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If Bush Had Said It — 49 Comments

  1. In what way is Austrian different from Bavarian, Obonga?

    I’m still looking for those eight other states…

  2. Personally I’m wondering when he’s going to talk about how Berliners speak Prussian.

    I think Obama is so convinced of his intellectual superiority that he doesn’t realize that he doesn’t know anything. That’s a clear example of incompetence.

    He should take a cue from Socrates. I think that you are theoretically supposed to read Socrates at some point during your education at Columbia. Then again, there are a lot of things about Obama that are “theoretical”.

  3. Sorry I meant Plato’s rendition of Socrates. You can’t read Socrates as he didn’t write any books!

  4. Been there many times. They say “wheeling and dealing” in Austin, just like everywhere. Or, maybe “negocie y estipule”. What could Barack be thinking?

  5. Your feature name is short and to the point. It’s a much better name than Hot Air’s somewhat clumsy “Obamateurisms”.

  6. Oh. my. God.

    Look what we’ve caught Obama in! What rank hypocrisy! What stupidity! Oh what an abominably ignorant mistake!

    Give me a break. The differences between the German spoken in Austria and elsewhere (even within Austria) are quite significant – definitely significant enough that I would not feel uncomfortable asking how one would say an idiom in “Austrian.” I am not a German speaker myself, but I would wager that the phrases are different.

    And if Obama really was that dumb? I’m guessing he’s already heard the end of it from advisers, or even those to whom he was speaking. I was actually looking forward to something heavy with this post – my mistake.

  7. Where’s the outrage from the “mainstream” media? Any number of things that Obama has said and done, if said by Bush, they’d have been all over it. Scumbags… 😡

  8. Peter: you misunderstand. I take neo-neocon not to say that Obama is stupid or that any misspeaking should brand him as a moron – especially on camera, errors will happen even to the most eloquent speaker.

    The point is rather that things like this, when they happened to Bush, were collected in books and in lists on the internet, juxtaposed with a chimpanzee with Bush’s face. Every misstatement of Bush was taken as proof that he is a sub-epsilon moron.

    To the point: I’m a native Austrian, and there might just be a genuine Austrian (as opposed to German) term for this, as Austrian politics have traditionally been quite corrupt, with lots of behind-the-scenes dealing between the two major parties, the é–VP and the SPé–, though I couldn’t think of a good translation right now.

    neo-neocon: you are not the first to get this idea. I started collecting stuff like this on a German-language forum here:
    http://83273.homepagemodules.de/t1935f27-Had-this-been-Bush-we-would-never-have-heard-the-end-of-it.html

    The title was inspired by John C. Wright,
    http://johncwright.livejournal.com/234041.html

  9. Please neo, by all means start a list of Obamonations….at this point I believe we are definitely going to need a sense of humor to get through this nightmare.

    Oh, and please include on the list Obama’s attempt to enter through a White House window rather than through the door just a few feet away – the photos are hilarious, and I think far funnier than when someone locked a door on Bush during a trip to Asia in a building he was unfamiliar with – but which was lauded as proof of how “stupid” Bush was.

    I believe The One also laughingly admitted how he gets lost in the White House all the time….

  10. I don’t think you can embarrass a narcissist. You will only enrage them. Late night talk show host instinctively know this.

  11. If you’re willing to expand the category to actions as well as words, how about bowing not only to a foreign ruler–unseemly for the leader of a republic–but doing so to the king of a reactionary, fundamentalist, misogynistic, repressive country?

  12. Since you are not a German speaker, Peter, you cannot possibly know. There are various dialects in Austria and in Germany and sometimes words and phrases are different but there IS NO SUCH LANGUAGE AS AUSTRIAN and the official language of the country is Hoch Deutsch. Errm, that’s Austrian for high German. Don’t assume things about other countries.

