Gaffes

Mika Brzezinski, co-host of MSNBC's “Morning Joe”, showed her father's aptitude for foreign policy this morning.

The daughter of one of the Carter administration's chief foreign policy wonks started by scolding Robert Gibbs' knee-capping response to former Vice President Dick Cheney's CNN interview, saying that:

BRZEZINSKI: I would have probably wanted to take that on in a big way because many would argue that Cheney made the country more dangerous. Cheney is the one who put us in the position we're in and now has al Qaeda reconstituting around the world. There's some good answers to what Cheney said.

Many would, and they would be proven wrong by that very statement. It was Cheney's policies that destroyed Al Qaeda to the point that they had to “reconstitute” at all. It was Cheney's policies that stopped a long string of al Qaeda attacks. It was indeed Cheney's policies that put us in the position we're in - winning, and safe at home. Apparently, Brzezinski's idea of a better response would have been to attack the policies that have made us safe in the first place.

Meredith Vieira cracked up "Today" show co-hosts Ann Curry, Matt Lauer, and Al Roker today as she tried, apparently, to make a joke about micro-blogging application Twitter.

The gaffe is somewhat reminiscent to her unintentional use of double entendre in a similar segment in late January.

Video below the fold.:

 

NBC's Meredith Vieira, appearing with weatherman Al Roker in a "Today" show live-shot from a rain-soaked set in Tampa, cracked herself and her camera crew up by saying "we're moist."

The unintended double entendre was uttered by the morning show host during the 7 a.m. weather segment. Vieira and Roker were in the Super Bowl XLIII host city to promote NBC's televised coverage of the February 1 game to "Today" viewers.

Click on the play button in the video embed at right to watch.

Today on the New York Daily News's Web site appear a picture and story of President Obama having trouble getting back into the White House.  The article begins:

It looks like President Obama hasn't gotten acquainted to his White House surroundings. On the way back to the Oval Office Tuesday, the President approached a paned window, instead of the actual door -- located a few feet to his right.

Doors didn't open automatically for Obama’s predecessor either. While making a hasty exit from a 2005 press conference in Beijing, former President George W. Bush tugged on the handles of a door, only to find it locked.

Bush laughed off the blunder, but the pictures still live on as part of Bush's lame duck legacy. However, there was little note taken of Obama's rookie mistake.

"Why would a show trial or witchhunt be bad?"

So asked Chris Matthews of Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy on today's edition of "Hardball." Gaffney was joined by liberal pundit David Corn of Mother Jones magazine in a segment around 5:20 p.m. ET and they were discussing the call by liberal Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) for a war crimes investigation of senior Bush administration officials and terrorist detainee interrogators.

For video of the exchange, click the play button on the embedded video.

Was Time magazine's Jay Carney hired by the Obama transition as Joe Biden's director of communications in order to keep a tight lid on the Beltway's greatest gaffe machine?

Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz reports, you decide:

Time magazine's Jay Carney, who said over the summer that Joseph R. Biden Jr. is "incredibly prone to say the wrong thing," will soon be in charge of ensuring that doesn't happen again.

[...]

In July, before Barack Obama picked the senator from Delaware as his running mate, Carney said on MSNBC that "Biden may be the answer" because of his foreign policy credentials. The "downside," Carney said, is that Biden has said the wrong thing "throughout his career. . . . He's smart, but he speaks -- shoots from the hip and sometimes says just wrong thing at the wrong time."

Remember the "Seinfeld" episode where an alleged friend of the show's title character bad-mouthed him as "phony," then lamely spun it as a compliment when confronted by Seinfeld?

Self-professed "progressive talker" Ed Schultz tried much the same yesterday while talking with a caller about whether the federal government should engage in yet another bailout, this time for the ailing auto industry.

Schultz said he has little doubt that Congress will quickly enact some type of rescue package for Detroit, seeing how unions were an integral part of the coalition that elected Obama.

What's gotten into the NBC/MSNBC water?  Chris Matthews's verbal miscue on this evening's Hardball makes a triple-header of gaffes on the family of networks today.  As we've noted, Joe Scarborough kicked off the slip parade, unintentionally dropping an f-bomb on Morning Joe.  About an hour later on Today, Meredith Vieira stumbled into asking Matt Lauer a question that invoked the uncomfortable subject of his rocky marital history.  And now, discussing Sarah Palin's political future, Matthews committed the same stumble that an unscrupulous staffer claims the vice-presidential candidate made: calling Africa a country. [H/t anonymous reader.]

Matthews made his mistake in the course of posing a question to Larry Persily, a former member of Palin's gubernatorial staff.

"Rachel Maddow is the smartest person on TV," proclaims The Advocate magazine in a cover story on the newly christened MSNBC pundit and Air America Radio host.

That being the case, Maddow ought to know better than make some of the claims she does -- at least when it comes to politics, economics and American history.

Most recent example: Maddow's interview on Nov. 5 with former Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee and their discussion of the Republican Party's future --

Whoops. It's turning into quite the morning for gaffes on the NBC/MSNBC family of networks.  As noted here, during the Today opening, Meredith Vieira stumbled onto the sensitive subject of Matt Lauer's marital history.  Then, during Morning Joe's 8 AM hour, Joe Scarborough accidentally dropped an f-bomb, provoking a protracted apolog-a-thon. [H/t reader P.C.]

