Michelle Malkin, Jake Tapper, Michael Goldfarb, Gateway Pundit and Jammie Wearin’ Fool have been among those logging Barack Obama’s ever-growing list of gaffes. Most such pieces may describe this or that gaffe as more serious than another, but in assessing Obama’s gaffes, lists mixing the trivial with the serious risk trivializing the serious or creating the impression that people are piling on innocuous missteps on Obama’s part. Accordingly, I offer categories of gaffes that are by no means definitive, but perhaps useful in sorting out Obama’s gaffes and their relative import to the electorate. (These categories would be generally appicable to other political candidates, but Obama makes for a good case study for having made a variety of recent gaffes.)
First, there are garden-variety blunders that result from the immense effort that is a presidential campaign, the products of highway hypnosis on the campaign trail. Obama obviously has not visited 57 states, but I am sure there are days when it feels like it.  Claiming that Kansas tornadoes killed a whopping 10,000 people (as opposed to 12), confusing Sioux Falls, SD with Sioux City, IA, and seeing “fallen heroes” at a Memorial Day speech are the sort of largely harmless gaffes that fall into this category. They may occasionally mean something more; it is hard to imagine John McCain mixing Memorial Day and Veterans’ Day, even in his most senior of moments. But in the overall picture, they are relatively meaningless, aside from their entertainment value.
Second, there are gaffes of self-aggrandizement. Obama’s rival, Hillary Clinton, has spun out some classics of this genre over the years, from claiming to be named after Sir Edmund Hillary to dodging imaginary sniper fire in Tuzla. But Obama has done his share, including a recent spate of misstatements about his family history. On a larger scale, Obama’s purported 1995 biography, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, includes composite characters and events out of chronology; a Chicago Tribune investigation found that some of Obama’s oft-told tales seem to make him look better in the retelling, exaggerate his outward struggles over issues of race, or skim over some of the most painful moments of his life. These issues include whether Obama takes too much credit for his supposed accomplishments as a community organizer. None of these has been shown to be an outright fabrication a la Clinton’s Tuzla tale. On the other hand, such gaffes are potentially damaging to Obama because he is not as well-known as Clinton (or John McCain) and has less experience to boot. Thus, it is possible that voters might weigh such gaffes more heavily than they would a similar weight gaffe from a more established figure.
Third, there are so-called Kinsleyian gaffes, in which the candidate accidentally says what he or she really believes. Such gaffes are potentially more serious because voters will take note of the departure from the highly-scripted camapigning that characterizes modern politics and consider the gaffe to be particularly revealing. Obviously, a classic in this cycle would be Obama’s comments to wealthy donors in San Francisco that people in small town Pennsylvania (and in the Midwest, though Obama is wrong to place PA there) are “bitter†and “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†over the last 25 years of US economic policy. His apology was of the “sorry if you were offended” variety, precisely because he believes what he said was true. The comments are thus an indicator that he buys the Marxist concept of false consciousness as played out in Thomas Frank’s book, What’s the Matter with Kansas?, despite plenty of data to the contrary.
Worst in this regard, however, have been Obama’s foreign policy gaffes. Indeed, when Obama backers like Matthew Yglesias and critics like Charles Krauthammer can agree that Obama’s foreign policy springs from his gaffe about meeting, without precondition, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar al-Assad, Hugo Chávez, Kim Jong Il and the Castro brothers, and Obama backers like Joe Biden, Gary Hart and former Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. are waving Obama off that stance, you know the candidate’s new clothes have gone to the dry cleaner, from whence they return looking like Pres. Bush’s wardrobe.
