The nice thing about having a Democrat in the White House is that there is never any bad news...

...and no gaffes....

...in the State of the Union speech.

//President Barack Obama’s gaffe last night during his State of the Union address when referencing Russia has gone largely unnoticed by listeners and pundits alike.

“Even as their economy contracts, Russia is pouring resources to prop up Ukraine and Syria – states they see slipping away from their orbit,” said Obama.

There’s a key discrepancy here: While Russia has been “pouring resources” into the conflict, it certainly has not been to “prop up” Ukrainian government, it has instead gone to those who seek to bring it down.//

And I'm going to keep playing this until people come to their senses.



On looking at this again, I'm amazed at how awkward Obama is and how he must have felt like a fool. The Queen obviously refused the toast because she knows that you stand reverently during the national anthem.

It makes you wonder what briefing he missed that day.

Also, is there any doubt that a media that adored showing George H.W. Bush becoming ill at a public reception and George W. Bush having a shoe thrown at him wouldn't have played this over and over again, accompanied by seriously doleful statements about American-British relationships, if this had been a Republican.

But if you weren't tied into the right information stream, you never saw this.

Obama: "The private sector is doing fine."

Via Real Clear Politics:

Question: What about the Republicans saying that you're blaming the Europeans for the failures of your own policies?

President Obama: The truth of the matter is that, as I said, we created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone.

The private sector is doing fine. Where we're seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government. Oftentimes cuts initiated by, you know, Governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government and who don't have the same kind of flexibility as the federal government in dealing with fewer revenues coming in.

And so, you know, if Republicans want to be helpful, if they really want to move forward and put people back to work, what they should be thinking about is how do we help state and local governments and how do we help the construction industry? Because the recipes that they're promoting are basically the kinds of policies that would add weakness to the -- to the economy, would result in further layoffs, would not provide relief in the housing market, and would result, I think most economists estimate, in lower growth and fewer jobs, not more.

And then Obama backtracks:

"It's absolutely clear the economy is not doing fine," President Obama said at the White House shortly after declaring "the private sector is doing fine" at a press conference Friday morning. That’s the reason I had a press conference. That’s why I spent yesterday, the day before yesterday, this past week, this past month and this past year talking about how we can make the economy stronger. The economy is not doing fine. There are too many people out of work. The housing market is still weak, too many homes underwater and that’s precisely why I asked Congress to start taking some steps that can make a difference.”

November can't come early enough.

Too Soon?

Obama makes "blowjob joke" involving his wife at Gay/Lesbian Dinner.

Classy.

After Poland "pimp-slaps" the Nobel Prize-winning "smartest guy in the world," it's Denmark's turn to ridicule Obama.

Denmark!?!?!?!?!?

It's beginning to look like Obama has single-handedly undermined our alliance...with Europe?!?!?!?!

Actually, this is pretty funny stuff.



Via Mark Shea.

What is there about Howdy-Barry that doesn't say "Leader of the Most Powerful Nation on Earth"?

When David Frum at the liberal Daily Beast are giving Obama a hard time about "Polish Death Camps," you have to think Obama's standing as the "World's Smartest Guy" has been downgraded.

David Frum opines:

You may say the Poles are over-sensitive. One might as well say that Americans are under-sensitive. The U.S. has had such a comparatively happy history that it's hard to think of a domestic analogy that would capture what Poles feel when the worst crimes of their worst oppressors are attributed—not to the authors—but to them. "The Hawaiian sneak attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor" is a pathetically inadequate approximation, but at least it gets the grammar of the insult. "The Belgian massacre of U.S. prisoners at Malmedy"? No, still not it. Aside from being morally inadequate, such analogies also miss the moral intensity of World War II for Poles. Their war did not end until 1989: they continue to live more intimately with the war's legacy even now, more than almost any other European nation. The medal to Karski was to be part of the process of laying painful memories to rest. It was intended too to strengthen the US-Polish relations that the Obama administration has frayed in pursuit of its "reset" with Russia. Instead, this administration bungled everything: past, present, and future.

Let me hazard a guess: the Left is seeing its historic moent slipping away and want to make sure that they are on record as assigning the blame to someone else.

