Barack Obama's surrogates have been trying to convince the American
people that his judgment is so impeccable that his lack of experience
is irrelevant. However, it's hard to make that case when the candidate
in question is the single biggest gaffe machine to hit American
politics since Howard Dean. You think Joe Biden cranks out a lot of
dumb quips? Well, Biden is a rank amateur compared to Obama. As you
read these brainless comments, keep in mind that the biggest challenge
I had in creating this list was limiting it to only 10 snafus.
In fact, there were so many of them that some of Obama's most famous
slip-ups, like "I don't want them punished with a baby" and "Why can't
I just eat my waffle?" didn't even make the list.
Well, let's get to it, shall we?
First up, here's the quotation that became the genesis of the "Obama is an elitist snob" meme.
10) "Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see
what they charge for arugula? I mean, they're charging a lot of money
for this stuff."
When the internet is afire with false rumors that you're a Muslim, do
you really want to bizarrely reference your "Muslim faith?"
9) "Let's not play games. I was suggesting - you're
absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith."
I wonder if abortion is above Sarah Palin's pay grade? I think not.
8) “Rick Warren: ...Now, let's deal with
abortion; 40 million abortions since Roe v. Wade. As a pastor, I have
to deal with this all of the time, all of the pain and all of the
conflicts. I know this is a very complex issue. Forty million
abortions, at what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?"
Barack Obama: "Well, you know, I think that whether
you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific
perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is
above my pay grade."
This part of Obama's speech sounds like it was written for him by one of King Canute's courtiers.
7) "...I am absolutely certain that generations from
now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was
the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to
the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to
slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a
war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best
hope on earth. This was the moment -- this was the time -- when we came
together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our
very best selves and our highest ideals."
Whether this "joke" was about Sarah Palin or not, it was a rather
foolish line given that even his own supporters in the audience took it
as a sexist jab at her expense.
6) "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a
pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called 'change,' it's
still going to stink. After eight years, we've had enough of the same
old thing. It's time to bring about real change to Washington and
that's the choice you've got in this election."
As he tried to explain why he tossed his grandmother under the bus in a
previous speech, Obama actually managed to make it worse by showing
that he thinks of white people as a generic group, not as individuals.
5) "The point I was making was not that Grandmother
harbors any racial animosity. She doesn't. But she is a typical white
person..."
Dan Quayle, who was unfairly pilloried as a moron, never said anything half as dumb as this.
4) "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."
In his counterproductive race speech, which was mistakenly praised as
genius by his supporters in the media, Obama managed to cement his
association to the racist, anti-American rantings of Jeremiah Wright
while simultaneously coming across as remarkably callous towards his
own grandmother.
3) "I can no more disown (Jeremiah Wright) than I
can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my
white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed
again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves
anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of
black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one
occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."
It's no secret to people who pay attention that Barack Obama is not a
patriotic man and he managed to unwittingly hammer that point home when
he rather foolishly made a big deal about refusing to wear a flag pin
anymore.
2) "You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I
had a (flag) pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're
talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for, I think, true
patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to
our national security, I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest..."
If you're from a small town and you're wondering what Barack Obama
thinks of you, this quote tells you everything you need to know and
then some.
1) "You got 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 they fell through the
Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each
successive administration has said that somehow these communities are
gonna regenerate and they have not. 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."
