A Gaffe Machine? Really?
Like John Cole, I'm amused by the latest right-wing narrative about Barack Obama. Apparently Obama is a "gaffe-machine," an embarrassing mediocrity of a politician who can't seem to stop putting his foot in his mouth. After all, he said his great uncle helped to liberate Auschwitz, but he really helped liberate Buchenvald. How embarrassing.
What's hilarious, of course, is that this criticism is coming from a group of people who have spent the last eight years engaged in an orgy of hero-worship for THE most gaffe-prone politician in modern history, George W. Bush. Remember this is the same guy who once said this, a guy who recently told the Pope that he gave an "awesome speech," a guy whose consistent butchering of the English language has given rise to an entire series of best-selling books and calendars. Bush is so gaffe-prone that he's forever lowered the standard by which we judge national politicians, and virtually every candidate in the field this year--both Republican and Democrat--seems Lincoln-esque by comparison.
It's probably also worth mentioning that Bush's annointed successor, John McCain, has made a number of embarrassing gaffes himself, such as repeatedly conflating Sunni and Shia Iraqis and launching into a verse of "Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran."
But apparently Obama is the embarrassing one. Right.
What's hilarious, of course, is that this criticism is coming from a group of people who have spent the last eight years engaged in an orgy of hero-worship for THE most gaffe-prone politician in modern history, George W. Bush. Remember this is the same guy who once said this, a guy who recently told the Pope that he gave an "awesome speech," a guy whose consistent butchering of the English language has given rise to an entire series of best-selling books and calendars. Bush is so gaffe-prone that he's forever lowered the standard by which we judge national politicians, and virtually every candidate in the field this year--both Republican and Democrat--seems Lincoln-esque by comparison.
It's probably also worth mentioning that Bush's annointed successor, John McCain, has made a number of embarrassing gaffes himself, such as repeatedly conflating Sunni and Shia Iraqis and launching into a verse of "Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran."
But apparently Obama is the embarrassing one. Right.
posted by A.L. at 10:09 PM
2 Comments:
In a way, the small-minded (not to say competely false) attacks on Obama tend to simply reinforce his message about the bad side of politics these days. He can simply point to such attacks and use them as proof of his claim.
Professor Deborah Lipstadt - an expert on Holocaust studies - has pointed out how common it is for people close to the Holocaust to confuse camps in their family remembrances.
See here and here.
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