Whoops! Top five Obama camp gaffes

The Obama campaign has become so gaffe-prone recently you'd think it had been infiltrated by saboteurs. Just this week, the Democratic nominee has drawn ridicule after a foreign policy adviser referred to Winnie the Pooh as "a fundamental text on national security" (really) and angered Muslim supporters who were reportedly kept away from the cameras at rallies because they were wearing headscarves.

Here's my list of the top five Obama gaffes throughout his campaign:

1. Pooh-gate

This one really is so ludicrous I had to put it first. At a major foreign policy conference in Washington on Monday, Richard Danzig, tipped to become National Security Adviser in an Obama White House, used a passage from the iconic children's book to illustrate the need for change in US foreign policy. He read out: “Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump on the back of his head behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming down stairs. But sometimes he thinks there really is another way if only he could stop bumping a minute and think about it.” Now Danzig, a Pentagon adviser on bio-terrorism and Navy Secretary under President Clinton, clearly knows what he is talking about, and the essence of his message is sound. But surely he knew how describing the adventures of Pooh and friends as "a fundamental text on national security" would be portrayed?

2. "Guns and religion"

A potentially bid-wrecking gaffe, this could still come back to bite him. When asked by an audience in San Francisco why he was struggling to win over white working-class voters, he replied: He said: “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And it’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they 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.” A point of view that many, particularly among his supporters, would agree with. But for an eloquent man, his choice of words left a lot to be desired.

3. The hijab flap

The Obama campaign drew Muslim ire after volunteers at a his Detroit rally on Monday reportedly refused seats directly behind the Democratic nominee - and in front of TV cameras - to hijab-wearing supporters. Now this is a tough one. It is pretty disgusting behaviour, for which the campaign has apologised. But one can understand how, amid ongoing rumours that Obama is part of a secret Muslim plot to take over the White House, the campaign might have become a little paranoid. Nevertheless, it shouldn't dignify such smears with this kind of response.

4. "Monster Clinton"

Samantha Power was forced to resign as Obama's foreign policy adviser after she branded Hillary Clinton a "monster" who would do anything to win during an interview with the Scotsman newspaper. Now this was at the height of the Obama as elitist/unpatriotic/racist/Muslim jibes and she was clearly genuinely upset at what she saw as reprehensible tactics on the part of the Clinton campaign. But tell a friend, Samantha, not a reporter...

5. Michelle on America

I prevaricated about including this one as I don't believe she did anything wrong - except perhaps speak her mind. But I had to wince when I heard Michelle Obama, caught up in the fervor of her husband's soaring popularity, declare that "for the first time in my adult life, I'm really proud of my country". Now being critical of your country, particularly its politics - as she later clarified she meant - doesn't mean you don't love it. But this slip-up will no doubt be dredged up over and over again by conservative media outlets, along with Reverend Wright and the absent flagpin, as the election draws nearer.

Comments

[Jaz]

Obama gaffes? Only one of those actually refers to something that Obama has personally said or done. This, again, is guilt by association something that the Republicans have constantly used to try and scare voters away from Obama. But it won't work, simply because voters are hungry for change - OBAMA '08!

[timothy]

You left out my favorite, the idea that there are 57 states and he had visited most of them.

[Ed Garland]

Honest and straightforward writing.

Thank You.

[Leaping Buck]

Hannah, the comments by Danzig are perfectly illustrative of the Leftists who flock to Obama. They bump bump bump on their heads with "failed policies of the past" such as restricting access to energy, and then lament about the poor who cannot afford to work to earn the money for food. Their answer? keep them on welfare and put the government in charge of even more energy restrictions.

This is what is scary about the Obamatic leftists!! They are like drug addicts who think injecting more heroin will solve their pains of failure. We hurt from how ineffective our leftist policies are, so let's create more government leftist policies!

The fact this man Obama can become the nominee of the Democrat party just shows how utterly ignorant Democrats have become.

Like Danzig: The joke is, they don't understand that they ARE the joke!!

Leaping Buck

[Desmond Taylor]

I do not know about five, more like 50 in reality. Kansas tornado-10,000 dead. Reality 12. 57 States with two to go. His parents had him after the Selma march. He was born four years earlier . Lack of translators in Iraq as they were in Afghanistan. Wrong languages. I will let someone else come up with some more. Obama the Messiah, I don't think so.

[Martin, Chicago]

You are kidding, right? This merits a column? McCain's gaffes (Shia, Sunni, etc.) and flip-flops are far more egregious, and confounding. Like his denying to the reporter in New Orleans that he has repeatedly voted against measures to aid the plight of the Katrina vcitims--when his disgraceful voting record is there for the whole world to see.

[Paul]

Is this the best you have? These are really old news now. If no gaffes have been made since these Obama's in good shape!

[Zach]

Only one of those five problems listed originated from Barack Obama himself.

[Alex]

And thus the USA begins to catch up with the UK in terms of sleazy politics. Obama is far too similar to Blair for my liking --- more of a politician than a leader. The fact that people are idiotic enough to vote for a candidate based simply on skin colour is disturbing to say the least.

[daniel]

Are you f**king kidding me? How about a top 10 McCain gaffes? McCain says the most insane things, whether on accident or intentionally is sometimes unclear. How about when he said that we need to "give hot bottled water to dehydrated babies," or when he made several false statements regarding the presidents of nations and the political factions in the US (often corrected and made the same mistakes again in later speeches), when he publicly called his wife a cunt, when he sang "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran", when he pronounced "beer" instead of "bill,"

This is just from the top of my head.. I'm sure you could do better. The media only seems interested in "mistakes" Obama makes.

Note that this top 5 list doesn't even point out any actual GAFFES. They can be interpreted differently by anyone, the "pooh-gate" was maybe a silly comparison, but it wasn't a gaffe, the guns-and-religion comment was only a gaffe if you consider BEING HONEST to be an undesirable trait, for #3, this was an action taken by volunteers, not Obama himself, #4: again this had nothing to do with Obama (guilt by association as usual), and honestly Hillary was acting like a monster, and the Michelle comment -- again NOT BARACK -- was maybe poorly worded, but it wasn't difficult to understand what she meant. Can't blame her for being especially proud when her black husband gets close to becoming president.

Journalism people, try it out for a stroll.

[Jim Wills]

Obama's biggest gaffe is to want to lead a crippled nation. The business tycoons will destroy every move that he makes which requires for them to change their ways. The environment is the big issue of today and the US business enterprises are fearful of the future as they are not prepared for the changes necessary for the planet to survive. They have not planned for the future where the US$ is not king and oil is not the number one commodity and America is not the number world power. Obama would have one of the most dificult tasks of any president in the history of America.

[valerie]

booooring. Can we please talk about something NEW and important.

[J. Russell]

Their in-experience is showing. Obama's words tell a lot about his thoughts and frame of mind. The actions of his campaign speak loader than words. Are you listening America?

[Larry the cable guy]

Wow your country is in a recession, you're in a war you can't get out of, The respect of the world is non-existent and you're worried about some stupid gaffes, your current President is a laughing stock, maybe you could find something serious to talk about.

[Andrew]

This is a very good summary of exactly what we've been hearing on the news for the past few weeks. Do you have something more original, or do you just like rehashing what the media already shoves down our throats?

[Janice]

Good ones. I think the "guns and religion" gaffe was the worst because, for one, the video works as a behind-the-curtains insight into the real person off the stage. I think only an American can understand all the terrible nuances of it. Then there is the hypocrisy, for example, of Obama's own outward embrace of religion and religiosity and his complaints when challenged. Even the sniggering laughter of his Marin County audience relates various American markers of urban and classist snobbery.

[R K Dillon]

The Pennsylvania gaffe is old news & obviously didn't wreck his campaign.
The Samantha Power story is also dead.
The Michelle quote has been mitigated by Mrs. G.W. Bush & is no longer salient.
Really, the only recent news is the hijab flap & Obama has already apologized for it.

[Daisy]

You don't sit in a pastor's congregation for years listening to him spout his racist b.s. and when it becomes inconvenient for you, you say "I condemn those comments". You had to have believed to stay all those years.

The press has done a lot to protect Obama. If it was Hillary's pastor making racist comments, she would have been fried alive for it. If MacCain had made those "guns and God" comment, he would have been torn apart. If it was another candidate with ties to a shady Iraq businessman on trial, they would have been ripped apart, but BO gets a free ride. The press have decided that Obama is the saviour and he must be protected at all costs. It's reminiscent of what happened after 9/11 when everyone was hero-worshipping Bush and refusing to ask hard questions. That worked out well, didn't it?

[Beverly Aldridge]

You made too many excuses to justify these gaffes!!

Why did you do that?

Either these gaffes reflect what these people are and think...or they do not.
You can't have it both ways.

[Scott]

Not to seem pedantic I hope, but prevaricate means to deviate from the truth. Perhaps the word you wanted to use in the first sentence of your fifth gaffe was vacillate?

A couple of Obama gaffes that you missed: Obama claimed that a tornado that destroyed a town in Kansas had killed 10,000 people when it had actually killed 11, and recently he mentioned that he visited 57 states when there are only only 50.

One can only imagine how much grief Dan "the potatoe" Quayle would have caught if he had made such erroneous statements.

[charles grubmeyer]

Dear Ms. Strange:
So, that's the best you've got?
Samantha Power resigned on March 6. The San Francisco guns and religion remarks (the only one of your tales involving Obama himself) were reported April 11. The Michelle Obama comment was Feb 18. "Recent?" I know there's a time difference, but have you been hibernating? Surely at some point in writing this you must have realized that you did not actually have a story about Obama suddenly making lots of errors? When that point comes, put down the pencil and go back to sleep.

[pierce]

The tagline for this article is "The Democratic nominee is increasingly error-prone", yet only one of the five "gaffes" mentioned in the article were done by Obama, and that was many months ago.

How about taking a look at the terrible decisions that the McCain campaign has made? You don't even need to take them out of context.

[tony freeman]

Now how about the best ten thousand or so gaffs by george bush? Take as long as you want.

[Mike]

Bottom line for Americans - the candidate that the Democrats have chosen for us is completely inexperienced and has surrounded himself with people who are anti-American. If I were a reporter, I would ask him some slightly tougher questions such as:

1) How do you explain that you are experienced enough for this job when you have not churned out even one single piece of legislation since you became a US Senator?

2) How do you claim to be able to "reach across the aisle" better than Sen McCain when you have never attempted to do so in the past? Not to mention the fact that Sen McCain does this so often that half of his party can't stand him.

3) Why are you not more forthcoming about your past, including your childhood? If you were in fact a Muslim once, that is not as big of an issue as the possibility that you are lying about it now. Could you please explain? If you are lying about this, what else are you lying about?

4) How do you explain your theory that rolling back the Bush tax cuts is not considered raising our taxes? I'm not in the top 10% (not even the top 50%) of our nations wealthiest, but without those tax cuts, I would not be able to afford the cost of living right now.

5) Will you also be increasing taxes on trust funds, which would of course, only affect the rich folks who did not EARN their money, but got it handed to them (such as yourself, your wife, many of your coworkers in Congress, etc)?

6) Regarding your lack of knowledge that there are only 50 states in the Union, what is your take on the fact that you are being protected by the media with this one? It's a major gaffe. If John McCain, George Bush, or anyone with an "R" after their name had made it, they would already be packing their bags.

7) Finally, how do you explain that the price of gasoline has doubled in the 2 years your party has controlled congress?

I hope the editors of this column choose to include my comments. I think if someone out there who only had the CHANCE to ask this man these questions could do so, then Obama's answers would tell us a lot about what kind of man he truly is.

[Gina]

I have noticed a distinct pattern from Obama and his supporters towards revisionist history. Whether it's Pastor Wright, with his radical interpretations of American history, or Pastor Moss' denigration of Thomas Jefferson, or Obama's historical distortions, which support his P.R. image building efforts. Their tactic is to discredit, or distort history, in order to pave the way for their new extreme policies. A President of the United States should know, and communicate real historical facts, not fabrications for personal political gain.