Me personally, I think that this is just a minor slip up on Obama's part in the long series of incidents that has made me wonder why he doesn't have a protocol secretary.

My favorite is still when he cued the band to play "God save the Queen" in the middle of his toast to the Queen - comedy gold.

On the other hand, given his apparent narrowness of interest, I can't say for certain that prior to yesterday, Obama knew (a) there were death camps in Poland or (b) that they weren't run by the Poles.

The Empty Suit Presidency - Obama is just "phoning in" his speeches.

Obama Twice Mistakenly Mentions ‘My Sons,' While Defending Contraception Mandate:

In two campaign speeches over the last two days, President Barack Obama has twice mistakenly mentioned “my sons” when defending his administration’s regulation requiring virtually all health-care plans in the United States to provide women, without any fees or co-pay, with sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives, including those that can cause abortions.

Obama, of course, has two daughters--10-year-old Sasha and 13-year-old Malia--but no sons.

The video has Obama clearly saying that he doesn't want his daughters treated differently than his "son."

Son? Where have they been hiding him?

Ann Althouse observes:

He was relying on the Teleprompter, which isn't really odd. It's the kind of mistake you make when the words aren't coming out of your own head.

I wonder if perhaps Obama is a bit tired. You know, unlike Mitt Romney, he has a whole other job in addition to presidential campaigning.

This kind of thing has been happening throughout Obama's presidency, suggesting that there is an absence in basic proof-reading because of the arrogant assumption that the "smartest guy in the world" is too good for that.

For example, remember when Obama read the Irish PM's speech by accident?

Or when he accidentally signaled the band to play "Hail to the Queen" during his toast of the Queen during the same 2010 trip where he signed in to a guest book with a "2008" date?

Or this?

This is sitcom or late night comedy worthy stuff.

Romney 2012: it’s about eating dogs!

Patterico says:

P.S. Treacher says on Twitter:

This election isn’t about Obama eating dogs. The sooner we stop talking about Obama eating dogs, which is something that he did, the better.

I disagree. This election is about eating dogs. This election is most assuredly not about electing a President who won’t put us in the hole for $5 trillion in four years, or putting someone in the Oval Office who will preserve our tenuous hold on an occasional Supreme Court majority.

It is about eating dogs. And where dogs ride on family vacations. And I will not tolerate any distractions from those all-important themes.

I plan to illustrate this point often, by concluding a post by noting whether the subject of the post has eaten dogs. I don’t want to have to explain the importance of this every time, which is why I will explain it here, once, and simply link it in the future.

Romney 2012: it’s about eating dogs!

The point about dragging the Left through the glass when we can is that maybe it will teach the Left to stop playing the game of distraction and derision, which it has been permitted to play with impunity. As The Virginian notes, times, they may be a-changing:

We may be seeing the end of an era dominated by ability of Leftist comedians like Jon Stewart, Bill Maher or the cast of SNL to create a false image of a political figure. Perhaps the trashing of Sarah Palin was the high point of their power, just as Watergate was for the MSM.

Ridicule is the most potent political weapon. Obama is rapidly looking less and less like a President and more and more like an inept pol who’s also something of a doofus. Romney looks like a President, he acts and talks like a President; Obama was always surrounded by a rock star aura. But a rock star is not blamed for high unemployment or soaring gas prices. Obama will always have his groupies, but his hold on the Oval Office is slipping away.

Obama has been a doofus during his entire tenure as president. He's been pure comedy gold for any writer of a television sit-com. Remember when he told the world that Part of My Job Is to Scout Out Where I May Want to Bring Michelle Back Later for Vacation’ or when he he insulted the Irish Prime Minister by suggesting that Irishmen were drunks or when he insulted the French president by calling him ugly or when he said that a fallen soldier was alive or when he accidentlly signalled to the band to play God save the Queen and then began his toast to the Queen (which was the same 2011 trip that he signed a guest book indicating that he thought he was signing it in "2008" or when he turned over a press conference to Bill Clinton or when he took lavish vacations during a recession that caused European - but not American - media to say "WTF?" or his bowing to anything that claimed "royal" descent, or giving the British Prime Minister a gift box of 25 "classic movies" on DVD or the time when he won the Noble Peace Prize for doing nothing?

