Maybe it wasn't just a gaffe. Maybe he really does have a problem with basic geography. Michelle Malkin assembles examples of his multiple "misstatements." :
Barack Obama: Gaffe machine
Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2008
All it takes is one gaffe to taint a Republican for life. The political establishment never let Dan Quayle live down his fateful misspelling of "potatoe." The New York Times distorted and misreported the first President Bush"s questions about new scanner technology at a grocers" convention to brand him permanently as out of touch.
But what about Barack Obama? The guy"s a perpetual gaffe machine. Let us count the ways, large and small, that his tongue has betrayed him throughout the campaign:
* Last May, he claimed that Kansas tornadoes killed a whopping 10,000 people: "In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died " an entire town destroyed." The actual death toll: 12.
*Earlier this month in Oregon, he redrew the map of the United States: "Over the last 15 months, we"ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I"ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go."
*Last week, in front of a roaring Sioux Falls, South Dakota audience, Obama exulted: "Thank you Sioux City"I said it wrong. I"ve been in Iowa for too long. I"m sorry."
*Explaining last week why he was trailing Hillary Clinton in Kentucky, Obama again botched basic geography: "Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it"s not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle." On what map is Arkansas closer to Kentucky than Illinois?
*Obama has as much trouble with numbers as he has with maps. Last March, on the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Alabama, he claimed his parents united as a direct result of the civil rights movement:
"There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born."
Obama was born in 1961. The Selma march took place in 1965. His spokesman, Bill Burton, later explained that Obama was "speaking metaphorically about the civil rights movement as a whole."
*Earlier this month in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Obama showed off his knowledge of the war in Afghanistan by honing in on a lack of translators: "We only have a certain number of them and if they are all in Iraq, then it"s harder for us to use them in Afghanistan." The real reason it"s "harder for us to use them" in Afghanistan: Iraqis speak Arabic or Kurdish. The Afghanis speak Pashto, Farsi, or other non-Arabic languages.
*Over the weekend in Oregon, Obama pleaded ignorance of the decades-old, multi-billion-dollar massive Hanford nuclear waste clean-up:
"Here"s something that you will rarely hear from a politician, and that is that I"m not familiar with the Hanford, uuuuhh, site, so I don"t know exactly what"s going on there. (Applause.) Now, having said that, I promise you I"ll learn about it by the time I leave here on the ride back to the airport."
I assume on that ride, a staffer reminded him that he"s voted on at least one defense authorization bill that addressed the "costs, schedules, and technical issues" dealing with the nation"s most contaminated nuclear waste site.
*Last March, the Chicago Tribune reported this little-noticed nugget about a fake autobiographical detail in Obama"s "Dreams from My Father:"
"Then, there"s the copy of Life magazine that Obama presents as his racial awakening at age 9. In it, he wrote, was an article and two accompanying photographs of an African-American man physically and mentally scarred by his efforts to lighten his skin. In fact, the Life article and the photographs don"t exist, say the magazine"s own historians."
* And in perhaps the most seriously troubling set of gaffes of them all, Obama told a Portland crowd over the weekend that Iran doesn"t "pose a serious threat to us""cluelessly arguing that "tiny countries" with small defense budgets can"t do us harm" and then promptly flip-flopped the next day, claiming, "I"ve made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave."
Barack Obama"promoted by the Left and the media as an all-knowing, articulate, transcendent Messiah"is a walking, talking gaffe machine. How many more passes does he get? How many more can we afford?
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Politics, it seems to me, all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong. ~Richard Armour
Location: On an Island in the west coast of New England
Posts: 13,133
RE: Maybe I was wrong about Obama's 57 states gaffe
Obama is pretty fast with the mouth and some say a littleslow on facts. If he has a problem with numbers I hope he understands what #2 means in November.
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Too busy with fishing to spend much time here.
RE: Maybe I was wrong about Obama's 57 states gaffe
That's hilariously sad.
No shortage of ammo there for McCain provided he's smart enough to use it right. If he doesn't and is elected that just means were in for four years of an idiot leader who can't pick smart people.
RE: Maybe I was wrong about Obama's 57 states gaffe
He probably meant to say "57 cities". The guy's on the campaign trail, probably dead tired after fighting Queen B--, I mean, Mrs. Clinton. I'll try to find his itinerary up to that point and count the cities.
