Obama gaffes you can believe in

Columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin reminds us:

All it takes is one gaffe to taint a Republican for life.

The political establishment never let Dan Quayle live down his fateful misspelling of “potatoe.”

The New York Times distorted and misreported the first President Bush’s questions about new scanner technology at a grocers’ convention to brand him permanently as out of touch.

Malkin then asks:

But what about Barack Obama?

The guy’s a perpetual gaffe machine.

Let us count the ways, large and small, that his tongue has betrayed him throughout the campaign:

* Last May, he claimed that Kansas tornadoes killed a whopping 10,000 people: “In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed.” The actual death toll: 12.

*Earlier this month in Oregon, he redrew the map of the United States: “Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.”

*Last week, in front of a roaring Sioux Falls, South Dakota audience, Obama exulted: “Thank you Sioux City…I said it wrong. I’ve been in Iowa for too long. I’m sorry.”

*Explaining last week why he was trailing Hillary Clinton in Kentucky, Obama again botched basic geography: “Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it’s not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle.”

On what map is Arkansas closer to Kentucky than Illinois?

*Obama has as much trouble with numbers as he has with maps. Last March, on the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Alabama, he claimed his parents united as a direct result of the civil rights movement:

“There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born.”

Obama was born in 1961. The Selma march took place in 1965. His spokesman, Bill Burton, later explained that Obama was “speaking metaphorically about the civil rights movement as a whole.”

Malkin goes on to cite other, more serious gaffes. Don't miss her column here.

Folks, most of us make mistakes like saying "Sioux City" when we should say "Sioux Falls."

Presidential candidates who go days bouncing from state to state with little sleep are especially prone to that kind of gaffe.

I don't hold that kind of gaffe seriouslyagainst Obama, even as I might jest about it. I mean it isn't like Obama told us he'd spent Christmas in Cambodia.

On the other hand, Obama's statement of "no preconditions" before meeting with rogue/terrorist regimes is more than a gaffe.

It's a dangerous doctrine in itself; and what I find deeply troubling is that when his mistake was pointed out to him, he didn't quickly acknowledge it and disown it. He's clinging to it.

Of course, Obama's biggest "gaffe" IMO has been his telling us he sat in the pews for 20 years without ever hearing his close friend and pastors racist and anti-American statements.

That's as believable as saying America has 57 states.

What do you think?

Hat tips: Jack in Silver Spring, AC, friend in St. Louis