This was merely the most publicized aspect of Obama’s rookie gaffes on foreign policy, which include a similarly incoherent policy when it comes to dealing with terror groups like Hamas or FARC. And blaming Bush for the rise of Hugo Chavez… in 1998. And claiming that Arabic translators and agricultural specialists deployed in Iraq are needed in Afghanistan (even repeating the latter yesterday). And alienating himself from the Iraqi government. And failing to convene a single policy meeting of the Senate European subcommittee, of which he is chairman. And so on.ÂÂ
Even Obama’s opposition to invading Iraq — the card he typically plays when his manifest shortcomings are discussed — is less than it seems. His famed 2002 speech grounds his opposition in the notion that “even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.” Obama has yet to explain why this same problem did not arise in his mind as to Afghanistan. He continued:
I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda…
First, this is somewhat inconsistent with his claim that there will be undetermined consequences. Second, having a single, clear rationale (to the extent it did) was arguably one of the Bush Administration’s biggest mistakes regarding Iraq. Third, Obama’s predicitons with respect to the Arab world and al Qaeda recruitment have not been borne out by subsequent events.  Fourth, Mr. New Politics suddenly got a lot more nuanced in his view of such things when it came time to help John Kerry and John Edwards during the 2004 cycle.
In sum, it may be fun for folks to chuckle over Obama’s more harmless gaffes, but it is important to distinguish them from those which show how risky an Obama presidency could be.
but it is important to distinguish them from those which show how risky an Obama presidency could be.
Whiskey is risky after Gin, but Obama, not so much.
People make mistakes. The problem for Obama will be if the voters look at him and see only mistakes. The press, who love him, will do their part to downplay these gaffes, but one picture in a tank, or with a tart on his lap, or with a scream on his lips could end his train of hopi-changitude.
Sorry, I agree with the others in that category, but even folks who weren’t Editor of the Harvard Law Review would have questioned that figure before blurting it out. Think about it — 4000 dead in Iraq over 5 years vs. 10,000 in one storm.
He was an “editor” in the same way celebrities are appointed Grand Marshal of the Rose Bowl Parade. What does this kind of error say about the claim that he is just spouting high-toned speeches written by others and when he ventures away from the script, he’s clueless? Answer: Res Ipsa Loquitur
When Obama goes off script, he uses pregnant pauses to formulate his gaffes. The longer the pause, the bigger the gaffe. Look it up.
alpp
Also look to O!’s particular cadence in speech when he realizes he’s stuck for an answer … He . Punches . His. Words like a . Bill Shatner . Impersonation .
I’ve heard people describe it as a “poker tell”.
Karl
I’d also add the gaffes that showcase Barry’s lack of knowledge about American history. The JFK/Kruschev one being the most blaring.
Along with the “bitter” thing, his slip that Americans can no longer drive, live or eat what we want anymore without the permission of the world really speaks to his far far leftist feelings.
Baracky is the greatestest most inspirationalest teleprompter reader of our generation !
O!
Yes Darleen. And don’t forget about when he goes into his Revrite/James Brown mode with a sprinkle of Cartman when he says “policah” or “authoritah” or “communitah”. Hep me!! HEYUHH!!
Hmmm.
The problem however is that McCain isn’t appreciably better *except*, *maybe*, on foreign policy. Might. Possibly. Unless some conservative pisses him off in which case all bets are off.
I’d like to vote for McCain. But I don’t trust him. And policy wise I think McCain would dare do things the Democrats would be terrified of doing.
Karl, your link to JWF isn’t.
[…] Gift of gaffe, maybe? […]
Has he dropped the talking point that FDR talked to our enemies?
I’m wondering when nishi will be by to discuss the possibility of Obama’s onset dementia.
Probably shouldn’t hold my breath…
Of bigger concern is when thor makes sweet, sweet mandingo man love to Barack that Obama doesn’t call out the wrong Norse god. Now that would not be very hopey and I’m concerned with thor’s fragile ego.
O! (noes)
Excellent idea. I have said something similar in comments elsewhere–I mean it.
Recently, William Safire (the only reason to go to the NY Times Web site) wrote in his “On Language” column about “Misspeaking.” It’s worth reading. He’d describe your first category as “thinkos.” That’s where McCain’s Shia-Shiite mistakes belong. They’re like calling one of your kids by the other kid’s name. Harmless error. They are worth documenting (though not belaboring) and cataloguing when the Dems start whispering ageism. Quite frankly, Obama shows far more evidence than McCain.
I’m with the one commenter about the tornado deaths. There’s a gravity there that cannot be laughed off and is evidence of lazy intellectual effort. Don’t state as fact that which you don’t know to be fact–and numbers are often taken by others as fact.
