Posted by
John Caile on Monday, February 08, 2010 4:21:03 PM
You just knew it would happen, didn't you? In a speech to military professionals, Barak Obama recently made a particularly egregious blunder, horribly mispronouncing the word "corpsman" - a military term that is pronounced "KOR-man" - the "p" and the "s" are silent. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the military would know this. You could almost hear the military guests thinking - "did he really just say KORPS-man?"
Such a mistake might be overlooked in a 6th grader with no understanding of military jargon. But for a President of the United States, a man who is supposed to be the Commander in Chief of the American Armed Forces, to show such a complete lack of understanding of such a common military term is simply inexcusable. Worse, he didn't just do it once, he did it several times, and not only in last week's speech - he used the same annoying mispronunciation on another occasion back in October of last year.
Now, had George Bush made such an error in pronunciation, the howls of criticism would have been deafening - it would have been the subject of endless negative commentary by the mainstream press - complete with raised eyebrows and condescending smirks. But, just like the endless gaffs of Joe Biden, Obama's ludicrous error has been completely ignored (spiked?) by the same press that can't contain themselves from highlighting even the most minor linguistic stumbles of any Republican or Conservative.
Obama's embarrassing butchering of the language was naturally delivered while reading off of his omnipresent teleprompter - Obama even needed the device to deliver a speech to...6th graders. That's right, the "Great Orator" was incapable of talking to a classroom of children without his electronic security blanket. But don't hold your breath waiting for any commentary from the Obamamedia on that one either.
But let Sarah Palin give an address (without a teleprompter, by the way) to the Tea Party Convention in Nashville, and what is the buzz racing through the mainstream (read: Obama owned) media? Are they analyzing Governor Palin's potential run for the presidency? Dissecting her economic policy statements?
Not a chance.
Almost as if they were all reading from the same DNC handout (certainly a possibility) one mainstream reporter after another just had to comment on...the fact that Sarah Palin had a couple of speech notes written on her hand. Now there's a blockbuster of a story. What nonsense. I know dozens of public speakers who have used the same technique. I've done it myself. And besides, what difference does it make whether one has a few key words on some 3 by 5 cards, or on your wrist? The point is, Palin delivered her speech off-the-cuff, from memory - she didn't read it word for word off a computer screen.
Obama, on the other hand, is clearly lost without his teleprompter - whenever he has found himself in any unscripted situation, Obama stammers, hesitates, hems and haws, and often blurts out something that is not only politically damaging, but reveals something of his real philosophical position - his "Joe the Plumber" moment was a perfect example, where he basically admitted that he truly believes in Marxist socialist principles. Yet no one in the press (other than perhaps FOX news) ever points out his verbal clumsiness, or that his so-called "oratorical skills" are limited to reading speeches that someone else has written. Even though by that standard, any mediocre Hollywood actor could qualify as a "great orator."
But that is the current state of the "Old media" (or, the "Lame-Stream Media" as Bernie Goldberg calls them). They have long ceased even pretending to be engaged in objective news reporting, they are now shamelessly running interference for "their" President, whether covering for his mistakes, or attacking someone like Sarah Palin for something so inconsequential as to be unworthy of even a comment, much less the kind of biased "piling on" that has now become the rule.