Judge Not
March 23rd, 2009Much has been made over the assortment of gaffes Barack Obama has made in the short time he’s been president. Some of the worst revanchists among his detractors have even had the audacity to use these mishaps to impugn the intellect of this obviously great man. This only shows the moral bankruptcy of the Right — for who among us progressives would ever attempt to correlate the verbal acuity of our leaders with their intelligence or competence?
Just imagine if we had mocked President George W. Bush (or Eisenhower, Ford, or Reagan) because he said some silly thing, or if we tried to say he was stupid because of it. It would be outrageous. As advanced as we are intellectually, we would never stoop to such a sophomoric form of argument.
Besides, there’s nothing wrong with a minor verbal slip. Why, our beloved leader made many of them during the campaign and no one seemed to care.
Most famously, he said that there were 57 states. Of course, this is far from atrocious. For who can remember such an odd a number as fifty? And then there was the time he called “Russia” the “Soviet Union” and stated that they spoke Arabic in Afghanistan. But if nine out of ten high-school students can’t find Mexico on a map, how could anyone expect better knowledge of geography from a president? Finally, he said that he’d be in power ten years from now. But who can remember everything stated in that wacky constitution of ours? Not even a professor of constitutional law.
So, it’s a bit strange that people are taking exception to his misspeaking now, especially when they are so trivial.
Sure, Obama recently made fun of the mentally-disabled, implying that such people are so stupid they can’t even roll a ball down a lane. But so what? Since when has everyone become so politically correct? We certainly would never attack anyone for making an insensitive remark. If someone from the other side made a joke, for example, about a minority, do you think we’d complain?
And then there was this whole teleprompter nonsense. But just because Obama knew the teleprompter was not working properly and continued to use it anyway — and hence thanked himself for hosting Irish Prime Minister Cowan — doesn’t in anyway infer some mental deficiency. It, in fact, displays the great courage we need in this time of crisis — the courage to continue on a path despite knowing the inherent defectiveness of such course.
Finally, there’s the other sundry miscues, including not knowing the difference between windows and doors, misstating the history of the railroad and the automobile in an address to the nation, and giving the prime minister of Great Britain a collection of North-American-playable-only DVDs. But surely these kind of gaffes and the number of them would’ve happened to anyone during the extensive period of time he’s been in office.
Surely.
It’s time to end this madness. And for all those rightwingers who insist on mocking President Obama, just remember one thing: judge not, lest ye be judged.
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© Copyright 2009 by Colin Cohen. All Rights Reserved.