  13. Gorgasal reinforces neo-neo’s point that Liberals are too stubborn to see or admit. On these sorts of forums they get all sarcastic “oooh, how AWFUL,” and say things like “Is THAT all you can come up with?” etc., when a Biden gaff or yet another (and there have now been what – a couple DOZEN) Obama gaffs come to light. ……not on the evening news or from John Stewart, but….

    Via the internet.

    The whole point is not that Conservatives think MOST of those things are all that big a deal. We don’t. At least speaking for myself, I don’t.

    The point is: We’re hollarin and yellin about the Obama pratfalls and mistatement as loud as we can on these little forums, in our little echo chambers, BECAUSE THE MSM WON’T.

    Every single time, my reaction is simply: What if this had been Bush who did “x” or said “y.” For 8 years we had to put up with the “narrative” of Bush being a simpleton and/or insenstive, and/or “out of touch,”. The news media “narrative” was reinforced daily in the entertainment industry – John Stewart, stand up comics, Letterman, SNL.

    “Strategery” become part of the national lexicon. Like Sarah Palin being Dan Quayle’s kid sister and seeing Russia from her front porch — it’s now a part of our national culture.

    But when it is a Dem…….chirping crickets…..silence.

    Back in the Clinton days they had an expression…”its the economy, stupid.” I’ve got my own….When it comes to the Biden/Messiah pratfalls, it isn’t the pratfalls. Nope. …..”its the hypocrisy, stupid.”

    Changing the subject: The manner in which Pravda is covering the recent killings has clued me in on another new Propaganda “narrative” wave, which I think we are going to see hammered and hammered in order to soften up the lemmings – everything from the “slant” from NY Times news articles, the CNN “debate” forums, a “60 Minutes” feature or two, some highly slanted and dishonest polls, etc. It is this: All this “gun violence” from unstable “right wing” maniacs, is the reason “most people” are now “strongly in favor of” additional “oversight” and “reasonable regulations” on firearms – and our reasonable and well-spoken telepromtered Dear Leader will install a “task force” or a Czar or two to explore a “Federal solution” to our “escalating cultural of gun violence.”

    Just you wait. You heard it here first.

  14. Peter,

    You want heavy stupidity? Sheesh. This post is rather light. But we could go on and on about Obama’s total lack of understanding when it comes to macro-economics.

    Jimma Carta number 2 is in office. Can’t wait for the next Reagan to turn this country around again.

  15. Troll Peter,

    First you say, “The differences between the German spoken in Austria and elsewhere (even within Austria) are quite significant…”

    Then you say, ” I am not a German speaker myself…” So you propose to be knowledgeable in a language that you say you don’t know.

    Furthermore, for your information the language spoken in Austria is officially German!
    The differences between the German spoken in Austria and in Prussia are similar to the differences in English between someone from South Carolina and someone from Maine.

    How typical of your sort. Arrogance, attitude and ignorance.

    You end with, ” I was actually looking forward to something heavy with this post – my mistake.”
    Yes it was your mistake. You missed the obvious.

  16. On another list, I just came across an Austrian stating that Austrians do consider Austrian German to be at least as separate from northern German dialects as American from British Englsh, and that Austrians often refer to themselves as speaking “Oesterreichisch”. He had a Wikipedia article to back him up, too.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_language

    I still think Obama spoke from ignorance, but sometimes ignorance lucks out. Conversely, accurate phraseology may be dismissed as ignorance, particularly when used by someone who is disliked. You may remember that Bush was dismissed as a simpleton for referring to Jose Maria Aznar as “President” rather than Prime Minister. The Bush-deranged practically fell over laughing as such know-nothing buffoonery, but it turns out that Aznar’s correct title was President of the Council of Ministers.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mar%C3%ADa_Aznar

    “If Bush had said it”? No need to imagine.

  17. The Anchoress said, “I get tired of saying this, but, what would be the reaction if Bush had [said, done, this, that]?

  18. Peter,

    Stick to your schtick: Palin bashing. We thought when The One and his minions thoroughly trashed Palin – thanks to dedicated partisans like you – we had seen the last of the likes of you.

