing that is most troubling about President Obama (more troubling than the gaffes)is the constant lies: he is able to say one thing one day and the diametric opposite the next day. It's more than just being a politician. No other national politician (certainly no Caucasian Republican or Democrat) could ever get away with the lies and deceit that Obama has spewed. The mainstream media would run them to ground and pulverize them. The current mainstream media rarely, if ever, calls him out on his propensity to lie. So the gaffes are indicative of a lazy, uninformed, perhaps not very intelligent President who is surrounded by fawning yes men. The guy is content to phone it in and take credit for the work of others (e.g., Obamacare, Bin Laden shooting) while deflecting on everything else ("It's Bush's fault"). The lies are more Stalinist in nature. They are designed to deceive the 30 percent of the voters in the "mushy middle" (so called independents, i.e., confused Democrats). To the extent that Obama can "get over" on the average (unfortunately uninformed) American voter because he is unchallenged by the media, endangers our freedom. During the eight years of George Bush, the mainstream media went to great lengths to discredit him at every turn. They even invented false stories (e.g., Dan Rather on Bush service in National Guard) that prior to the internet age would have altered the outcome of the 2004 election. Obama, on the other hand, can lie with impunity. On the rare occasion that he is challenged, and these are rare, he is quick to anger and comes off as a thin skinned creep. The fact that the economy can be in such bad shape, that the Administration continues to push its extreme Leftist agenda which appears to be making things worse, that the Administration has not produced a budget in almost two years, that Obama issues lie after lie, that he can claim "we saved or created 2.1 million (imaginary) jobs", while he and his wife live like Louie XVI and Marie Antoinette, that he apparently spends more time on the golf course than in the Oval Office (perhaps a good thing, come to think of it), that he has commenced a third war and has proclaimed The War Powers Act not applicable, that he has assisted in toppling regimes of our longstanding allies (Egypt) while pressing Israel into concessions that would assure its destruction, and that polls still show him hovering just north or south of 50 percent job approval does not bode well for the seminal 2012 election. The upcoming election will be an IQ test on the American electorate. I'm not hopeful.
June 24, 2011 - 10:51 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Well said. Nice to know some folks are paying attention.
June 25, 2011 - 3:12 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
66. ConservUSA
IMHO, the latest gaffe is a sign that one again, Barry pays attention to what he feels is important, i.e. his NCAA brackets, and doesn't pay attention to what he doesn't think important, like being Commander in Chief. One has to have one's priorities./sarc
June 25, 2011 - 3:00 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
67. James Authur
The biggest and longest running gaffe committed by the "annointed one" was the three minute nationally televised Obama talk about how college grad Obama was done bad by "Acme Insurance."
Obama claimed he was "laughed at" by his insurance company, Acme, when Barack demanded to be reimbursed when his "beater" car was rear ended. Anyone with any auto insurance knowledge whatsoever would realize that when you purchase basic insurance coverage you are purchasing only liability coverage which pays only when you hit some one else.
Purchasing full collison/comprehensive coverage on a "beater" car is something that just does not happen. Acme was entirely correct to laugh at a fool who "paid every month" for liability coverage and then wanted to collect for collision coverage which he had never purchased.
25 years after the incident our president tells this tale as proof of how insurance companies are nothing but scum of the earth who refuse to pay on poor Black people's claims. A Republican telling such a deluded story would have been the object of justified ridicule for weeks on end. Obama tells this fable and everyone nods their head in apparent agreement. To do otherwise would label you a racist.
June 25, 2011 - 4:14 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
68. DanS.
Which is exactly the reason that I and many other adjuncts in colleges are trying to turn this around. I teach American Exceptionalism, the superiority of the US Constitution, the need to protect and advance Western Democracy and Law thru Business Law courses, Law & Society courses, Art of Argument courses…I use PJ Media articles in discussions.
and this from a "red diaper baby" – I have Alinsky's books – using them for good now!! The "proper way".
LONG LIVE OUR US CONTITUTION – do not fuck with it!!
June 25, 2011 - 4:52 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
SUPERB, Dan.
We need classes on "Conservatism", "American Exceptionalism", "Federalism", and any other term that applies to educating in basic "AMERICANISM".
Being American is basic and fundamental "Diversity", without all the legislation that enables specific tribes and clans to claim any dominance.