Or this great moment in presidential history, when our President struck an Alfred E. Neuman pose:

Good times, good times.

Seriously????


  Snopes reports that this photo is photoshopped.

Photoshop?

Or is this really a "Nixon walking on the beach in a suit" kind of faked photo opp.

You start thinking his staff slaps their head and says "Jeez" every time he opens his mouth.

This stuff is comedy gold. This and the bit about cuing the band to play as he started his toast to the Queen would be funny on Benson or Spin City or some other show with a goofy political leader/boss and a long-suffering staff.

Except those kinds of shows never feature liberals as the doofus boss.

The Obama gaffe machine continues:

President Obama erred during a speech at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, when attempting to call the disputed archipelago by its Spanish name.

Instead of saying Malvinas, however, Mr Obama referred to the islands as the Maldives, a group of 26 atolls off that lie off the South coast of India.

The Maldives were a British protectorate from 1887 to 1965 and the site of a UK airbase for nearly 20 years.

Anyone can make mistakes, but Obama's forte is supposed to be public speaking. He's not a great administrator. He's not hard working. He's not knowledgeable about the world. The one thing he can do is read a teleprompter in deep, somber tones, and he's booting that job.

The Empty Suit Presidency.

This is the greatest politician in American History???

Obama in Colombia: ‘Part of My Job Is to Scout Out Where I May Want to Bring Michelle Back Later for Vacation’

Obama has a natural "tin ear" when it comes to making seemingly off the cuff - albeit actually scripted - public statements such as when he insulted the Irish Prime Minister by suggesting that Irishmen were drunks or when he insulted the French president by calling him ugly or when he said that a fallen soldier was alive or when he signalled to the band to play God save the Queen and then began his toast to the Queen (which was the same 2011 trip that he signed a guest book indicating that he thought he was signing it in "2008" or when he turned over a press conference to Bill Clinton or when he took lavish vacations during a recession that caused European - but not American - media to say WTF?

Or this great moment in presidential history:

Asking again....

...doesn't this guy have a protocol secretary?

You'd like to think that it's photoshopped but it is on the MSNBC website, and they wouldn't fake something against Obama....would they?

Compare and Contrast.

An AP US History Professor contrasts the media seizure of the gnat  of Bachman's historical illiteracy with the camel of Obama's:

Now it would have been nice if Stephanopoulos or any journalist had shown as much focus on historical gaffes that Obama has made. Here are a few reminders.


During the 2008 campaign he'd claimed that we should meet face-to-face with those we oppose just as Kennedy had met with Khrushchev when "We were on the brink of nuclear war." Except Kennedy's meeting with Khrushchev had occurred more than a year before the Cuban Missile Crisis and was regarded even by JFK as a failure. In fact, Khrushchev concluded from his meeting with JFK at Vienna that the young president would not be a barrier to an increased Soviet hardline as he went on to approve the building of the Berlin Wall and the placement of missiles in Cuba.

Also during the campaign he bragged about his uncle being part of the liberation of Auschwitz when it was the Soviets who liberated the camps in Poland. His uncle helped to liberate a satellite camp of Buchenwald. I would have thought that, if he were truly so proud of his uncle's service, he might have read up on those experiences and learned more about what actually happened.

At his inaugural, he didn't know how many men had been president double-counting Cleveland. That was a small error, of course, but you'd think that for an Inaugural Address he or his speechwriters would get it right.

Obama's aides seem so impressed with the boss that they have lost all historical perspective. Remember Rahm Emanuel telling Obama that he had faced the toughest times that any president has ever faced. Apparently, Obama and his aides only remember Abraham Lincoln when they want to reach for some strained comparison between the two.

Obama's sense of himself seems so grandiose that he can make boneheaded comments like claiming that the reason he was so unpopular in Texas is that "Texas has always been a pretty Republican state, for, you know, historic reasons." Apparently, this man who supposedly learned so much from the civil rights movement was unaware that the Democrats were the party of the solid South and that Texas had been a Democratic state since its admission in 1845 until Nixon's election in 1972. That was the historic gaffe that led Scott Johnson of Powerline to say that "Obama's historical ignorance could be a full time beat for somebody who does this work for a living".

It is a fair point, though, that it would be really nice if our elected officials would do some reading on History.