Malkin's right about McCain and Republicans in general. Still, I suppose, like all good right-wing spinstresses, she has to do to Obama exactly what she's complaining about the Left doing to McCain. I wish people stuck to their principles more. Not always, necessarily, but at least most of the time.
RE: Maybe I was wrong about Obama's 57 states gaffe
Quote:
ORIGINAL: Aught Six
He probably meant to say "57 cities". The guy's on the campaign trail, probably dead tired after fighting Queen B--, I mean, Mrs. Clinton. I'll try to find his itinerary up to that point and count the cities.
Malkin's right about McCain and Republicans in general. Still, I suppose, like all good right-wing spinstresses, she has to do to Obama exactly what she's complaining about the Left doing to McCain. I wish people stuck to their principles more. Not always, necessarily, but at least most of the time.
None of this matters. McCain continues to demonstrate his lack of an energy policy (opposes ANWR drilling and supports 'alternative fuels'), and refuses to press anything remotely resembling a 'leg up' against obamalama. He believes he can win on the issues. What a schmuck of biblical proportions.
He has yet to realize the obama accolytes are unconcerned with issues. And he's just pissin' me off to no end ! [:@] I do not want to call a ignorant socialist neophyte "President Obama"
RE: Maybe I was wrong about Obama's 57 states gaffe
Quote:
ORIGINAL: Aught Six
He probably meant to say "57 cities". The guy's on the campaign trail, probably dead tired after fighting Queen B--, I mean, Mrs. Clinton. I'll try to find his itinerary up to that point and count the cities.
Malkin's right about McCain and Republicans in general. Still, I suppose, like all good right-wing spinstresses, she has to do to Obama exactly what she's complaining about the Left doing to McCain. I wish people stuck to their principles more. Not always, necessarily, but at least most of the time.
Oh, I don't know. After so many gaffes, at some point you have to say "Wait a minute. Is this guy simply suffering from brain lag, or does he really have a comprehension complex with basic geography?" If the latter is the case, don't blame Ms. Malkin for pointing it out.
As for whether he meant 57 states or 57 cities . . . I'm pretty sure he meant 57 states, simply because he added that he still had 1 to go, and that he wanted to visit Alaska and Hawaii but his aides wouldn't let him.
__________________
Politics, it seems to me, all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong. ~Richard Armour
RE: Maybe I was wrong about Obama's 57 states gaffe
Quote:
None of this matters. McCain continues to demonstrate his lack of an energy policy (opposes ANWR drilling and supports 'alternative fuels'), and refuses to press anything remotely resembling a 'leg up' against obamalama. He believes he can win on the issues. What a schmuck of biblical proportions.
He has yet to realize the obama accolytes are unconcerned with issues. And he's just pissin' me off to no end ! [:@] I do not want to call a ignorant socialist neophyte "President Obama"
What? Obama's energy policy is typically liberal. His policy is simple: use less energy. Tax the oil companies, save the polar bears from drilling, cap carbon emissions, and really do nothing that will lower gas prices now or in the future. His platform is a crock of **** in this regard.
RE: Maybe I was wrong about Obama's 57 states gaffe
Quote:
Oh, I don't know. After so many gaffes, at some point you have to say "Wait a minute. Is this guy simply suffering from brain lag, or does he really have a comprehension complex with basic geography?" If the latter is the case, don't blame Ms. Malkin for pointing it out.
As for whether he meant 57 states or 57 cities . . . I'm pretty sure he meant 57 states, simply because he added that he still had 1 to go, and that he wanted to visit Alaska and Hawaii but his aides wouldn't let him.
There are so many things to attack in his platform that I find it a waste of time to nitpick over his knowledge of geography. Most Americans can't even name all 50 states without looking at a map. I'll give Obama the benefit of the doubt here and worry about some of the even more ridiculous things he's said on the campaign trail.
RE: Maybe I was wrong about Obama's 57 states gaffe
Quote:
ORIGINAL: Aught Six
There are so many things to attack in his platform that I find it a waste of time to nitpick over his knowledge of geography. Most Americans can't even name all 50 states without looking at a map. I'll give Obama the benefit of the doubt here and worry about some of the even more ridiculous things he's said on the campaign trail.
I won't disagree with that. You're right: It's easy to find a way to attack Obama. But when looking at the totality of his gaffes, it does make an interesting, if not humorous, sideline to the entire thing.
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Politics, it seems to me, all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong. ~Richard Armour
Maybe I was wrong about Obama's 57 states gaffe