Being plain American is specific proof you are "politically correct" in your words and deeds.The media we have today, espousing the "liberal/progressive agenda", is totally retarded by desire. Not "retarded" in any mental condition state; But, retarded willingly and obediently to an agenda that is terminal, not only to themselves, but, everyone that abides by their propaganda.
Live long and prosper, sir.
June 25, 2011 - 5:28 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
May you be blessed with success, best wishes and thank you.
June 25, 2011 - 6:44 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
69. Increase Mather
Culturally…he's not an American. He doesn't get it. He's an affirmative action creation…we are not going to be allowed to see any documention from his past.
Frankly, his long form birth certificate looks faked. Many, many computer experts have come forward and called it so. We are not going to get a look at his passport records. Nor his college application and grades. As a child he went to an Indonesian school…only citizens of that country are allowed in their schools. Did his mom withdraw his citienship when she married her Indonesian husband to get him into school?
How did he travel to Pakistan in 1981? Under which nation's passport? Why did he live in the foreign student dorm at Occidental? Why does he have a social security number issued in March, 1977 in Connecticut, a state he had never been to?
He admits to not being a good undergraduate student…how did he get into Columbia and later, Harvard Law? Who paid his college costs? He has said he took every drug he could get his hand on while living in Moringside Hts…where did he get the money? Did he sell drugs?
Is there anybody out there in the media with the least bit of curiousity about Obama's early life? Or are they all too busy investigating Palin?
June 25, 2011 - 5:24 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
70. scott chester
Biden has his gaffes, bozObama would screw up a wet dream even if it were right on his dipstick-prompter.
June 25, 2011 - 5:31 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
71. Larry from FL
Some people have the vocabulary to sum up things in a way you can understand them. This quote came from the Czech Republic . Someone over there has it figured out. We have a lot of work to do."The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting an inexperienced man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president."
June 25, 2011 - 6:08 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
I agree with the sentiments, but the actual quote came from Ellis Washington on January 27, 2010, regarding the first State of the Union address by Obama.
It was picked up and quickly went viral, appearing on 28 April 2010 in Prager Zeitung (a Czech Republic newspapaer) as a comment from a reader.
Regardless of the etymology of the statement, it remains a true and accurate analysis of the problem.
June 25, 2011 - 7:05 am Link to this Comment | Reply
72. tanstaafl
Barack's handlers and personal advisers are shallow & classless. Try as they might, their ignorance leaks through.
Case in point (one of the few originals still hanging around) Valerie Jarrett.
The lapdog press will go on for days if Sarah Palin says something they don't know about Paul Revere's ride, but will avoid mentioning corpsemen, 57 states, Austrian a language, dumb gifts to the queen, embarrassing toasts, can't remember which dead guy I awarded medal of honor and personally spoke with his parents…
As Michelle noted yesterday, however, the Obamas are so happy with the "support" they get from the lapdog press. Why, it almost makes their classlessness tolerable or maybe even invisible.
Barack brought up the lipstick/pig thing when running against Palin and McCain. It is à propos for his entire coterie:
"You can put lipstick on a pig and call it Monique, but it's still a pig."
As for political correctness, I'll go with Charlton Heston:
"Political correctness is tyranny with manners."
June 25, 2011 - 6:47 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Agree with all you have said, in fack this blog caused me to do a little more research on this, the following link is on point and scary.
June 25, 2011 - 9:56 am Link to this Comment | Reply
73. General P.Malaise
worriesome ? ….VDH that is the understatement of the day.
June 25, 2011 - 6:49 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
General P.Malaise
sorry meant to say Mr Ledeen.
June 25, 2011 - 6:49 am Link to this Comment | Reply
74. Mr. Ikar
I don't think Obama is so much as stupid as a man who thinks he knows more than he does. This probably stems from the fact all his life he has been told "Oh your so smart" with ever really doing anything to prove it. This leads to the development of an inflated ego, where you start thinking you know more than you do.
June 25, 2011 - 6:54 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
75. Sherab Zangpo
I can read Austrian !
And Italianish !
And Frenchan !But my Unistedstatesish is bad (because I think I read things in the Constitution that are not in the reality…)
(I couldn't resist)
Am I ready for the White House ?
