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Mr. Eloquent
Unbelievable Obama Gaffes, Mistakes, Lies, and Confusion
(08:42)
Bomb
Gaffe
Despite his huge support staff, Obama still manages to screw up
basic American historical facts -- from a speech in West
Lafayette, Indiana (CNN
transcripts) (video).
"Throughout our history, America's confronted constantly evolving
danger, from the oppression of an empire, to the lawlessness of the
frontier, from the bomb that fell on Pearl Harbor, to the threat
of nuclear annihilation. Americans have adapted to the threats posed by
an ever-changing world."
The History Place
tells
us that the Japanese attack force under the command of Admiral Nagumo,
consisting of six carriers with 423 planes -- according to the
Obamamessiah, ONLY ONE HAD A BOMB!
Eight battleships were damaged, with five sunk. Three light
cruisers, three destroyers and three smaller vessels were lost along with
188 aircraft. The casualty list included 2,335 servicemen and 68
civilians killed, with 1,178 wounded. Included are 1,104 men
aboard the Battleship USS Arizona.
That must have been "some bomb" - eh, Obama?
Where Do I
Work Gaffe
In this video, Obama
refers to the Banking Committee as "my
committee."
Obama: "Just this past week, we passed out of the
U.S. Senate Banking Committee, which is my committee, a bill…" (Obama
Press Conference, Sderot, Israel, July 23, 2008) (video)
The problem is, Obama is not on the Banking Committee and is not on
any of its subcommittees.
This probably explains why Obama never called a meeting of his
subcommittee on European relations to discuss the NATO effort in
Afghanistan.
He hasn't been at work in the U. S. Senate enough to even
know what his committee assignments are. He's too busy campaigning
in Europe on the taxpayers dime.
This certainly should give the voter the impression that Obama hasn't got a
handle on his current job, let alone the one for which he’s
campaigning.
Obama Speaks Austrian
Obama
responding to a question from an Austrian reporter at the 2009 G-20
Meeting:
At a news conference
afterward, Obama said his debut on the international stage had convinced
him that "political interaction in Europe is not that different from the
United States Senate," where he served before entering the White House.
"There’s a lot of -- I don’t know what the term is in Austrian --
wheeling and dealing, and people are pursuing their interests, and
everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular
politics..."
Tricky language,
Austrian.
Obama Speaks Mexican
Mary Katharine Ham likes
to note these
little incidents when they happen, not because she thinks it makes Obama
an idiot because he occasionally stumbles over his words, but because
his somewhat overblown reputation as the most cerebral, eloquent,
utterly erudite president of all time could really use a pricking every
now and then.
Also, because if Bush had made such a blunder, it
would have been the basis of a four-part MSNBC investigative series on
the malapropism's deleterious effects on the Republican Party's attempts
to woo Hispanic voters, Mexican-American relations, and our "place in
the world."
So, Obama, Mary Katharine will not turn your tendency
to misspeak (and, then reprimand your Teleprompter) into an
international incident, but she will note it with some glee:
On
the eve of the Mexican holiday, Obama on Monday had an event in the East
Room of the White House with Mexico's Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan.
Obama joked
that it was "Cinco de Cuatro," botching a play on the Spanish word for
"four" when he meant to say "Cuatro de Mayo," or the Fourth of May. He
tried again, but he still did not get it right.
This from a
unilingual man who's embarrassed that more of us can't speak French and
suggested that we all learn Spanish. If only he were as conversant in
Spanish as he is in noted non-language "Austrian," this wouldn't have
happened.
The literal translation of "cinco de cuatro" is "five
of four." Maybe Obama was talking about the time of day? He
quits working at 4 PM -- it's in his union contract -- and was just
warning all present that he was done for the day -- he gets
tired, you know.
Bitter
Obama came
under fire today for saying small-town Pennsylvania residents were
"bitter" and "cling to guns or religion," in comments his rivals said
showed an elitist view of the middle class.
"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a
lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25
years and nothing's replaced them." Obama said.
"And 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." he said.
What makes this so
breathtaking is the mindless, casual way in which Obama reveals his
snobbishness and elitism. We saw hints of this from
Michelle Obama, in her assertions about never being proud of her country
until her husband ran for President. We had not seen it from Obama
himself in such a blatant and unmistakable manner. The
matter-of-fact style in which he spoke this shows the unthinking
contempt he has for people he has never engaged -- an acceptance of
stereotypes without questioning them that shows his own bigotry, not to
mention foolishness and poor judgment.
Obama explained that
simple rural folks and other proletarians would abandon their unpleasant
devotion to firearms and religion if only the Executive Branch of the
Federal Government would preserve their factory jobs. If Obama
sounds familiar here, he should. His comments have a proud pedigree.
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a
heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It
is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as
the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real
happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their
condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires
illusions."
That is Karl Marx in Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, 1843.
