Obama Commits a Gaffe, i.e., He Inadvertently Speaks the Truth
Obama’s sequester press conference was as appalling as expected. Demagoguery, scaremongering, blame shifting, and a lot of “balanced approach” blather. One thing jumped out at me though:
QUESTION: Just to make it 100 percent clear, you’d sign a budget that continues to fund the government even at the lower levels of the sequester, even if you don’t (inaudible)?
OBAMA: I’m not going to — I never want to make myself 100 percent clear with you guys.
Take another look at that answer: “I never want to make myself 100 percent clear with you guys.” This is from the guy whose most annoying rhetorical tic (and the competition is intense) is: “Let me be clear.” Hell, he said that during the same press conference. From the guy who claims his is the “most transparent administration in history.”
So Obama committed a gaffe, in the Michael Kinsley sense of speaking the truth. This is the kind of thing that happens when he doesn’t have his teleprompter in front of him.
It is interesting that no one has picked up this inadvertent admission, least of all the press.
For the press, that wasn’t a gaffe but an example of POTUS wit. I don’t need to have listened to hear the deeply appreciative chuckles from those tough skeptical, truth-to-power speaking members of the press.
Comment by emerich — March 4, 2013 @ 12:34 am
The Putin-mafias useful idiot Johan Bäckman where involved in a similar propaganda stunt in Finland .
After that the event became one of the most debated issues in Russia and Bäckman was a central commentator of the case in Russian media. According to Kommersant, Bäckman was the primary source of the incident
Incident in the Finnish media
The Finnish media has mainly focused on the reactions in Russian media. The incident was a minor news until Pavel Astakhov visited in Finland. According to the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat the incident was probably a part of the Russian internal politics, which was lead from Moscow. The Russian authorities knew the real background of the case, but kept it on the news for weeks. The peak moment occurred as Astakhov, a lawyer with KGB training, arrived Turku with dozens of Russian journalists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rantala_incident
In March 2009 Bäckman as part of the Finnish neo-Stalinist (Anti-Fascist) Committee arranged a series of protests in Helsinki attended by activists of Putin-Jugend (Russian Nashi) and Night Watch a neo-Stalinist Russian streetfigther group from the Baltics .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Bäckman#Nashi_protests_in_Helsinki
Comment by Ole Hansson — March 4, 2013 @ 4:04 pm
Humour is often confused with “gaffes”.
Comment by Vlad Rutenburg — March 5, 2013 @ 12:44 am
Professor,
Have you considered undergoing a sense of humour enhancement procedure or buying a used detachable sense of humour? You and Kim Z. can get a volume discount on e-bay.
Comment by Vlad Rutenburg — March 5, 2013 @ 12:48 am