Bachmann is concerned about the rise of the SOVIET UNION

[GhostWriter16]

It was the Soviet Union for the first 35 years of her life. It's really easy to see how one could slip up and refer to Russia wrongly if they've been calling it something different for the majority of their life.

I agree with you. Its far less a mistake than when Obama said the US had 57 states, or even when Palin referred to Africa as a country...

 

[Tani Coyote]

I agree with you. Its far less a mistake than when Obama said the US had 57 states, or even when Palin referred to Africa as a country...

You don't think there might be just a little bit of an issue calling Russia, a capitalist democracy, the Soviet Union, a totalitarian, communist state? How can she be hoped to lead, if she can't even get a fairly important nation's title right?

Obama likely meant 47. That seems like a very simple slip of the tongue.

Palin referring to Africa as a country is stupidity of the highest degree and is inexcusable.

 

[GhostWriter16]

You don't think there might be just a little bit of an issue calling Russia, a capitalist democracy, the Soviet Union, a totalitarian, communist state? How can she be hoped to lead, if she can't even get a fairly important nation's title right?

A little bit of an issue? Yes (And I won't support Bachmann in the primaries either). But am I seriously afraid she'll attack Russia thinking its the Soviet Union? Or even that she really thinks its the Soviet Union? Not at all.

Obama likely meant 47. That seems like a very simple slip of the tongue.

Well, 47 is wrong too, we have 50

That said, that isn't that big of a deal either.

Palin referring to Africa as a country is stupidity of the highest degree and is inexcusable.

It is stupidity, but if I had to guess she was trying to refer to the continent of Africa and accidentally said country.

Now, if you want to see stupid statements I actually take seriously

http://www.breitbart.tv/nancy-pelosi-we-need-to-pass-health-care-bill-to-find-out-whats-in-it/

 

[Tee Kay]

The point is, she's showing an ignorance of the world and an insensitivity that's not appropriate for a hypothetical Head of State.

 

[Laurencius]

Really? I mean, Bachmann says tons of crazy stuff that doesn't get its own CFC thread. Are we going to have a thread about the fact that she confused Elvis's birthday and the anniversary of his death? I mean, some of those stories actually scarily representative of her world view, not typical old people gaffes.

Like how she "submits" to her husband, and only became a tax lawyer because he told her to and she had to listen to him!

Or the fact that one of her staffers was arrested for terrorism in Uganda back in 2006!

Or the time she was almost kidnapped by lesbians!

I want to be kidnapped by lesbians!

Bachmann warned the "Lion King" was gay propaganda: At the November 2004 EdWatch National Education Conference, Bachmann said the “normalization” of homosexuality would lead to “desensitization”: “Very effective way to do this with a bunch of second graders, is take a picture of ‘The Lion King’ for instance, and a teacher might say, ‘Do you know that the music for this movie was written by a gay man?’ The message is: I’m better at what I do, because I’m gay.”

 

[GhostWriter16]

The point is, she's showing an ignorance of the world and an insensitivity that's not appropriate for a hypothetical Head of State.

This means Obama and Palin are unqualified as well.

She made a mistake. That alone shouldn't be your deciding factor in a vote.

 

[Tani Coyote]

A little bit of an issue? Yes (And I won't support Bachmann in the primaries either). But am I seriously afraid she'll attack Russia thinking its the Soviet Union? Or even that she really thinks its the Soviet Union? Not at all.

It's still grossly insensitive either way. The USSR doesn't exactly have a humanitarian legacy, even if it would have a superpower pride thing going on for it. But other than that, you don't wanna be called it any more than many other states would want to be reminded of their pasts.

Imagine if you called Iraq Ba'athist since it's been that way for most of countless Americans' lives. Don't you think that's just a wee bit ignorant and improper given that Iraq is a democracy now(Even if its viability is questionable)?

http://www.breitbart.tv/nancy-pelosi-we-need-to-pass-health-care-bill-to-find-out-whats-in-it/

Stupidity, overall, is apolitical.

The point is, she's showing an ignorance of the world and an insensitivity that's not appropriate for a hypothetical Head of State.

Precisely. I don't care if she called it x amount of years of her life. As a head of state with foreign policy functions, she would have to know everything that's going on. And the USSR has been dead for no less than five Presidential terms.

Such a mistake is excuseable for ordinary citizens. But I'd like our politicians to be smarter than us, otherwise, why don't we get up there instead?

 

[GhostWriter16]

Stupidity, overall, is apolitical.

Actually, I think its very political. Smart people stay out of politics

 

[RedRalph]

 

[Shadowbound]

It's more than a single slip of the tongue with Bachmann, and it also serves to draw attention to her worldview that any equal to America is a threat. I don't riff Obama much for the 57 states, Ron Paul for Aqua Buddha, or Romney talking about hanging Obama because those things are very out of character. Bachmann, meanwhile, campaigns on being ignorant on important things that Presidential candidates are supposed to know.

 

[GhostWriter16]

It's more than a single slip of the tongue with Bachmann, and it also serves to draw attention to her worldview that any equal to America is a threat. I don't riff Obama much for the 57 states, Ron Paul for Aqua Buddha, or Romney talking about hanging Obama because those things are very out of character. Bachmann, meanwhile, campaigns on being ignorant on important things that Presidential candidates are supposed to know.

Wait, Aqua Buddha? What did he say? I've never heard that one...

 

[Shadowbound]

A gaffe of my own there, it was actually Rand Paul.