I do have a slight objection to your third category. The objection is to the term you use. “Gaffe” is fine for categories one and two. Actually, I’d use the Safire term (“thinko”) for category 1 and gaffe for category 2. But for category 3, we need a more pejorative term. If not a more pejorative term, we need a term with more gravity because these relate to very serious policy matters and the term “gaffe” seems to understate their importance.
I ask you and other commenters to offer suggestions. We can certainly debate how a particular mistake should be characterized, but your idea of classifying them is VERY useful. Again, I suggest (1) thinkos, (2) gaffes, and (3) “to be determined.” At a minimum, it will clarify debate and discussion during the upcoming months.
You’ve overcategorized these “gaffes.” There’s no variety. This is most obviously true of the “Kinsleyan,” but in Obama’s case, they’re all errors of self-aggrandizement.
Your first category only (but, for him, always) become so when references are (inevitably, and immediately, for him, even by you) made to this illusory “immense effort that is a presidential campaign,” which, as anyone who’s ever had a non-government job will tell you, fuck that shit.
He’s on tour in the most cushy circumstances imaginable. Bands who’ve spent weeks in always-rolling, heatless, monoxide-poisoned vans, subsisting on uncooked ramen, generic strawberry soda, and the same Harry Pussy mix tape played seven thousand times don’t get so headfucked that they say all their gay uncles stormed the Bastille with the Beatles in Mexico and expect you to buy it because they shop at Whole Foods.
Obama’s a dumb smug cunt playing One-Drop Jesus and fucking up his auto-Gospel because fooling any but the most desirous of being fooled is beyond his local-weatherman talents. (Being President is not.)
SAM: That’s a pretty good analysis. I’d take a slightly harder line on McCain’s Shia-Sunni snafu as that is a bedrock piece of knowledge that should be second nature. He did correct it right away, so that helps.
As I commented on another thread I’m pretty intolerant to the idea of “gaffes” or “thinkos” being part and parcel of the long, hard campaign. Being president is much harder than campaigning and an on going inability to get one’s facts straight on the campaign trail does not give me a warm fuzzy about someone who wants to make life and death decisions from the Oval Office.
BJ Texas: I think I agree with you in every respect. Overall, the point of the post is important so that the truly important isn’t drowned in the trivial. Obama makes so many mistakes that I don’t want the important to be overlooked, because the trivial happens to be easier to explain and ridicule. At some point, it boomerangs and becomes trivial.
Now, a point of disagreement maybe. You will NEVER convince me that McCain doesn’t know the difference between all the different Mideast groups. So when he makes that kind of mistake, I file it away, but I don’t see the need for MSNBC to devote an inordinate amount of analysis about whether he knows his stuff and whether he’s too old. I’m quite certain the before he pushes any button, he’ll be exactly sure he’s pushing the right button.
In the same way, I think it’s funny to seize on Obama’s Souix City-Souix Falls and Sunrise, Florida-Sunshine, Florida thinkos. In the aggregate, they just confirm he’s not nearly so intellectually adept as he appears reading off the teleprompter.
I am more concerned when Obama votes on environmental clean-up measures in Congress that deal with a massive problem in the Pacific Northwest and then gets asked about his views on the clean-up at an Oregon Townhall meeting and he knows NOTHING about the issue.
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/05/19/video-obama-stumped-on-hanford-nuke-waste-clean-up-uhhhhhhhhhh/
Anyway, I’m looking for a term for that third category of mistakes. Those are the ones McCain should be pounding Obama in the face with.
Obamas?
O’Bombs?
O’Boners?
Bullshit?
Karl,
After 8 years of jumping on every one of Bush’s gaffes to argue that he is a complete moron, the Left now has a nominee who routinely makes gaffes that make W’s seem trivial in comparison. So, what is to be done?
Ezra Klein just came out with a big op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times arguing that the media should no longer make a issue of gaffes.
It appears to me that Obama actually suffers from the fault the left has always attributed (incorrectly) to Pres. Bush. Namely, that he is intellectually incurious. He does not care to know things in particular, such as the difference between Auschwitz and Buchenwald (never mind Treblinka, Sobibor, etc.). He seems not to care to know his Kenyan Grandmother’s native tongue so he can carry on a conversation with her. He tells us his “Uncle’s” story as though he learned it from someone else in the family, while his great-uncle is still alive. Does Barack go have a conversation with the man? In English, no less. Can’t he imagine the man has a fascinating personal story to tell? Doesn’t he wonder why the fellow disappeared into the attic?