[Warning: video contains unexpurgated F-bomb 20 seconds in].

During a break, Time's Jay Carney had apparently told a story of some politico who had used the f-word. Back on the air, Scarborough had actually been praising the discipline of the Obama team members.   It was in describing them as people who, in contrast with the person Carney had mentioned, were careful with their words and deeds, that Joe's internal edit button went on the fritz.

Ruh-roh.  Things might get a little testy on the set when the lights go down after this morning's Today.  Teasing an upcoming segment about the right age to get married, Meredith Vieira stumbled into the apparently sore subject of co-host Matt Lauer's rocky marital history.

After mentioning that she had gotten married in her 30s, Vieira turned to Matt and asked when he had gotten married.  That elicited an embarrassed and embarrassing pause from Lauer, whose first marriage ended in divorce and whose second wife once filed for divorce before withdrawing the papers.

Today's Unintentional Honesty Award goes to Jonathan Capehart.  The Washington Post editorialist, discussing Barack Obama's acceptance speech last night, spoke of the president-elect thanking "his reporters," before catching himself and substituting "supporters."

Joe Scarborough, with an assist from executive producer Chris Licht, called Capehart out on his Freudian slip.  The WaPo man proceeded to pat himself on the back as one of those rare MSM members who had not been in the tank for Obama.  Right.

[Listen to audio here.]

I may have found the real reason Sen. Barack Obama was hesitant to appear on "The O'Reilly Factor." Fear of flunking the "Great American Culture Quiz."

From an October 29 blog post by Chicago Sun-Times Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet:

RALEIGH, N.C.--Barack Obama seemed to mix up black television sitcoms "Sanford and Son" and "The Jeffersons" in a speech Wednesday, where he was making the point that if Social Security had ever been privatized--as Republicans tried to do a few years ago, folks invested in the stock market would have been whacked with giant losses because of the economic meltdown.

"Can you imagine if you had your Social Security invested in the stock market these last two weeks, these last two months.

You wouldn't need Social Security. You'd be having a, ya know like Sanford and Sons, 'I'm coming Weezy."

Describing John McCain's alleged rationale for not mentioning '60s radical William Ayers in the second presidential debate, rising liberal media darling Rachel Maddow recently attributed a dubious quote to McCain -- "I didn't have the guts."

Wow -- McCain said that?  Well, not exactly.

Maddow, making the assertion during a broadcast of her Air America Radio show, cited politicalwire.com as her source. Here's how it was reported at politicalwire.com on Oct. 14 in a brief post titled, "McCain Pledges to Bring Up Ayers in Debate" --

It appears Sen. John McCain will take Sen. Barack Obama up on his challenge.

In an interview on a St. Louis radio station, McCain said Obama's comments that "I didn't have the guts" to talk about William Ayers in the last presidential debate have "probably ensured" that the former 1960s radical will come up in Wednesday's debate.

In other words, McCain stated the words, "I didn't have the guts," at least according to politicalwire.com -- but McCain was quoting Obama saying this about him, McCain.

Remember the furor and the comedic punch lines as a result of Sarah Palin’s statement, implying that she needed someone to clarify the role of the Vice President?

Well, brace yourselves for a similarly overwhelming media reaction to Joe Biden’s solution on where one can locate the definition of the Vice President’s role – Article I of the Constitution.

Problem being, it’s actually Article II.

To most, this will simply constitute another famous Biden gaffe. However, Biden was so forceful and patronizing in his argument during last night’s debate that Dick Cheney should realize ‘Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president,’ that it bears pointing out.

The full excerpt from the debate follows (h/t to Michelle Malkin):

MSNBC's David Shuster continued the attack on Governor Sarah Palin for not allowing reporters in on meetings she attended at the United Nations. Fellow Newsbuster Ken Shepherd pointed out recently the media never complained over not having full access to Barack Obama's meetings with foreign leaders during his tour through the Middle East and later Europe.

However, Shuster's attack included a very edited down tape of Palin and Dr. Henry Kissinger, which attempted to make Palin look like she knew little of what was being discussed. Moreover, Shuster seemed to take delight in pointing out Palin's spokeswoman misspelled Kissinger's last name(my emphasis added throughout):

She even answered a reporter, 'great, great', when asked how it went. Perhaps Kissinger and the governor also discussed Glastnost, because later in the day the campaign issued the following mini manifesto:

We regret the mix-up and were happy that the pool had access to the Governor's meetings with President Uribe and Dr. Henry Kissenger[sic.]

Incidentally, we here at MSNBC did not misspell Dr. Kissinger's name. That version came from Palin's gang.

