Obama Calls Canadian Prime Minister a 'President' - Where is Media Ridicule?

August 9th, 2007 5:43 AM

At the Democrat Party presidential debates last Tuesday, Barack Obama revealed that he didn't know that our Canadian neighbors to the north had a prime minister instead of a president leading them. Yet the MSM has practically ignored this obvious gaffe, with few of them making much of the incident. This is a far cry from how Bush was so virulently attacked for having no foreign policy "gravitas" during the 2000 campaign. But for a Democrat in 2007 it's pass time. Nothing to see here, folks, keep moving.

In response to a trade question during the debate, Obama said he'd "immediately call the president of Mexico (and) the president of Canada" to discuss the issue. Of course, Canada has no "president," and this gaffe further shows Barack's unfamiliarity with foreign nations proving his unsuitability to lead our country during an era where foreign policy will be of prime importance.

But even as Bush repeatedly got nailed, Barack is given a pass.

Now, I found a short snippet on CNN's Political Ticker blog about the gaffe with one titled Obama slip on Canada.

For the second time in recent debates, the mention of world leaders has attracted attention to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

At Tuesday night’s AFL-CIO forum in Chicago, Obama was asked if he would scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement as president. The senator from Illinois said, “I would immediately call the president of Mexico, the president of Canada, to try to amend NAFTA, because I think that we can get labor agreements in that agreement right now.”

The only problem is Canada has a prime minister, not a president.

No, CNN, the "only problem" is not that Canada has a prime minister, but that Obama seems not to even know that our close neighbor has a prime minister, instead of a president.

Other than a few mentions elsewhere and this CNN note -- and a few scattered blog mentions -- about the only media outlets that mentioned this too much were Canadian ones. It isn't surprising that Canada covered it, of course, but it is surprising that the US media so ignored it.

Heck, even the extremist hate site the Democraticunderground took Obama to task for his stupid gaffe with many of the postings there!

Now, let us contrast that with what happened during the run up to the 2000 election when George W. Bush was ridiculed for not knowing the names of four leaders of countries in the world at the time that were considered trouble spots he might have to deal with as president. Andy Hiller, a political reporter for WHDH-TV, sprung this pop quiz on Bush in an interview in 1999. This story was covered extensively by the MSM. Bush was universally called a dolt and unqualified to run our foreign policy.

Yet, Obama goes from wanting to meet with our worst enemies, to bombing our allies, to not even knowing the office of the leader of one of our closest allies and he is given a pass by the MSM?

One word describes it: Hypocrites