“On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today — our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.” – Barack Obama, yesterday.
Proving himself prophetic, ABC’s Jake Tapper referred to Barack Obama as a “one man gaffe machine” just prior to the long weekend. The charge was especially poignant as Tapper is inarguably not part of the right wing noise machine (although based on this elegant turn of phrase, I think I may recruit him). As Allah pointed out this morning, it’s a little late in the game for Republicans to make a federal case over a politician’s inability to express himself precisely. Still, Obama is running on his talents, particularly his verbal skills. If memory serves, George W. Bush never based his political campaigns on similar terrain. By continuing to misspeak, Obama will undercut a central part of his campaign narrative. All these gaffes are odd. Obama’s a bright guy, and generally well-spoken. You can’t help but wonder why he says so many ill-informed and just plain stupid things. Below is my list of personal theories for why this keeps happening. Please bear in mind, the likely explanation is a combination of all four: 1) As I mentioned over the weekend, candidates work insane 18 hour days for months on end with no time off. The fatigue would get to anyone. Obama likely feels the pinch here more than his rivals. The longtime community organizer is not only a novice politician who has never run a competitive race before, but he also has never logged hours anything like he’s pulling now. A high powered partner at a big law firm or a young medical resident would have experience with a crushing and pressure-filled workload that demands intellectual precision if not perfection. There’s nothing in Obama’s background that suggests he’s had any practical experience that would have prepared him for this campaign. 2) The only solution to the fatigue factor is to stay disciplined and stay on script. That’s one of the reasons why Ronald Reagan had so few gaffes compared to Obama. The current Oval Office resident also had a lot fewer gaffes than Obama as a candidate, and it’s not because he’s a gifted extemporaneous speaker. There’s a reason why Republicans held their breath every time George W. Bush entered the presidential debate arena. So then the issue becomes why can’t Obama stay on script? Is it arrogance? Is it a desire to “keep it real” by constantly allowing himself the luxury of saying stupid things? I would wager that Obama has advisors who are imploring him to stop vamping as we speak. And yet he keeps doing things his way, a way that could lead to a gaffe that unlike yesterday’s will leave a mark. 3) Many times, Obama doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Kudos to him, though – he doesn’t let that inconvenient fact hinder him from expressing himself on the topic at hand. There are worst personal traits. Some of my best friends are blustery know-it-alls. The problem for a politician with such a characteristic isn’t necessarily the gaffes the trait produces, but rather the ignorance those gaffes reveal. 4) Obama has wonderfully enthusiastic acolytes that ignore his mistakes and overlook his shortcomings. It’s possible that these voices of approval (millions of them!) have led Obama to conclude he can do no wrong, and he thus shows an inappropriate lack of caution when vamping. One problem with this strategy, though: Soon Obama will be leaving the echo-chamber for good.