Pyscho,
Agreed.
Clinton’s necklacing of BHO with The Right Racist Reverend Wright is what will keep him standing on the curb in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. She managed to bind them tighter than Gore ever did with Dukakis/Horton. The gaffes make a nice fluffy dessert, especially when tied to the self aggrandizment theme but Yosef Sikspakh is gonna grab sermon prime cuts and skip dessert altogether.
“Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.”
Here is the Left’s new post-Bush thinking on gaffes:
“This gaffe-hunting makes up a substantial slice of contemporary campaign journalism. It is certainly the part that candidates fear most. And it is poisonous to our polity.”
OK, so now it’s poisonous. Got it.
Sdferr: That’s a great point. That is the very thing that seperates him From Billy Bob, who really did have a grasp of details and an intellectual curiousity about other things.
Aldo – He should have put a caveat in there. Because it is still fair game to go after Republican gaffes.
I can’t wait until they roll out the “Obamisms” column.
Oh, wait…
#24 Aldo – He should have put a caveat in there. Because it is still fair game to go after Republican gaffes.
If Obama takes office after 8 years of Chimpy McHitler I think we are going to see the Left/MSM proclaiming quite a few new standards of discourse, and quite a few goalposts will suddenly move on all sorts of issues.
Those of you who remember the Reagan years will know what I mean. During Reagan’s tenure “The Homeless” were suddenly discovered, blamed on him, and obsessively reported in the media. The day that Bill Clinton was inaugurated “The Homeless” disappeared from the media hive-mind as if they had never existed at all.
You know, BJTexs, I’d like to know stuff like:
Has BHO ever read one, even one, of F. Hayek’s books and if he has (which I doubt) what does he think about it?
Has he read “Das Kapital” (I’ll bet he has) and what does he think about it?
How about J. Locke?
What does his personal library contain?
Has he been to a place like Antietam or other battlefield and spent the whole day there, in wonder, trying to understand what went on, just because he needed to? (Oh, sure, I know he’s been to Pearl. But was it more than just a backyard to him? What does he have to say?)
Will anyone in the media with access to him ever ask this sort of stuff? Or other things besides?
I doubt it.
O’K.
Obama is an idiot, stupid , clueless Harvard graduate.
Is he smarter then the other choices running ?
Heck yes..
O’K.
Obama is an idiot, stupid , clueless Harvard graduate.
Is he smarter then the other choices running ?
Heck yes..
I’m betting you don’t realize just how limp and subservient this comment makes you look sashal.
Harvard Law graduate, moron. So what? What has he learned? If his Harvard Law degree is such a big deal, then why doesn’t he release his transcript and course list? Why hold it back?
“Why hold it back?”
‘Cause the HL “roll your own degree” AA pack doesn’t polish up very well?
Fire for effect, Rick B.
Psycho,
Given that my regular gig revolves around coverage of rock musicians, I can say with some amount of experience that rock musicians routinely say fantastically boneheaded things. Indeed, I would argue that the “Obama as rock star” metaphor in this campaign is entirely apt for that reason.
All,
I have no problem with savaging the media for its sudden 180 now that it’s Obama that is the serial gaffer. I’m just suggesting that when going after Obama — or any other candidate — people should always look at the type of gaffe and its import, saving the heavy criticism for the gaffes that really matter.
In fact, it could be argued that many (though not all) of the more trivial gaffes are likely to make it into the public consciousness anyway, via outlets like Leno, Letterman, etc., precisely because they are trivial. It nevertheless creates a certain public perception that makes people open to considering the more serious gaffes. But when more ideological or partisan sources lump them together, they are more likely to be dismissed.
Theodore J. Kaczynski, a Harvard grad
Sdferr,
Baracky’s website is a bit coy concerning his Course of Study (may have changed since ? – 1991), saying only that “He went on to earn his law degree from Harvard in 1991, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review.”
