Should Slate start an "Obamaisms" section?

If Slate does start one, then this should be the topic of its first entry:

He bowled a 129, the president said.

"That's very good, Mr. President," Leno said sarcastically.

It's "like the Special Olympics or something," the president said.

When asked about the remark, the White House said the president did not intend to offend.

Wow. I'm not even that crude.

EDIT: I'm sorry. I just can't stop laughing. Our president--the President of the United States of America, the most powerful country in the world--made a joke about the mentally disabled! Once you go there, before you know it, you're making Corky jokes. It's a slippery slope.

I totally misunderestimated Obama.

Bad strategery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKlYT2bseII

Sorry for the redundancy: when I first clicked on the ABC link, the video didn't appear.

Special Olympics bowler: I can beat the president!

http://kai03.qwest.com/WindowsLive/Media/News/NewsDetail.aspx?cat=National&i...

I don't think Obama has the knack for Obamaisms as Bush has for Bushisms. Here's Bush from Tuesday, talking about his planned memoir. "I'm going to put people in my place, so when the history of this administration is written at least there's an authoritarian voice saying exactly what happened." The man has genuine elan for malaprops.

Let it be known that The One is indeed a human being, not a spiritual being from the ethereal realm. He makes retard jokes. Gods don't make retard jokes.

Are you sure Bush's statement is malapropos? I think authoritarian was were that bunch was headed.

Here's the link to the Obama misspeaking vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyW9e5QdWxk

Arctic, now must we infer that Obama's an idiot?

No? What’s that you say? Going after someone misspeaking is a cheap shot? Yes, indeed it is, Arctic, indeed it is.

What about Obama claiming he’s visited 57 states? (“One left to go.”)

Fifty-seven three follow-ups:

(1) To the easily anticipated objection that Bush has a longer list of gaffes under his belt, I will note that Bush was President for 8 years; Obama has been Pres. only a couple of months.

(2) No, his occasional mis-speaking does not tell us that Obama's an idiot. I am making a point about the standard that was applied to Bush being applied to Obama. Which takes me to my last point, rather question:

(3) Why do liberals do this? It is completely predictable that sooner or later there will be a Democratic President and that he will frequently mis-speak on the record. It's just obvious that the mis-speaking = idiocy meme will boomerang. A similar point applies to the ginned-up “scandal” over Katrina, etc. Do liberals simply enjoy lowering the level of discourse for its own sake?

I don't think about it in terms of misspeaking = idiocy. Everybody misspeaks from time to time. I don't think the two are necessarily related. In the case of Bush though, there is a relation, as his idiocy helped him to misspeak more often. He is an idiot that just happens to misspeak more often than most people.

>8 Carnophile: "Do liberals simply enjoy lowering the level of discourse for its own sake?"

Yes, we do, while sniggering and rubbing our hands together and narrowing our beady little eyes. Oooh-eeeeeh!

George Bush had a problem with saying what he thought. there are lots of reasons for this, not the least of which I'm sure was the need NOT to say what he was thinking. He just is not a very good speaker.

Obama on the other hand is an excellent speaker, both scripted and extemporaneously. When he stutters it because he is searching for exactly the right word from a mental list. George Bush could never find the list.

Most of this video is Obama's natural method of breaking the speaker and taking over the dialogue. He uses this technique to shut O'Reilly up so he can get a word in edgewise. He uses it to quiet the crowd so he can further clarify a point. Bush never knew from one minute to the next what was likely to come out of his mouth.

One of the smartest people I ever worked with, and certainly the best manager I ever had, had a terrible stutter. Bush WAS an idiot, that's why he spoke like an idiot.

If this is the best the Republican shit machine can do with Obama, they're really sucking wind.

What I think he was saying was that he wasn't very good at bowling, even though he did try his best. I don't believe it was a comment to put down the mentally disabled as it was a description of the result of his efforts. This event has been blown way out of proportion. The energy expended could have been used to work on a social ill of some sort - say the underfunded schools or homeless sheltors that could use the input, honest. Not that I'm being judgemental, just my 2 cents..................

Oh, and geneg, I do agree with whole heartedly!

#7: why are you arguing with Artic, he has made no comment on this thread? Am I missing a cross-thread reference? Otherwise some good points, turnabout is fair play and all that.

#11: Well put gene. A few slip-ups do not make an idiot, nor does one careless remark make a bigot. We'll have to wait and see how well he does over the course of the whole presidency.

Gene, post 11 is such a perfect little gem. When a Republican misspeaks, it demonstrates that he's an idiot! When a Democrat misspeaks, it doesn't! LOL!

My position, incidentally, is that it doesn't. I'm including both Dems and Reps here.

Madcow - Yes, it's a reference to the "Cards on the Table" thread.
I agree wholeheartedly with this: "A few slip-ups do not make an idiot, nor does one careless remark make a bigot."

I didn't say anything at all about Republicans being idiots. I was referring to one specific Republican. Although, without breathing hard I can give you the names of at least a half dozen more, if you like.

This little exchange actually got me interested in cross-partisan exonerations. Is one side generally better or worse than the other? From the following unscientific one-minute search, not really. The last part is an exception.

I tried the following Google searches:

"liberal defends Bush", "Bush's gaffe"
"liberals defend Bush", "Bush's gaffe"
"liberal defends Bush", gaffe
"liberals defend Bush", gaffe
"Democrat defends Bush", gaffe

All of them came up with zero hits.

"Democrats defend Bush", gaffe

turns up four hits.

For the symmetric seaerches (replace liberal with conservative, Democrat with Republican, Bush with Obama),

"conservatives defend Obama", gaffe

comes up with two hits, and

"Republican defends Obama", gaffe

comes up with three hits.

"conservatives defend Obama": 121 hits
"conservative defends Obama": 1 hit

"liberals defend Bush": 3 hits
"liberal defends Bush": 2 hits

It seems pretty even, except for that glaring 121 hits on "conservatives defend Obama."

I don't know why I've gotten so interested in this, but here's more (these are also all Google):

"Republicans defend Obama" 307 hits
"Republican defends Obama" 125 hits

“Democrats defend Bush” 327 hits
“Democrat defends Bush” 7 hits

Interesting. Keep in mind Bush was around ~8 years longer than Obama at this point.

Looks like Bush didn't do much worth defending.

Or simply Obama is massively more popular than Bush ever was (except perhaps immediately post-9/11). Obama has longer coattails than Bush did also, I think . He's a symbolic icon beyond being a popular president.

The President probably should've stuttered whilst telling the Special Olympics cutie; it would have given him a chance to choose a better option from his internal List-O-Multiple.

>19 DanoWins: I knew someone was going to say that!

>21 BOB81:
That's a cool image: Obama has a little drop-down menu like the Terminator, presenting various options.

I knew someone was going to say that!

Of course you did! Someone had to say it after a statistical setup like yours above :)

11: Are you kidding? When speaking extemporaneously, Obama becomes a very average speaker - dull even. Look at his most recent press conference, as soon as he was off-script and speaking off-the-cuff in response to questions it became a snooze-fest. Plus, he didn't actually answer most of the questions asked.