I can do a lot of affirmative action for myself, if needed !June 25, 2011 - 9:05 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
That should be Frenchian. Even Obama knows that!
June 26, 2011 - 7:35 am Link to this Comment | Reply
76. Vaughn
Let's face it, today's college graduate is less likely to learn to think for themselves, and encouraged to be brainwashed by their 'Leftist' high priests. Obama has never had to earn anything. To paraphrase Joe Biden, 'he's a clean cut Black man' who progressed beyond Ebonics, and has been handed a Government paycheck ever since. Community Organizer?????????? We'd be better off with the guy on HGTV, who comes in and organizes your closets
June 25, 2011 - 9:06 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
77. Old Dad
The "corpsman gaffe puzzled me for a while. He was on prompter and yet repeated the mistake at least twice.
There is simply no way that a person of the President's age with even a moderate exposure to American popular culture would not have heard the proper pronunciation of that word hundreds of times–on playgrounds, playing war, on TV, in the movies, on the news.
I have seen bright high school students mispronounce the word, but never, and I repeat never, in close proximity with the "Marines." Everyone of reasonable intelligence and modest socialization knows how to pronounce "Marine Corps."
I conclude that the President does not prepare for many of his speeches, and pays little to no attention to what he's reading off the prompter. That would also explain his often robotic articulation and turning from side to side. The Abe Lincoln animatron at Disneyworld gives a much better speech.
June 25, 2011 - 9:06 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
"There is simply no way that a person of the President's age with even a moderate exposure to American popular culture would not have heard the proper pronunciation of that word hundreds of times–on playgrounds, playing war, on TV, in the movies, on the news."
Might I correct you in one point…
There is simply no way that an American of the President's age…"
I mean that in the form of someone who has grown up seeing themselves as "A Part Of" the American Experience rather than "Apart From" the American Experience. (Nothing to do with Birth Certificates, this is about belief.)
June 27, 2011 - 1:17 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
78. valerie
I am going to look on the bright side, and posit that the smart Democrats are not to be found among the more responsible positions in the present administration. This is an indicator that Obama will be a one-termp President. And with him will go the Tom Daschle, Nancy Pelosi group of incompetents.
June 25, 2011 - 11:38 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
79. Floyd R. Turbo
Wuzn't Sarah Palin supposed to be the STOOPID one?
June 25, 2011 - 12:45 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Mr. Ikar
I know what you mean. The elites are very selective whom they call stupid! If a person is one of their own, he or she is never wrong!
June 25, 2011 - 6:55 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
80. Andrew_M_Garland
Doctor: (patient seems disoriented) What is today's date?
Mike: May 24th.
Doctor: What year is it?
Mike: 2008.
Doctor: (concerned) Who is the President?
Mike: (sad expression) Barack Obama.- -
Barack Obama's Great European Adventure
05/25/11 – Examiner.com by Scott Paulson[edited]: Obama signed a guest book at the Westminster Abby in London, England. He dated his signature as 24 May 2008, when in fact the date was 24 May 2011.
The day was correct; the year was wrong. Have you ever known anyone to get the current year wrong, by three years? I have dated checks in January using the prior year, but never three years ago.
If your spouse or parent did that, would you laugh, or have them evaluated for stroke?
Possibly a physician could comment. If you are evaluating the orientation of a patient, and they report the wrong year, by three years, what does that usually mean?
June 25, 2011 - 2:07 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Mr. Ikar
Actually, the other day I wrote out a packing slip and dated it 6/22/10!
June 25, 2011 - 6:53 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
81. daniel
I get the feeling it is all going to end in tears…
June 25, 2011 - 2:08 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
82. PJki
And what about the "57 states" he visited, with just 2 more to go — Alaska and Hawaii.
The guy is an idiot.June 25, 2011 - 3:42 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Permit me to be picky. I heard him say he had been to 57 states, with a questioning look to his present minions, but he might not go to Hawaii. It seemed to me that his people didn't even notice the gaffe.
June 25, 2011 - 6:35 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
83. Vernon
Gaffe? I seriously doubt it was a "gaffe"…he was/is proving that "stupid is as stupid does!"