If the same courses of study were available in 198? – 1991 as to day:
The five programs of study are:
1. Law and Government;
2. Law and Business;
3. International and Comparative Law;
4. Law, Science and Technology; and
5. Law and Social Change.
then my money goes on 5 with a backup bet on 3. Both have “roll your own” components. I wonder if the Reds selection process will ever come to light? He obviously made the grade on that one but we have little idea as to who (aside from Ayers and Palmer) sat on the commissariat.
Rick
I’d bet 5 at 85% with a sub-specialty in “poverty law” linked at the bottom of the “Law and Social Change” page.
So a Harvard Law degree means Obama will be a good president. Yet, people say President Bush is an idiot and a terrible president, and he has a MBA from Harvard. I guess a degree from Harvard is only good if possessed by a liberal. Obama’s knowledge on economics and foreign policy hasn’t exactly been impressive.
Uh oh. If this information is correct, it would appear that Obama’s great uncle, Charles W. Payne, joined the Navy.
He must have been in that submarine that plied the waters of the, uh, Rhine, which is nowhere near Buchenwald.
Strike that last. Anna now says that there were 11 Charles Paynes from Kansas, and some did join the Army, others, the Navy.
Never mind. Retracted. Taken back.
dicentra – That pretty much takes this one from a “mis-speak” to a whopper.
oops. I trust dicentra loads more than I would ever trust Baracky.
O’K.
sashal, that is unworthy of you and paints you as a blind partisan.
Look, some gaffes are more important than others. Obama’s abysmal performance on CNBC when asked about tax policy in general and Capital Gains in particular has more weight than mixing up Sioux Falls and Sioux City. The constant, ongoing gaffes along with some of his waffling on “precondition diplomacy” and NAFTA indicates a disturbiong pattern of someone not as well informed on the basics of issues and policies. This disturbs me as I already have concerns about his lack of governmental experience and the general sweep of his campaign, which has been large on rhetoric and small on specifics.
Combine those two elements and I’m less inclined top perceive him as the “boy genius” regardless of his Harvard education. This is less about pure IQ “smarts” than it is about commitment to the details. Hell if we are speaking without bias Hillary has, by far, the best grasp of policy anhd issues details of the three candidates. Her problem is an annoying tendency to fudge the facts in her favor, which she often does ham handedly (did anyone believe that “sleep deprivation” had anything to do with the Tuzla idiocy?)
Stop taking an absolutist position. Nobody is suggesting that Obama is a moron. We are, however, questioning his ability to be, after all, President of the USA on the basis of some problems keeping things straight. A problem I raised in 200o when one G. W. Bush was running.
Arabic translators for Afghanistan is a whopper. 57 states is just confusing. 10,000 dead in the Kansas tornado is a Hillary like burnishing of the facts for self aggrandizement.
[…] Protein Wisdom – Barack Obama: A gaffer’s guide [Karl] […]
Bush got his MBA at Harvard.
I trust dicentra loads more than I would ever trust Baracky.
But don’t trust me more than your own lying eyes. I can bend light with my immense gravitas. Gravity. Something.
The objection is to the term you use. … “gaffe†seems to understate their importance.
I ask you and other commenters to offer suggestions.
Bullshit has always worked for me.
There was an episode of House where they brought in a chick who was hurt, and everyone who asked her how she got hurt got a different story. It was because she was malnourished or summat and she just used environmental cues to spin her story. She wasn’t aware of it at all. It’s just that her own mind was so empty that she had to bring in stuff from the outside to fill in the blanks. Korsakoff syndrome, it turns out.
Sometimes Barack reminds me of that episode: he just says what he last heard, but doesn’t have any thoughts of his own.
And he is awfully skinny.
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Barack Obama is so totally stoopidy. He is! And he goddamn better keep his hands off my daughter!
Bitter white people, oh hell yes you are.
Bitter white people, oh hell yes you are.
Isn’t that typical?
Flavor is more than skin deep, thor.
[…] predicitons with respect to the Arab world and al Qaeda recruitment have not been borne out by subsequent […]
[…] he opposed the war in Iraq before it began, ignoring that his stated objections at the time were vacuous and not borne out by subsequent events. He claims that nearly every threat we face has grown — though many […]
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