    But I guess the marching orders went out from David Axelrod and you folks are hard at it again. Now your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go into all the dark corners of those conservative blogs and defend The One from all of those cheap and unfair attacks on him.

  19. # SteveH Says:

    I don’t think you can embarrass a narcissist. You will only enrage them. Late night talk show host instinctively know this.

    If Obama had a trace of a sense of humor, this wouldn’t be a problem at all. But, a narcissist is so full of himself there’s simply no room left for one.

    People like that cannot STAND to be laughed at, to be ridiculed. That’s a serious chink in his armor.

  20. Peter the Alaskan kid: I don’t think you understand this post at all. I made it clear, I believe, that the point is not that Obama’s offense was so very terrible. The point is:

    (a) Obama is nevertheless supposed to be so extra smart and so erudite that he could not and would not make such an obvious error.

    (b) If Bush had made such an error, the MSM (not just the blogosphere on the Left) would have been all over it.

    It is especially (b) that I am highlighting here. The “Bush stupid ignorant” meme is one that will not die. But without his teleprompter, Obama is often inarticulate and either careless or ignorant, or sometimes both, in a way that the mainstream press would never let Bush get away with.

    In addition, I now submit that calling the language Austrians speak “Austrian” is possibly evidence of a great deal more general ignorance about the world, and Europe in particular, than Bush’s pronunciation of the word “nuclear,” which was a perfectly acceptable regional variant of the word. And yet liberals and the Left had conniptions over the latter and will never do anything but excuse the former, if they even bother to notice it at all.

  21. Yes, there are different dialects of a language. That is why BBC America puts subtitles on some of the dialogue in their shows. But we don’t say people speak British or American or Canadian or Australian, we speak English. Nor do the people in Latin America speak Honduran or Argentinean, they speak Spanish.

    Or is the movie and TV depiction of some hayseed telling a foreigner to speak American and the person is actually demonstrating eloquence and breeding?

  22. The differences between the German spoken in Austria and elsewhere (even within Austria) are quite significant.”

    No, they’re not – anymore than Canadian English differs from American, or Boston English from that in New Orleans. Some minor differences in expressions and accent, but that’s it.

  23. Neo,

    I understood your post. It only takes a little bit of reading comprehension to see what you are saying.

    Peter,

    When will Obama learn basic macro-economics?

  24. I don’t have degrees from Columbia and Harvard. I was never the editor of the Harvard Law review. I have never been a constitutional scholar. And yet I know that Austrians speak German. There are extraordinary gaps in President Obama’s knowledge base, and this is not the first example of that fact. What does it say about those storied institutes of higher learning which he attended? I think it says they were so interested in making sure an obviously talented, but under-educated african-american student succeeded, that they didn’t do all they should have to make sure he attained their usual educational standards by the time he graduated. Obama is, in every sense, the first affirmative action president.

  25. well he just topped himself..

    so much for history….
    (he doesnt know dip does he?)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIVd7YT0oWA&feature=player_embedded

    and elsewhere…
    Bachmann warns gov’t creating ‘re-education camps’

    and

    two Syrian nationals purported to be in preparations of an attack against President Obama were reportedly detained by the é„°stanbul police on Saturday. According to a story that was published in Sunday’s Habert郼rk daily, the Turkish police and the CIA unearthed a plan of four individuals using fake identity cards belonging to the Al Jazeera television station to follow the US president’s visit as journalists and kill Obama by throwing a knife at him during the president’s Alliance of Civilizations meeting at the éƒc鄱raé„Ÿan Palace scheduled for tonight.

    NEWT GINGRICH SLAMS OBAMA POLICY in VIDEO
    gannett.a.mms.mavenapps.net/mms/rt/1/site/gannett-springfield-042-pub01-live/current/launch.html?maven_playerId=immersiveplayer&maven_referralObject=1082960719

    “No man’s life, liberty or property is safe while Congress is in session,” Mark Twain

  26. I love the way liberals will consider a european with bigoted views toward America, and never been more than 30k from where he was born as somehow a cultured fellow.