Obama is saying exactly the same thing as Marx. They each argue
religion exists because the life of a proletarian worker is frustrating
and unsatisfying. Both Obama and Marx argue that the proletarians
cling to religion, not for its own sake, but because the economic system
is not satisfying their social needs. To Marx’s evaluation of
religion, Obama adds firearms and other aspects of rural life in America
that progressives don’t approve of.
This isn’t a mistake. This isn’t a misquote. This is another
insight into how Obama thinks. The comments that he and his wife
make reveal their "progressive" world view. It is socialist, it is
fascist and it is obvious. All you have to do is listen.
"[T]hey cling to guns…" Cling to guns? Americans have "clung" to
guns since the founding of the Republic. It’s such a core value to
this nation that its founders placed it second on the Bill of Rights,
right after freedom of speech and religion. Speaking of which …
"or [they cling to] religion …" People don’t become religious
because the economy hits a few bumps in the road. Obama may have
chosen his religion based on politics, but most people follow a religion
out of a deeper sense of spirituality. I can’t think of a more
condescending and contemptuous analysis of religious dedication than
this statement.
"or [they cling to] antipathy to people who aren’t like them or
anti-immigrant sentiment…" Small-town voters are bigots and
xenophobes; there’s no other way to read the first part of this
statement. The second part, about them being "anti-immigrant," is
a non-sequitur. They may be anti-illegal immigrant, but that’s a
far different issue. Obama offers no proof that small-town voters
are xenophobes, but the Frisco audience didn’t demand any, either.
It’s part of their own bigotry that makes them see middle America in
those terms.
"or [they cling to] anti-trade sentiment …" And this is just jaw-droppingly
hypocritical. This comes from the same candidate who opposes the
Colombian free-trade agreement and wants to throw NAFTA out the window.
Who’s clinging to anti-trade sentiment? Obama, Hillary Clinton,
and Big Labor.
It would be difficult to be any more condescending or insulting in so
many ways to so many voters in a single sentence. It reveals a
deeply elitist and shockingly callow candidate. It’s the "Let them
eat cake" of 2008.
Bitter Too
At North Carolina's Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount, N.C., Clinton
campaign North Carolina chieftain Tom Hendrickson, a former state party
chair,
made much hay out of the "small town" comments made by Sen. Barack
Obama, D-Ill.
"I normally just come and talk about President Clinton and Senator
Clinton at these, but today Senator Obama was out at a fundraiser at I
guess a brie and chardonnay crowd in San Francisco," Hendrickson said.
"But his quote talking about small towns in Pennsylvania -- and which
applies to small towns across eastern North Carolina -- which is why it
is relevant to this tour we are doing today. And his quote is 'and
it is not surprising that they cling to guns and religion or antipathy
to people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant or anti-trade as a way
to explain their frustration.'"
"I listened to that quote and I got mad," Hendrickson said, "and
I wanted to reach out to Senator Obama and say senator, we are from the
rural part of eastern North Carolina. We are very proud of our
heritage, we are proud of who we are. We are not frustrated.
We are not bitter. We turn to our faith because we believe, and we
hunt and fish because it is part of our culture and we enjoy it."
Obama Flunks World War II History
Obama is a history buff. When
he makes a political point he instinctively reaches for the historical
parallel: the Lincolnesque "team of rivals" making up his cabinet,
Winston Churchill's attitude to torture or his own family's experience
of World War II.
The only
problem is that he sometimes gets
history wrong. His plan to visit Buchenwald is in part a tribute to his
great-uncle, Charlie Payne, who participated in the liberation of Ohrdruf, a satellite camp. Last May, however, Obama said that his
uncle "was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz."
Republicans pointed out that it was the Soviets who liberated Auschwitz.
"Unless his uncle was serving in the Red Army, there's no way
Obama's statement can be true," a Republican spokesman said. The
Democratic candidate issued a correction, but critical historians have
found earlier examples of Obama's elastic approach to the facts. In
2002 he cited the wartime experiences of his grandfather, Stanley
Dunham. "My grandfather...heard the stories of fellow troops who first
entered Auschwitz and Treblinka."
Treblinka, like Auschwitz, is
in Poland, and was also liberated by Soviet troops. Last week Obama
extrapolated from another historical example -- the prohibition of
torture in wartime Britain -- to conclude: "Churchill said 'We don't
torture' when ... all of the British people were being subjected to
unimaginable risk and threat." Historians pounced again, pointing out
there was no record of Churchill explicitly banning torture.
In
fact, a November 2005 story in the Guardian
details torture by British soldiers between 1940 and 1948, at the
Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre -- known as the "London
Cage" -- run by MI19, responsible for interrogating enemy prisoners of
war.
The Guardian concluded that the London Cage "was used
partly as a torture centre," where 3,573 German officers and soldiers
were brutally interrogated. SS Captain Fritz Knoechlein, taken to
the Cage in October 1946, alleged he was starved, beaten and kept awake
for four days straight.
Helpless And Hapless Without TOTUS
Obama's ongoing teleprompter battle continues at MIT today (
00:31)
Obama's Frightening Insensitivity
Robert George
says Obama didn't wait long after Tuesday's devastating elections to
give critics another reason to question his leadership, but this time
the subject matter was more grim than a pair of governorships.
