Gaffes

CNN.com Needs to Brush Up on Its Military Hardware

By Bob Owens | May 8, 2008 - 12:46 ET

CNN has an article posted this AM about the on-going misery in Myanmar resulting from the recent cyclone that devastated the Irrawaddy delta and has left as many as 100,000 dead. The country's paranoid military dictatorship is hampering aid efforts, and as a result, is no doubt adding to the number of dead and injured.

In writing about the U.S. forces in the area poised to help if the dictatorship will only allow international aid, CNN makes the following curious claim (in bold):

Cindy Crawford Fights Global Warming Malibu Style

By Jeff Poor | May 7, 2008 - 12:20 ET

Another celebrity has seen Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and found green religion.

Supermodel-turned-mommy Cindy Crawford, now a blogger for Vanity Fair's Web site, appeared on ABC's May 7 "Good Morning America" to tell viewers they can save the environment by buying a $20 water bottle.

"But my kids go to a school in Malibu and it's super-environmentally conscious," Crawford said. "We do beach clean ups, try to use less plastic as a school. And so, that kind of made me think what can I do? And, I teamed up with PUR, which is a water filtration company. They do the things you can attach to your faucets, as well as those pitchers and we came up with a reusable water bottle."

When It Comes to Church Names, ABCNews.com Hasn't a Prayer

By Ken Shepherd | May 5, 2008 - 10:40 ET

Former President Bill Clinton pinged ABCNews.com's Political Radar on a pulpit-pounding campaign swing through the Tarheel State just two days before the North Carolina primary. But it appears the alphabet network's Web site not only got the name of an Asheville, N.C., church wrong, but it misspelled, three times, the name of a denomination within Protestant Christianity (emphasis mine) in this May 4 blog post (screencap below fold):

ABC News' Sarah Amos reports: Former President Bill Clinton spent time in two western North Carolina churches this morning, speaking more from his heart than any sort of political handbook.

"I didn't come here to ask you to vote for my wife," said Clinton, addressing the congregation at Church of the Pentacostal in Asheville, N.C. "I came here to ask you to pray for her. And to vote. Do whatever you want. Show up. Our country is in dire distress.

Joe Lieberman's 'Lurch to the Right' Since 2000 Loss?

By Clay Waters | April 22, 2008 - 14:22 ET

New York Times reporter John Broder's front-page Week in Review story was titled "Gore-Lieberman: A Hyphen Apart? Try Poles." Much like the story itself, Broder's lead was a lazy attempt at provocation. (NewsBuster Warner Todd Huston also dissected the piece on Sunday.)

Imagine for a moment the Supreme Court had gone the other way in Bush v. Gore in 2000. We would now be in year eight of the Gore-Lieberman administration. Well, maybe not the Lieberman part.

LAT Claims George Washington Only Served One Term in Office

By Lynn Davidson | April 21, 2008 - 00:47 ET

Official White House portrait of Gorge Washington

UPDATED: 

Journalists love reporting that Americans are stupid, and they salivate at the thought of asking us to find the United States on a map or who we fought in the American Revolution. That's why it is rather amusing that the Los Angeles Times mistakenly claimed that George Washington only served one term in office as US president. 

LAT television critic Mary McNamara made the slip up in this April 19 article about HBO's surge in popularity when she began describing the cable network's “John Adams” miniseries (via Patterico) (all bold mine):

In his portrayal of our second president, Paul Giamatti creates a man perpetually dissatisfied, disgusted by the preening ambition of politics even as he is infected by it... [S]etting up a new government is a bureaucratic nightmare, with oversized personalities disagreeing over things both petty and fundamental. George Washington (David Morse) so quickly tired of the infighting among his Cabinet and vagaries of public opinion that he stepped down from the presidency after a single term. "I know now what it is like to be disliked," he says to Adams, his perpetually disliked vice president.

MSM Swallows Obama’s Condemnation of His Pastor Whole

By John Stephenson | March 14, 2008 - 22:34 ET

The MSM is reporting on Obama’s STRONG condemnation of his pastor’s controversial, racist, American hating remarks. Sister Toldjah finds the defense laughable. Despite the holes in Obama’s repudiation, such as the fact that he was a member of Wright’s church for twenty years and apparantly never heard one of his extreme remarks or the fact that Barack didn’t find the remarks enough to leave the church….Sweetness & Light dig up the inconvient truth: Obama Knew What His Pastor Was Saying. Despite this fact, Obama still put the man on his campaign.:

What If McCain Had Attended Westboro Baptist?

By John Stephenson | March 14, 2008 - 17:26 ET

Update: Obama finally comes out with strong repudiation. Is it enough? He will also be interviewed on FOX tonight.

Now, everyone has heard Obama's pastor of 20 years preach his racist message of America hate, and Obama has come out with his very weak response. We have also saw the study on how the network media failed in its coverage.

Sometimes we instinctively know the truth. Sometimes it is easy to demonstrate this with a hypothetical question that has an obvious answer.

So, I am asking this simple hypothetical question:

Obama: Xerox. Hillary: Memorex?

By Mark Finkelstein | February 22, 2008 - 09:16 ET

It's not a very long run. It'll be over by February 5th. -- Hillary Clinton, 'This Week,' Dec. 30, 2007.

That was Hillary less than two months ago. Here she was on this morning's Today.

MEREDITH VIEIRA: So no matter what happens in Texas and Ohio, you will go on.

HILLARY CLINTON: Well Meredith, I don't make predictions. I never have, I never will. I just get up every day and, you know, do the best I can to, you know, let people know what I have done and what I am doing and what I will do.

If it's true, as Hillary Clinton claimed during last night's debate, that Barack Obama needs Xerox to copy other's rhetoric, maybe Clinton could use another piece of 20th-century technology: Memorex.

NBC's Ann Curry Can't Find Illinois on Map

By Geoffrey Dickens | February 4, 2008 - 13:49 ET

On the Monday "Today" show co-host Ann Curry was breaking down the delegate counts for each Super Tuesday state with NBC's political director Chuck Todd but when it came to finding Barack Obama's home state of Illinois on the map, Curry pointed to Minnesota instead.

The following exchange occurred on the February 4 "Today" show:

ANN CURRY: Okay let's talk about the home states because we've got Illinois--