    At least in America our rednecks aren’t in lockstep conformity with what the government tells them to think.

  27. I have to confess that I did not pick up on the Austrian language thing even though I have visited both Austria and Germany. My wife picked it up immediately, and I said “of course”.

    What bothers me about these gaffes, in particular the ones that occur during prepared remarks, is the clear evidence of sloppy staff work. It seems to be endemic; and that can have unfortunate consequences. Most Leaders know not to tolerate sloppy staff work on even the smallest matters, because it rapidly becomes habit.

    I suspect that at least some of Obama’s problems with extemporaneous comment is habit. Of course part of it results from the arrogance of not admitting that he is not conversant with the subject; and at least part involves awkward verbal pauses while he concocts a fairy tale in answer to a question.

  28. I tend to agree with the position that “Austrian,” “High German” and “German,” are all the same language, i.e German, with allowances for dialects, accents, colloquialisms and word choices. When my brother, who learned German in the Bavarian dialect, went to Germany, he, at first, had difficulty with the Prussian accent, but quickly overcame it. I remember when I went to Australia and wondered for the first day or so if these people really spoke English as I had always been told, but after a day or so, I overcame the initial difficulties. Of course, slang from one language to another is a whole ‘nother issue.

  29. More worrisome than Obama’s ignorance about geography and culture is his ignorance about history. He seems to recognize no reality and no narrative but the one he creates, with the willing collusion of the mainstream media.

    This is where we’ve gotten to – from a lying President who manipulated the meaning of the word “is,” to a self-centered, self-important twit who thinks the meaning of the word “is” is whatever he says it is.

    The real problem is, he may be right. In a world where perception is reality, those of us on the side of logic and history are getting shut down by a delusional mob with their fingers in their ears, chanting “la la la la la!”

  30. Highlander,

    I like you do not have any degrees from “them high-falutin’ ” institutions, but then again I wouldn’t have any problem with anyone seeing my transcripts or birth certificate.

    On another note – I don’t think Obama truly understands that it is necessary to get it right instead of just being in the neighborhood. Gonna cause a lot of trouble down the road.

  31. @E

    You’re analysis is quite correct.

    It usually takes a lot more intellectual curiosity and academic understanding to realize that there is no absolute narrative of history. I think anyone that takes Marxism and leftism at face value ignores history or relegates it to simplistic categorization.

  32. “E”, well said.I think that History for O started when he got elected.He is going to remake this nation with little regard for our history or anyone else’s.
    How did we elect someone who thinks that there is 58 states?And how many voters knew of that enormous mistake?
    I am really curious about his grades.

  33. David L. Says:

    “On another list, I just came across an Austrian stating that Austrians do consider Austrian German to be at least as separate from northern German dialects as American from British Englsh”

    Lets break it down. “I’m glad to be here, I don’t know what the phrase is in British….”

    Does not really flow… He was, probably, just wrong.

  34. Sorry E, I made a grammatical mistake. “your” not “you’re”.

    In the speech of the times: an EPIC FAIL on my part.

  35. Socrates was a Conservative Republican. He didn’t write anything down because he believed that writing was an abomination. If you wrote down your thoughts you would be held accountable for your stupidities.

    Socrates was a Conservative Republican.

    Oh. I already said that.

  36. @E,

    Logic, complex mathematics, economics, Arabic.

    They figured that I was doing fine on the whole grammar thing.

  37. Socrates was a Conservative Republican.

    Someone who obeys the law because when the law makes a verdict against you and you overthrow the law, there is no rule of law.

    As compared to a Leftist, fake liberal Democrat, they don’t care about the law because it is every man for himself. If somebody can be bought, buy him. If a woman can be sold, sell her.

    That is the fundamental philosophy justifying Leftism, their ideology, and their political platforms.

  38. Jym Allyn, your message was garbled and doesn’t make any sense. Please re-transmit.

  39. Pingback:JibJab - This Land! | Coffee Break

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