After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in
Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured
climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late
afternoon, word went out that Obama would speak about the incident prior
to a previously scheduled appearance. At about 5 p.m., cable
stations went to Obama. The situation called for not only his
trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective.
But instead
of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of
sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and
inappropriately light Obama making introductory remarks. At the
event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of
Interior's Bureau of Indian affairs, he thanked various staffers and
offered a "shout-out" to "Dr. Joe Medicine Crow -- that Congressional
Medal of Honor winner." Three minutes in, Obama spoke about the
shooting, in measured and appropriate terms. Who is advising him?
Anyone at home aware of the major news story of the previous hours
had to have been stunned. An incident like this requires a
scrapping of the early light banter. Obama should apologize for
the tone of his remarks, explain what has happened, express sympathy for
those slain and appeal for calm and patience until all the facts are in.
That's the least that should occur.
Indeed, an argument could be
made that Obama should have canceled the Indian event, out of respect
for people having been murdered at an Army post a few hours before.
That would have prevented any sort of jarring emotional switch at the
event.
Did Obama's team not realize what sort of image they were
presenting to the country at this moment? The disconnect between
what Americans at home knew had been going on -- and the initial words
coming out of his mouth was jolting, if not disturbing.
It must
have been disappointing for many politically aware Democrats, still
reeling from the election two days before. The New Jersey
gubernatorial vote had already demonstrated that Obama and his political
team couldn't produce a winning outcome in a state very friendly to
Democrats (and where he won by 15 points one year ago). And now
this? Congressional Democrats must wonder if a White House that
has burdened them with a too-heavy policy agenda over the last year has
a strong enough political operation to help push that agenda through.
If Obama's communications apparatus can't inform -- and protect
-- their boss during tense moments when the country needs to see a
focused and compassionate leader, it has disastrous consequences for his
party and supporters.
All of Obama's men (and women) fell down
on the job Thursday. And Democrats across the country have real
reason to panic.
Obama's TV
appearance was actually worse than the above description.
He was
cold, and read his statement as though he were describing how the White
House budget is prepared -- it was a shocking display of detachment --
but as a person that loathes all things military, not surprising.
By the way, Joe Medicine Crow is not a recipient of the Medal of
Honor. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- and from
Obama.
Obama is so
clueless he doesn't know the difference between the nation's highest
award that recognizes "gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his [or
her] life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action
against an enemy of the United States," and an award made for "an
especially meritorious contribution to the security or national
interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other
significant public or private endeavors."
Smarty-pants Obama
should know the difference between the Medal of Honor and the Medal of
Freedom -- especially since he personally awarded the latter to Crow.
Don't expect this blunder to receive wide coverage. It's
not something he can blame George Bush for.
This Guy Is Clueless
This is why they don't let Obama speak without
TOTUS
(03:21)
What's a Corpse, Man?
The dangers of being so heavily dependent on a
teleprompter (00:54)
And not knowing what the hell you're talking about -- Obama twice
mispronounces Navy "corpsman"
(kôr′mən) -- and this is the guy who's telling
the generals and admirals how to run the war.
John Hinderaker
adds, what is significant about this is that "corpsman" is a
military term. Obama knows little or nothing about the
military; it is as though he said "col-o-nel" instead of "kernel."
There are corpsmen stationed in the White House, but, after more
than a year, Obama apparently doesn't know who they are, what they
do, or how to pronounce their job.
God help Dan Quayle if he
had done something as stupid as saying "corpse-man." He never
did. Will Obama be laughed out of the Oval Office? The
jury is out.
Afterthought: This video
makes it obvious, that the first time Obama sees these speeches are
when they show up on the teleprompter, otherwise someone on his staff
surely would have corrected his pronunciation before the
event.
The Constitutional Law Professor
During the presidential campaign, Obama consistently and falsely
claimed
that he was a constitutional law professor. The Sun-Times reported
that, "several direct-mail pieces issued for Obama's primary [Senate]
campaign said he was a law professor at the University of Chicago. He
was not. He was a senior lecturer at the school. In academia, there is
a vast difference between the two titles.
As a "constitutional
law instructor," Obama has been quoted as saying that the Constitution
of the United States is a flawed document.
Jim O'Neill
noticed
that in his State of the Union address, our constitutional scholar
stated that "We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the
promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we are all
created equal…."
There’s a problem here, however. It turns
out that "the notion that we are all created equal" is not "enshrined in
our Constitution" -- it’s from the Declaration of Independence.
This
mistaken attribution is an understandable faux pas for your average
person, but Obama’s supposed to be a Harvard-trained constitutional
lawyer. It doesn’t say much for Harvard Law School, or Obama’s
grasp of the Constitution, when he confuses the U.S. Constitution with
the Declaration of Independence.
These guys are so picky. It
was obviously an error on the part of
TOTUS.