June 25, 2011 - 4:19 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
84. Bob Beasley
The nation in 2008 was desperately seeking leadership. We got seduced by an orator who had no demonstrated executive skills or statesmanship. Today, we found ourselves not unlike the young lady who, not long ago, got sweet-talked and is now in "trouble", only to find that he has moved on to other dalliances.
June 25, 2011 - 4:24 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
Dave E
What do you mean 'We', Bob? I saw right through him as did many others. It was all there for everyone to see. He didn't seduce anyone.
Foolish people made him into what they wanted him to be and he cleverly played along in some sort of twisted dance of mutual delusion (OK — maybe that is seduction). There is a difference, though, between cleverness and intelligence. And Obama is the walking breathing incarnation of that difference.
June 26, 2011 - 12:46 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
The MSM is Obama's personal and professional PR firm. A poorly made, less than commercial movie is normally recognized for its failures and lack of interest before it ever gets to the big screen. Realizing the investment will fail terribly at the box office, there is much scrambling to pump large sums of money into the failure in order to persuade the masses the film is entertaining, bright and well worth the $10.00 admission. The public recognizes the failings immediately and can't be pursuaded otherwise.
The MSM knows that Obama is a complete and utter failure at governing but to admit as much would be to admit to their own lofty failures on a professional and political level.
BHO will be diagnosed historically as a complete and utter failure like Waterworld and Heaven's Gate but not by these minions of his who pretend to be something they are not, professional journalists.
June 25, 2011 - 5:33 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
86. barbaras
Obama does not think it necessary to observe or be advised about protocol. He actually seems to believe that he is above it all. For what it is worth, the way he pronounces Pakistan is like fingernails on the chalkboard.
June 25, 2011 - 5:56 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
87. Banned by Huffpo
Welcome to the real world version of "Idiocracy."
If you haven't seen the movie yet, you must.
June 25, 2011 - 6:47 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
88. Berlet98
Obama's Intellectual Stammers, Gaffes, and Ignorance
I recently heard a snippet from an LA Times op-ed by Obamapologist Meghan Daum titled, "Obama's Fast Brain vs. Slow Mouth" in which Daum offered an explanation/defense/excuse for our president's inclination to employ a multiplicity of "umms" and "uhs" when he speaks without, and sometimes with, his trusty teleprompters.
As the article title suggests, Obama is so brilliant that his sluggish mouth is simply incapable of keeping up with his stupendous brain–not a nice thing to say about anyone, least of all a president– and he is reduced to "an intellectual stammer." She didn't attribute the president's oratorical ineptness to stuttering but to "stammering," which is pretty much the same speech defect as exhibited by the future King George VI in "The King's Speech."
I don't know Ms. Daum and I wouldn't suggest she is so enthralled with Barack Hussein Obama that she would be thrilled to give him oral sex as Time writer Nina Burleigh generously offered her idol, Bubba Clinton, in 1998. She just, evidently, idolizes her hero and settled for apologizing for Obama's speech patterns. Notably, she omits comment on his equally-annoying, constant filler "y'know" and "ya know."
The chief problem with Daum's apologia is that our gifted, constitutional-scholar leader's speech issues aren't confined to his repetitive "umms," "uhs," "y'knows," or to some fabricated "intellectual stammer." The absurdity of her premise is only emphasized by her comparison of the president to "the godfather of the intellectual stammer," the late, great, and incontestably brilliant, William F. Buckley. (http://lat.ms/kixmCW)
Absent his handlers and their scripted, teleprompted, words of wisdom, Obama hasn't the foggiest notion of what to say so "umms," "uhs," and "y'knows" afford him time to ruminate a wee bit, to intellectually stammer and fill the brain gap before he is forced to expound. He frequently does that by committing outrageous gaffes which are even more grievous than stammering.
Barack Hussein Obama's gaffes, his often stupid, inane, inappropriate, and inarticulate statements and misstatements are legion, even if Letterman's writers can't bring themselves to mock them as he still does with G.W. Bush's "Bushisms." They and Leno's lackeys, two and a half years after President Bush left office, are still stuck on GWB's gaffes and oblivious to every time Obama sticks his presidential foot into his mouth.