UPDATED BELOW THE FOLD

After sounding cautiously, perhaps nervously optimistic in today's column about John McCain's choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate ("A Clear and Present Danger to the American Left," September 3), Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan performed an abrupt about-face in front of a live NBC microphone later in the day, apparently unaware she was being recorded. "It's over," Noonan said, apparently referring to the chances of the McCain Palin ticket sweeping to victory in November. (Link to NBC video clip)

Here is a transcript prepared by Frank James of the Chicago Tribune's blog, The Swamp:

MURPHY: You know, I come out of a blue, swing-state governor world. Engler Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, I mean, and these guys, this is all like how you win a Texas race, you run it up. It's not going to work.

NOONAN: It's over.

MURPHY: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

The ultimate objective in journalism is to deliver fresh information to the audience, to break heretofore unshattered stories.

Last night, ABC's Terry Moran did exactly that.

To get there, you must first wade through an extraordinary amount of Moran-Goo, as he slathers it liberally all over his reporting of the official nomination vote. But this is hardly groundbreaking. What comes next is.

The excited media throngs have already long hailed Illinois Senator Barack Obama for being the first bi-racial candidate ever to secure a major Party's nomination for President.

Moran yesterday added to the historic aura surrounding the Senator's parents.

It’s hard to imagine that Barack Obama has ever had to deal with a moment’s bad press from his pals at MSNBC, but you may remember how back on February 19, while anchoring coverage of the Wisconsin primary, Chris Matthews dared to ask a Texas state senator -- who was appearing on MSNBC to plead Obama's case -- to list “any” of his legislative accomplishments. He could not.

As Obama accepts the Democratic nomination tonight and the networks move to Minneapolis for the Republican National Convention, it seems a fair bet that TV’s talking heads will scold the GOP for daring to suggest Obama lacks the necessary experience to be president, so it's worth recalling how Matthews himself raised that point to devastating effect just six months ago.

Here’s the key part of that exchange, which originally aired shortly before 10pm EST on February 19:

The day after many in the media jumped to Barack Obama’s defense over the satirical cover of the latest New Yorker magazine, MSNBC News Live host Contessa Brewer brought on comedian and satirist Andy Borowitz to make fun of John McCain’s age.

Borowitz founded BorowitzReport.com, is a blogger at the left-leaning Huffington Post and is performing an on-stage production entitled “Countdown to ‘08” with guests such as Joy Behar from “The View” and CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin, both of whom are no strangers to NewsBusters criticism.

Brewer introduced the segment by informing viewers that:

When John McCain was born, there wasn’t even FM radio and forget about computers, they weren’t even a blip on the technological horizon.

Later, Brewer played clips of McCain trying to be humorous, including him parodying the Beach Boys hit “Barbara Ann” with the lyrics “bomb Iran” and joking that perhaps U.S.-exported cigarettes are shipped to the regime in order to kill Iranians. What followed was an exchange about McCain being too old to properly function as president:

Appearing as a guest during the 10 a.m. hour of the July 11 “MSNBC News Live,” Chicago Tribune managing editor James Warren compared McCain adviser Phil Gramm’s recent comments on the economy’s health to those of Henry Ford during the Great Depression:

But I think in the annals of a not particularly sensitive remarks this will rank up there with a bunch of things. Somebody, a historian reminded me yesterday, the auto manufacturing pioneer Henry Ford during the Depression said something to the effect that “these really are good times, it’s just that few know it.”

Warren then went on to suggest that Gramm needs to be reminded of the current economy’s impact on average Americans:

New York Times reporters Julie Bosman and John Broder gave Barack Obama defenders a boost on Friday with "Obama's Campaign Opens a New Web Site to Strike Back at ‘Dishonest Smears.'"

Called Fight the Smears, the website was apparently inspired by unfounded rumors that a recording exists of Obama's wife Michelle ranting about "Whitey" at the pulpit of the radical Trinity United Church of Christ, which the Obamas attended for 20 years until Barack Obama came under fire for the anti-American raving of Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Showing early signs of a bad habit, the Times strongly implied that the rumor originated with conservative bloggers, even though all evidence suggests that it first broke in the blogosphere in mid-May at the blog of a Hillary Clinton supporter.

Updated with video (19:55 EDT)

MSNBC has been criticized as being in the tank for Barack Obama. And so today, when the Obama campaign launched its own rumor-squelching website, MSNBC was all-too-eager to promote the site through several news bits.

But there was just one problem. For a time this afternoon, MSNBC mistakenly promoted a prank site (UPDATE: site has since been pulled and url removed from this post), as opposed to the actual Obama site http://fightthesmears.com.

While the Obama site denies and denounces the viral internet rumors, the gag site satirically perpetuates and builds upon them! Fair warning: the gag site deserves a bad taste alert.

Answer: Just two videos (see screencap at right).

Inspired by featured CNN.com video of a McCain gaffe -- wherein the Arizona senator says he'd veto every beer -- I decided to search the CNN.com Web site for video of Obama gaffes.

I got a grand total of two.

Now, to be fair, searching "McCain gaffe" yielded no videos of McCain gaffes, but one from November 2006 entitled "Kerry's gift of gaffe," referring to the liberal Massachusetts senator and 2004 Democratic nominee and his suggestion that American troops were stupid.

All the same, given Sen. Obama's numerous gaffes, it is notable that only two videos surface when one does a search for them:

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):

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.: