GAFFE PROTECTION
SEPTEMBER 2011
I am unable to see every speech or statement given by policy makers live, so I often make use of transcripts to get the unfiltered comments of our fearless leaders. We have been accustomed to the mainstream media taking gaffes by prominent Republicans or conservatives in their statements and turning them into laugh lines or enlightened commentary on the stupidity of that individual and his or her beliefs.
The reality is that sometimes people screw up in their public statements. For example: I do not believe that Barrack Obama thinks that there are 57 states. I believe this, even after he said he visited 57 of them in an interview while running for office in 2007. Media bias, does however exist in which story gets coverage or the laugh line. It would be hard to deny the convergence in coverage in the mainstream press if Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman, or Rick Perry said such a thing during a campaign interview. What was shocking to me this past week, and I do not shock easily, was how far the press is willing to go to cover up gaffes by their favorite politicians.
During President Obama’s nationally televised September 2011 jobs speech to a joint session of Congress, he wrongly stated that Abraham Lincoln as the founder of the Republican Party. The reality was that Lincoln did not join the Republican Party until 1856, which just so happened to be two years after the party was founded. The first Republican convention was held in Ripon, Wisconsin in 1854.
No big deal as far as I was concerned. Either the President made an honest mistake, or maybe his speechwriters did. This gaffe did not get the consensus mutual righteous mainstream media condemnation that most certainly would have accompanied any conservative that made the same error. What was truly frightening and enlightening was the length that a major press organization went out of their way to cover for the President.
In the taxpayer funded PBS official transcript it quoted the President, “We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union. But in the middle of a Civil War, he was also a leader who looked to the future.” PBS completely scrubbed the fact that the President stated, “We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union. Founder of the Republican Party. But in the middle of a Civil War , he was a leader who looked to the future.”
PBS later noted that they just released what the White House gave them. So technically they published a press release from the White House. I was led to believe that the media was supposed to observe and report. If PBS is going to just reproduce White House press releases I would certainly think that there is better places for my tax dollars to be spent.