According to this woman, who requested anonymity because of her current job as a clinical psychologist, "He and Randy came to my house, they knocked on my door, and then they blindfolded me, tied me up, and put me in their car. They took me to their apartment and tried to force me to take bong hits. They'd been smoking pot." After the woman refused to smoke with them, Paul and his friend put her back in their car and drove to the countryside outside of Waco, where they stopped near a creek. "They told me their god was 'Aqua Buddha' and that I needed to bow down and worship him," the woman recalls. "They blindfolded me and made me bow down to 'Aqua Buddha' in the creek. I had to say, 'I worship you Aqua Buddha, I worship you.'

http://www.gq.com/blogs/the-q/2010/...a-secret-society-involved.html?printable=true

In all fairness, the names are really, really similar.

 

[Camikaze]

Yeesh, this is mild. I mean, yeah, mistake. Obviously. Slip of the tongue. So what? Anyone can do that. In terms of what there is to use against her, this is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

 

[Antilogic]

Yeesh, this is mild. I mean, yeah, mistake. Obviously. Slip of the tongue. So what? Anyone can do that. In terms of what there is to use against her, this is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Question: has she admitted it's a mistake and said "I meant to say Russia?"

It's one thing to misspeak. It's another thing to insist you were right in the first place (a la Sarah Palin). From the tenor of this thread, you would think Bachmann did the latter.

@Dom3k: If Obama said he had visited 47 states, that would have been fine in the context of his statement. There are 50, but he might not have been everywhere yet.

 

[timtofly]

@ least she did not say Magog.

 

[Ajidica]

I agree with you. Its far less a mistake than when Obama said the US had 57 states, or even when Palin referred to Africa as a country...

Difference: Mistakes like this are the norm for Bachmann, not the rare. If Romney were to refer to Russia as the USSR in a minor interview, I honestly wouldn't care. Everyone makes a slip of the tounge or has a brain freeze (such as during a test I was absolutely convinced that the power to approve treaties was an executive power)and that is understandable. If however they have routinely made these tounge slips without clarifying what they meant, issues do arise. If Bachmann had said "Whoops, I mean Russia", a non-issue is a non-issue.

 

[classical_hero]

@ least she did not say Magog.

Now that would be awesome. I would vote for if she would call Russia that.

 

[LucyDuke]

Well, 47 is wrong too, we have 50

He was talking about how many he visited.


Link to video.

... it is just wonderful to be back in Oregon, and over the last 15 months we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in fifty .... seven states? I think one left to go. One left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit but my staff would not justify it.

Especially hilarious (or sad?) is people excusing Obama's 57 but damning Bachmann on this. Or vice-versa. They're both just boring mistakes.

I was going to do another thread, but screw it, here's this here.

When is a gaffe not a gaffe?

As the Republican primaries heat up I can predict one thing: We'll have plenty of headlines about "gaffes".

It is a word I treat with some caution. Not that politicians don't make "social or diplomatic blunders" or "noticeable mistakes". But often the blunder is in the eye of the beholder.

Don't get me wrong. I am all in favour of highlighting controversial statements by candidates, reporting on the reaction and indeed adding opinion when appropriate.

I am just against the glib labelling of anything questionable as a "gaffe". To do so can impose an orthodoxy and makes assumptions about the legitimate bounds of debate.

Moreover, it throws the same blanket of disapproval over quite different cases, from genuine mistakes to deliberate if provocative statements.

Michele Bachmann's latest pronouncement that has been labelled a gaffe is pretty close to the dictionary definition.

She got a date wrong. She wished Elvis a happy birthday on the anniversary of his death. It is utterly trivial. Who cares? Well, those who argue she's sloppy with the facts. It feeds into a narrative.

But Ryan Lizza in the New Yorker makes a convincing argument that other Bachmann statements which have been labelled gaffes - such as arguing that the founding fathers fought against slavery - are the reflection of her world view, not factual mistakes. You might not like that world view, but beyond derision there is a debate to be had.

An even sharper example is Rick Perry's suggestion that if Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke printed more money it would be close to treason.

It is a highly questionable statement. It labels a conventional policy Mr Perry disagrees with as criminal and unpatriotic, indeed punishable by death. It suggests that as president, Mr Perry would not respect the Fed's traditional independence.

So it's extremely controversial.

But it's only a gaffe to those who disagree: many conservatives will nod their head in approval at the sentiments behind the strong words. And let's face it, the harsh rhetoric got him headlines when "I think printing money is bad for the economy" might not have made a single column inch.

Then there is the artfully imagined gaffe. Mr Perry referred to a "big black cloud" hanging over America. He was attacked (even by Fox News, usually friendly towards conservatives) for making a racist remark about the president.

In fact his words were taken out of context, as he was referring to the national debt.

More than that, it is beyond prissy to object to a common turn of phrase. This really is an example of opponents and journalists in search of a story making out that a hum-drum remark was a huge blunder.

There is every reason to scrutinise the factual accuracy, the language and the pronouncements of candidates in the greatest detail, and to invite their opponents to criticise them.

We should not let the doubtful or controversial pass without comment. But unless it's a real gaffe, let's save it for the type that's used to hook fish.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14565245

 

[Tani Coyote]

I consider Obama to have been thinking about wanting to visit all fifty states, so the fifty came out and then he remembered he meant 47. But the damage was done.

Bachmann is confusing a capitalist democracy for a totalitarian communist state. Didn't Palin once call North Korea our ally by mistake as well?

One relates to foreign policy, one does not. Foreign policy being an important thing when you're a head of state. No mistakes allowed.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Didn't Palin once call North Korea our ally by mistake as well?

Yes, but she obviously meant South Korea.

Everyone makes mistakes...