Category Archives: Gaffes

Hertzberg on Perry

Oopsday at Rancho Perry

Hendrik Hertzberg gathered a pile of Perry poop for his New Yorker magazine article (January 30, 2012)

At Rancho Perry, every day was Oopsday. Along the trail, he forgot how many Justices the Supreme Court has (eight is not enough); forgot the name of one of them (Sonia Sotomayor); placed the American Revolution in the sixteenth century; identified the voting age (fixed at eighteen four decades ago by constitutional amendment) as twenty-one; and suggested that the chairman of the Federal Reserve is a traitor, that Turkey (a nato ally of sixty years’ standing) is governed by Islamic terrorists, and that Social Security is not only a Ponzi scheme but also a criminal enterprise, a monstrous lie, and unconstitutional. And there’s this whopper, from his farewell speech: “As a former Air Force pilot, I don’t get confused.”

Gaffe Collection Gaffe Gumbo: A U.S.A. Miscellany

 

 

Gaffe Collection: Gumbo (A U.S.A. Miscellany)

Pit Bull

What is the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? 

Sarah Palin’s single-word answer to her own question—“lipstick”—propelled her from relatively obscure Alaska governor to political superstar. A superstar that fizzled out fast.

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Gaffe Collection: No Gaffes Please, We’re British

When Big Ben can’t make his mind up….

Vote for my party and, if elected, we will put 10,000 more police on the streets. What’s not to like?

Vote for my party and, if elected, we will build 50,000 social homes. Sounds good to me.

Wait a minute. How much will these initiatives cost?

In 2017, after Britain’s Labour Party announced that it would hire an additional 10,000 police, radio interviewer Nick Ferrari asked Labour minister Diane Abbott how many coppers these new coppers would cost.

£300,000, she replied.  

Wrong answer. £300k would suffice to pay each policeman a few pennies per hour. She tried again, upping the total to £80 million. Wrong again. The real cost would be about four times that amount.

A similar gaffe-by-number felled Green Party leader Natalie Bennett a few years earlier when the same interviewer asked her about the price tag for those 50,000 homes.

£2.7 billion was her prompt – and incorrect – answer.

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Prime Time, Ready or Not: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

The Gaffe Collection: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

On June 26, 2018, 28-year-old political novice Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez soundly (57-43 per cent) defeated ten-term Democrat incumbent Joe Crowley in the primary contest for a seat in Congress. Continue reading

The Gaffe Collection: Greg Gianforte

British Journalism’s Jugular Warfare

By Robert Liebman, Times of Israel blog, May 26th, 2017 – slighted modified and photographs added, July 24, 2018.

“I’m sick and tired of you guys!” Wham! Bam! Politician slams journalist to the ground.

Greg Gianforte, the Republican candidate in Montana’s special House of Representatives election, grappled with British reporter Ben Jacobs and threw hiim to the floor. Continue reading

The Gaffe Collection: Off the Cuff

Off the Cuff

by Robert Liebman, originally published July 21, 2012, this version slightly tweaked

My collection of gaffes by American politicians grows—boy, does it grow – with each election, and with every session of Congress.

But the details of one past gaffe elude me. Whodunnit? When did he do it? Alas, why did he not have enough sense to finesse his way out of danger? Continue reading

The Gaffe Collection: Ron Akin

The Gaffe Collection: Ron Akin

by Robert Liebman, 2012

Mister Potato(e) Head

When a schoolboy correctly spelled “potato,” George H. W. Bush’s Vice Presidential running mate Dan Quayle intervened, saying that “potato” should end with an e.

Quayle misspelled.

Todd Akin

Todd Akin

Missouri congressman Todd Akin said that rape victims could biologically fend off pregnancy.

Akin “misspoke.”

Running for a Senate seat in Missouri, Akin said what he meant and believed about abortion, but he ended up on the canvas. He knocked himself out. Continue reading