I know this is a dead horse, but honestly is the irony not dripping from this statement at the Yahoo Newsroom blog, after President Obama made an impromptu and inappropriate joke about the Special Olympics on Jay Leno:
But in a way, it's heartening to hear our politicians stumble over words, mangle syntax and make inappropriate jokes. It shows politicians are human, too. Sometimes.
Really? I'm sorry, did the last eight years not happen?
Along those same lines, anyone care to guess how large the howls from the left and the media (but I repeat myself) would be if Bush had been given a historic thoughtful gift by the leader of our nation's longest and most reliable ally and he responded by giving the leader a set of DVD's … that are the wrong format.
Someone please tell me that Bush would not be the laughing stock of the world for that one. The moment would be one of those real-life urban legends that would constantly pop up to confirm the stupidity of the President. Someone would be making a comment about a policy of the President, only to be greeted with, "DVD's – wrong format," as if nothing else needed to be said.
The meme and stereotype of Bush was "stupid, cowboy," so it would have stuck and been used from that point on. Obama does not carry a similar stereotype so the instance was mainly ignored except by the British press (who love a good controversy) and the conservative blogs (who love a good story about a Democrat screw-up).
This was a mistake by the current administration, but I do not believe it indicates that the President or his staff are unintelligent. But it's a bit odd that the same courtesy was never extended to the previous occupant of the White House.