Unlike GWB's records–which showed he outshone Al Gore at Yale–we never have gotten the chance to peruse BHO's college and law school transcripts so one has to wonder how smart this most brilliant president ever to occupy the White House really is. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4896)June 25, 2011 - 9:07 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
89. Dobby
At every White House meeting, Obama's always the dumbest guy in the room. Well, at least until Joe Biden walks in.
For the sake of our country, I wish the above joke wasn't so funny.
June 26, 2011 - 7:43 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
90. amen johnson
There is a pervasive lack of real expertise throughout government. The myth that anyone can do anything without putting any effort into it is pervasive in this society. The concept of looking good and sounding good at a superficial level as a marker for expertise has replaced the idea of in depth critical thinking, skill, experience, and proven results. There is no other explanation for how a community organizer with essentially no experience or expertise in anything except voting "present" at that fine institution known as the Illinois Legislature could become president.
June 26, 2011 - 9:17 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
91. mhr
Biden isn't much brighter. He referred to Franklin Roosevelt addressing the American people on television. It cannot be the fault entirely of the current educational system. These people are simply not well educated.
June 26, 2011 - 9:42 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
92. Uniblogger
We should have had a clue to the new President's naivety when he sent the bust of Churchill back to England rather than just having it moved out of his office. This is someone who has no knowledge or sense of history and in his position, this is a dangerous thing.
A product of an elite Ivy League education, he will be protected by the Media who identify themselves with this elite class. What is scary is that the real world keeps moving on while these would be Ubermench try to see it through their progressive lenses.
June 26, 2011 - 9:43 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
93. alcuin
I don't think anyone has mentioned what I regard to be the worst Obamaism–his inability correctly to cite the Golden Rule. Without the ". . . as you would have them . . ." he is merely citing the eye-for-an-eye justice that has plagued the much of the world for so long.
June 26, 2011 - 10:58 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
94. batman
Does anyone remember the late 1940′s and early 1950′s war movies in which the following happened? American soldiers encounter a group of Germans who had been trained to impersonate Americans so they could infiltrate our side. They spoke perfect English. But they were betrayed when the American soldiers asked, "OK, who is the center fielder for the Yankees?" The German soldier couldn't answer that it was Joe Dimaggio. But any American male of that age would surely have known the right answer.
That is how I understand these gaffes — from 57 states to mispronouncing Marine Corps, from not knowing the language spoken in Austria to not remembering which Medal of Honor recipient lived and which one died.
Draw your own conclusions.
June 26, 2011 - 12:27 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
What's funny is that the other test, used in London was actually somewhat different.
While in a Pub they would seek to have the suspected spy sing the second verse of the Star Spangaled Banner.
They would arrest anyone who could.June 28, 2011 - 3:27 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
95. PaulM
He is not and never was well eductated. He was processed through the system because of the color of his skin; given favorable assignments, e.g. editor of the Harvard Law Review without ever having written anything published therein; United States Senator from Illinois whose voting record is "present"; away fom his ubiquitous teleprompter, he speaks in terms of he language of the street. He knows little history and frequently betrays his lack of knowledge thereof. He is wholly unfitted for the office he holds; in fact he is wholly unfitted for any public office or any responsible position.
June 26, 2011 - 12:29 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
96. julie
Wasn't naive, sending Churchill back, it was hostility. My islamist colleagues at work don't like him either. They do like Obama though.
June 26, 2011 - 1:29 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
97. J3annapolis
Another clarification, Mr Ledeen…
People receive the Medal of Honor, they don't "win" it. It is a significant difference.
The President PRESENTS the Medal of Honor IN THE NAME of Congress. This CINC poseur displayed breathtaking ignorance of the procedure…again…when he stated that he "awarded" the Medal of Honor to Jared Monti, which is typical self-aggrandizement by this president.
June 27, 2011 - 5:48 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
98. Edmund Burke
What happened with the two MOH heroes Giunta and Monti was that Monti, from the Mountain Division, was the first recipient Obama had the privilege to honor with the Medal. But Monti, like all recipients since Vietnam, was honored posthumously. Giunta was a paratrooper, the most recently named recipient, to whom Obama presented the award, face to face, in Nov. 10, 2010, or seven months ago, the first living recipient named since Vietnam. In seven months Obama as Commander in Chief forgot Giunta's unit, his name and what he did, which was to rescue two squads from a two to one ambush in the hills of Afganistan, bring back three or four wounded and run through a hail of fire to rescue a wounded paratrooper being dragged away by two Talibanis, one of whom he killed, who then turned out to be a "high-value target." His outnumbered squad chased away 15 heavily armed enemy who ambushed them only yards away after only a few minutes, and lost only two men I think but even they though what Giunta did, to chase the fleeing Talibani alone, was crazy.
