Noel Sheppard of NewsBusters posted Saturday on Barack Obama's tirade against Fox News.
The underlying report by Ryan Alessi of McClatchy's Lexington Herald-Leader also contained this nugget (HT National Review' Online's Media Blog), showing that the candidate's basic geography challenges continue:
Obama conceded that he has a steep challenge to get his message and background to voters in states such as Kentucky — where he trails Sen. Hillary Clinton by 27 points, according to a poll published earlier this week — and West Virginia, where voters chose Clinton over Obama by 40 points on Tuesday.
"What it says is that I'm not very well known in that part of the country," Obama said. "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."
Trouble is, as a look at a US map (with territories) shows, Arkansas may be "nearby," but Obama's home state of Illinois is "adjacent":
Greg Polliwitz at NRO's Media Blog asks:
Can the man who wants to be President please tell us why Arkansas is somehow closer to Kentucky than Illinois??????
This gaffe comes on the heels of Obama's "state"-ment of May 9 that "I've been in 57 states, (with) I think one left to go."
As I noted last week (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), during the 1992 campaign, Vice President Dan Quayle was pilloried from June until Election Day over his misspelling of a word.
I would suggest that Quayle's error is "small potatoes" compared to the stunning geographic ignorance that is becoming a routine occurrence with Obama.
Clearly, Old Media disagrees. A Google News search on "nearby state of Arkansas" (in quotes) came back with three results. Two of them are Alessi's report. The other is at the American Thinker blog.
Perhaps, in addition to Jeremiah Wright and Obama's wife Michelle, the candidate and his campaign will demand that geography be made an off-limits topic.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
—Tom Blumer is president of a training and development company in Mason, Ohio, and is a contributing editor to NewsBusters
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Comments Policy
I wonder if Obama is under
May 19, 2008 - 13:15 ET by celatorI wonder if Obama is under some post-hypnotic spell which makes him commit these buffoonish gaffs? We already KNOW the MSM is under some sort of spell to ingore the gaffs. ;+}
Thank you, Sioux City!
May 19, 2008 - 12:59 ET by nkviking75Don't forget Obama's recent gaffe in Sioux Falls, South Dakota when he yelled out, "Thank you, Sioux City!" Sioux City is in Iowa. At least this time he caught his own mistake
When you put the clowns in charge, don't be surprised when a circus breaks out.
Not well known? The guy
May 19, 2008 - 13:02 ET by mattmNot well known? The guy has been in the news every day for a year...and getting sycophantic coverage to boot.
BTW - is Kentucky the 56th or 57th state?
Michigan
May 19, 2008 - 13:23 ET by ort777I'm from Michigan and I think he's counting the upper and lower peninsula as two different states (oh, no, we don't count, now do we?). Who really cares, the guys can say anything and the media will cover for him. We might as well count the moon, Mars and sun, too while we're at it.
Is Fox banned in losing states?
May 19, 2008 - 13:08 ET by JTPMust be West Virginia and Kentucky are banned from receiving Fox.
No other reason possible he lost one and will lose the other?
Reality is
May 19, 2008 - 14:16 ET by docbthat the Illinois voter is far from like the Voter in Kentucky-- the demographics of those states is night and day...What losing states????Lost by whom???
This is petty BS.
Obamba slides on these "potatoes" How about this:
May 19, 2008 - 13:17 ET by upcountrywaterbad bad SUV
"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes
on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other
countries are going to say OK," Obama said.
Brave new world is a comming and the MSM is going to love it.
The POPE says, GOD BLESS AMERICA!!
Liberals62%
Five bucks to the first
May 19, 2008 - 13:17 ET by balboaFive bucks to the first person to see this as some kind of reference to Islam.
He needs geography lessons.
May 19, 2008 - 13:23 ET by mjgHe needs geography lessons. Maybe he can go to the map and somehow try and figure out if Illinois touches Arkansas by an imaginary point.
What he really meant was
May 19, 2008 - 15:36 ET by motherbeltWhat he really meant was that those "southern" states are all alike.
Obama is a lightweight
May 19, 2008 - 13:24 ET by ballwana13Obama's gaffes on 57 states and his challenges with geography need to be highlighted on the first round of ads in the general election beginning in June or July. They need to be repeated along with his rebuttal of President Bush's comments in Israel on appeasement (targeted squarely at Jimmah Carter but also applicable to Obama). Both show lack of gravitas and big holes in his education and experience.
Carter Is Correct
May 19, 2008 - 13:53 ET by JoelCTYou know, I thought I was the only one who thought of Carter first when I heard Bush's comments. Carter had just returned from meeting with Hamas and was regurgitating the lies they had fed him. My first thought was, "Man, Carter is going to be p*ssed!"
Suddenly there was all this fuss about OBAMA being mad, and I was confused for a while.
Obama, you arrogant narcissist, Bush was talking about CARTER, not YOU.
I guess Carter's glass slipper was the same size as yours, so you put that shoe on and wore it. How revealing.
Humans are Tribal
May 19, 2008 - 13:32 ET by YaegerMeisterSome groups of humans are very tribal and feel threatened when limited resources might possibly go to another tribe. Billary is getting that level of support.
The media is not snoozing
May 19, 2008 - 13:37 ET by kgThe media is not snoozing on this. They wouldnt touch it with a ten foot pole. There is no way they will let the readers know Obama can be idiotic at times.
"Forget change, I want improvement!"
Obama is Right
May 19, 2008 - 13:45 ET by Gat New YorkIn Obama's new 57 State configuration they are right next to each other. You gotta keep up with On-The-Ball Obama.
And criticizing him on geography is off base along with everything else.
To Obama - IL = Chicago - nothing else
May 19, 2008 - 14:25 ET by Dee Bunkjust like our Governor who is too good to live down state in the Governors mansion. The first Dem gov in a while and the first one who refused to live there.
He's a snob any way you look at it. Not just any snob. A stupid snob who doesn't know his geography. We have a reciprocal agreement with KY for income taxes and he was a member of our legislature. You don't have reciprocal agreements unless their are a lot of people from your state working in the other state and visa versa.
Right Dee Bunk, the
May 19, 2008 - 14:52 ET by MidAmericaRight Dee Bunk, the official area of Illinois is only that part north of I-80. Even ordinary citizens consider those of us that live south of I-80 as some sort of rudimentary sub-humans. Springfield, the capitol, is considered as almost in another state and as far as the actual southern border near Kentucky that might as well be the far side of the moon.
Was waiting for someone
May 19, 2008 - 15:21 ET by Tom Blumer.... to say that.
Good catch on reciprocity.
I wonder (actually, I don't) why the media is ignoring the fact that Obama couldn't even win two of IL's five border states (IN and presumably KY), and only pulled out MO by the skin of his teeth thanks to very suspect returns coming in late from St. Louis.