Gary Johnson gave an interview on Morning Joe on Thursday and had the biggest setback of his campaign so far.
The Libertarian Party nominee was asked about the Syrian city of Aleppo, what used to be the nation’s most populated city which has become the center of the fighting and refugee crisis. Johnson looked perplexed at the the question and asked, “What is Aleppo?”
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Bit of a rough morning at the NYT. https://t.co/UcDaEa7b4Z #WhatIsAleppo pic.twitter.com/njsmxHk4e2
— Ben McCarty (@benpmccarty) September 8, 2016
A couple of seconds seemed like an eternity and the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe took the opportunity to say that Johnson was disqualified as a presidential candidate. Mika Brzezinski even said that supporters of the Libertarian nominee now had to vote for Hillary Clinton.
I’m sure their need to denounce Johnson has nothing to do with the fact that he pulls more votes from Democrats than Republicans.
Ironically, some of his biggest detractors in the mainstream media also didn’t know much about Aleppo. The New York Times had to issue two corrections when publishing an article about the Syrian city.
Johnson immediately came clean and gave a very humble response, admitting that he’s human and made a mistake.
“… hit with ‘What about Aleppo?’, I immediately was thinking about an acronym, not the Syrian conflict. I blanked. It happens, and it will happen again during the course of this campaign,” Johnson said in a statement.
The apology and admission of guilt is a refreshing change in 2016, with Hillary Clinton’s constant lies about her email scandal and Donald Trump’s refusal to ever say “I’m sorry,” maybe the two front-runners could learn something from the Libertarian candidate.
Americans are not expecting their candidates to be perfect — the slightest gaffe is not career-ending. Serious questions of integrity won’t even end a candidacy anymore, but an admission of guilt and an apology may still be able to salvage the slightest bit of honesty left in modern politics.