So I figure that before he went to meet the Mountain Division Obama remembered he gave out a first MOH to the Mountain Division, asked for the name of the Mountain Division recipient and remembered as well he gave the first living MOH and conflated the two firsts. Not a bright man, but it may not have been his staff's fault, if Obama's description of the first was extemporaneous and caught everyone by surprise. Note that someone pretty quickly told him to apologize, which he did. Whether the Italian heritage thing had anything to do with it we'll never know but I would suspect that Obama has a habit of thinking in racial terms and stereotypes.
As far as the "corpseman" gaffe a hundred staff could have read and approved the speech without any forwarning that Obama's pronunciation would betray a total lack of any military knowledge. That is not the staff's fault. Only the Commander in Chief can answer for this.
June 27, 2011 - 7:07 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Michael Ledeen
the "corpse" gaffes happened twice, once in October 2009 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxORB49KtsE) and then again in February 2010. Maybe he has a learning disability?
June 27, 2011 - 7:16 am Link to this Comment | Reply
99. Cybergeezer
Could it be because his brain is white and his mouth is black, and they haven't resolved their differences?
June 27, 2011 - 10:25 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
100. WallyG
Obama is a mentally lazy, intellectually stagnant individual who has no curioisty about the world around him. Everything he knows he learned from his grandparents and their Marxist friends and in the pews of Rev Wright's church and from Saul Alinksy's methods for agitating, not accomplishing. Obama used part of his racial make up to put the democrat party's back up against the wall. After decades of telling Blacks they were their for them, Obama used Alinsky's methods against them and the Clintons. The media followed suit. They never bothered to check out Obama's history and total lack of accomplishments outside of his empty, long winded speeches full of cliches and re-used pre-war (WW2 FDR) rhetoric. A brief look at his time in Illinois Senate would have revealed a man so inocmpetent in all things that he would have beeb laughed out of the campaign. BUt the media needed a "black guy" and there he stood in his Malcom X suits and immediately the left was faced with the problem of either telling us how truly unaccomplished and incompetent his history revealed or fool the public. They chose to deceive the public and now two plus years later we have a catastrophic economic nightmare fully unleashed by this inexperienced done nothing on our hands to fix! The democrats and the media deserve ALL the blame! It was all their doing, and their flaming rhetoric that prevented any serious discussion about the man who had no ability to manage anything!
June 27, 2011 - 12:28 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
101. donna quixote
I always think of Obama as the "Emperor with no Clothes" in which no one dares tell the emperor that he is inadequate. Perhaps because of his race he has always been excused. He lacks even the most basic common sense but both he and his wife have an overblown idea of their own importance. Think of the entourage accompanying him on foreign trips.
I don't know that his gaffes indicate any deep seated educational fault other than the more recent school attendees spend far more time listening to their electronic devices than they should.June 27, 2011 - 3:12 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
102. Connie
I agree with your thoughts on the lack of education for this president and the people in his age group. I see it today in all the young people I talk to, and, NO, it isn't just the high school young people, but the college graduates who cannot speak properly or even write properly. This president doesn't fool many of us with his "lack" of proper education. I shall be thrilled to see him gone from the office as soon as we can get him "unelected"! He's pathetically ignorant in my opinion.
June 28, 2011 - 5:19 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
103. Rudy
When Obama was in Ottawa, Canada, he proclaimed "It's so nice to be in Iowa". I did not hear anyone in media, Canadian or American, point out this blunder, our left wing media is also in love!
June 29, 2011 - 9:02 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
104. Tomin8tor
There are TONS more of gaffes by Bozobama the Clown — don't forget how he signed into the Westminster Abbey guestbook by dating it in the year 2008!!! It was 2011 you freakin MORON!!!!!!!
GET OUT OF OFFICE YOU DUMB@SS!!!!!!!!!!! Resign IMMEDIATELY!!
June 29, 2011 - 9:45 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
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