Wiener of the Week

This week's WotW is the herd media. And what is their offense? They are guilty of an egregious double standard when it comes to politician gaffes.

Remember Dan Quayle's "potatoes" incident? Who can forget? It was wall-to-wall media excoriation. Now, no one is going to argue that Dan Quayle is smarter than a bag of hammers (I put my money on the bag). But the herd media has been unforgivably silent regarding the gaffes of another mental midget -- presidential candidate Barack {don't say his middle name or you're a racist} Obama. Thankfully, individual columnists (like Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times) have been more vigilant in reporting the extent of Mr. {}'s stupidity. But -- and this is an important but -- where is the "potatoe"-like coverage of these gaffes? Mr. Quayle made one memorable gaffe. And Mr. Obama? Here is a sampling of some of his doozies (edited for space - see the linked article for the whole text).

• Claimed that tornadoes in Kansas 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.


• Redrew the map of the United States: "I've now been in 57 states? I think one left to go."


• 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?


• 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, Ala., 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.


• Showed lack of knowledge of the war in Afghanistan by homing in on a lack of translators: "We only have a certain number of them, and if they are all in Iraq, then it's harder for us to use them in Afghanistan." The real reason it's "harder for us to use them" in Afghanistan: Iraqis speak Arabic or Kurdish. The Afghanis speak Pashtu, Farsi or other non-Arabic languages.
  

And WHY exactly does the herd media ignore or gloss over these gaffes? Because they're in the tank for {}, that's why. At least Chris Matthews (who practically gets a chub at the mention of {}'s name) is up front about it. The rest of them...well, judge for yourself by what is and isn't reported.

Congratulations, herd media - you're the Wiener of the Week.