Freedom Fighter Media - Dumb Things Folks Say

That person said something stupid! He must be stupid!
Ever say something dumb? You can admit it. It's just you and me here. Sure you have. Have you ever said anything dumb in a public setting? Yeah, probably. Have you ever said something dumb with cameras rolling, mics on, and millions watching (or just 47 watching if we're talking about MSNBC)? If you've faux pased in the last category, you're in the rarefied world of the "public person." And when the public person says something dumb, especially if he or she is a Republican or a Christian, those bumbles turn you into someone instantly labeled as "stupid." Think Dan Quale misspelling "potato."

Recently, the flub heard round the world was uttered by Sarah Palin. She said "North" Korea when she meant to say "South." You can read Tucker Reals' article about it here. Funny, though, as Reals' description of Palin's mistake is also marred by error: "Palin's remarks come as the Obama administration, and it's ally (South Korea), mull prepare to conduct long-planned naval exercises off the Korean Peninsula." Reals was perhaps so eager to show, parenthetically, that he knew which Korea was Uncle Sam's buddy that he missed his own gaffe.

It's not like our current President doesn't say dumb and dumber things. But when he says them, he gets a pass. When Sarah Palin says something dumb, it's front page news. Why? Because Democrats and the Media love Obama and Democrats and the Media loathe Sarah Palin.

Obamaism One:

"Your employer, it's estimated, would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000%."

Must be the New New Math. Obama, in the same speech said "There are those who simply believe that the answer is to unleash the insurance industry, to deregulate them further, to provide less oversight and fewer rules." Yes, that would be ideal, Mr. President. The insurance industry is one of the most highly regulated in the nation and that's done what to insurance prices? Also, the Health Care Industry alone accounts for 444,000 employees. Are these "folks" (a favorite Obama provincialism) money-grubbing and evil or they just part of working America? I ask these questions of the "great uniter."

Angelina Jolie...
...said something dumb recently, at least according to her chums. Yes, it's second-hand so I'm not sure she actually said something this dumb, she just might not have very good friends: "Jolie hates this holiday (Thanksgiving) and wants no part in rewriting history like so many other Americans," the friend said. "To celebrate what the white settlers did to the native Indians, the domination of one culture over another, just isn't her style. She definitely doesn't want to teach her multi-cultural family how to celebrate a story of murder." Say it isn't so, Angelina. Everyone knows that America celebrates the "Story of Murder" in March, right after the "Rape of the Environment Festival."

Europeans and American tribes have a long history of both getting along and being at war. When the European settlers and Wampanoag tribe met for the first meal, no one murdered anyone, not counting the turkey. In general, native tribes had no trouble killing Europeans and would often ally with the English, the French, or whatever European was handy to make war against other tribes they weren't crazy about. It is common to paint the "Indian" as both a fearless warrior, gentle peace lover and now, casino operator. Somehow, these sterotypes are OK when it's convient. Where the native tribes got royally burned was in dealing with the USA in treaties that were, over and over again, not honored -- kind of like Obama promising his Health Care Reforms are lowering your premiums.

But to blame the Thanksgiving Pilgrims for murder? That's like blaming the Girl Scouts for making Americans diabetic.

Obamaism Two:

"And she upped her deductible last year to the minimum, the highest possible deductible."

(art by J C Leyendecker)

Bruce Springsteen...
...said something dumb recently: "There's a widespread political consciousness that's perhaps deeper in Europe than it is in the States," he told the Sunday Times Magazine. "The climate [in America] is very, very ugly for getting things done. The moderate reforms President Obama fought to make are called Marxist, socialist. I mean, the most extreme language is put into play to describe the most modest reforms that would move the economy back towards serving a majority of its citizens."

Umm, OK, Bruce. So you wouldn't know a "moderate" or "modest" reform from a "socialist" agenda. Got it. Still, I have to give him credit when he says, "Most people don't want to be taking their political direction from guys that are shaking their a– in front of 60,000 people."

It's not that, Bruce. It's not what you shake, it's what you say. And in this case, you said something dumb.

Obamaism Three:

"I think the Republicans were able to paint my governing philosophy as a classic, traditional, big government liberal. And that's not something that the American people want."

(art by Norman Mingo)

Al Sharpton...
...said something dumb recently. "And part of what I think the FCC needs to do is give the guidelines of what is excusable and what is not. What is permitable or permitted, I should say and what is not, because clearly you're not trying to block free speech. But, I think that for people to engage in programming shows that will use racial or gender bias as their format, we've got a right to say there are standards that the FCC can say that you cannot continue to have licenses to do that. You got to remember that those stations that Rush Limbaugh is on and others are regulated by FCC, granted by FCC. They go back to them to get wavers. They go back to them to get consolidation. They have the right to set standards that does not impair your right to speak what you believe, but it does say that you are not going to be able to do that to offend groups of Americans based on their race their gender, their sexual status, none of that."

What's wrong with this picture, Al? My head is swimming with a notion that we can have free speech but not if Al Sharpton or the FCC (Democrat approved) doesn't like it. Free speech is free speech, even for those who might want to silence Al Sharpton. Ludere cum sacris.

Obamaism Four:

(talking up why government-run health care is the bomb) "Private insurers should be able to compete. They do it all the time. I mean, if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? It's the Post Office that's always having problems."

Whoopi Goldberg...
...said something dumb recently. In an interview with Bill O'Reilly:

O'REILLY: Do you have a problem in history when you were taught about World War II that Japanese attacked us? Do you have a problem with that?

GOLDBERG: I have a problem with that.

O'REILLY: Do you?

GOLDBERG: Yes.

O'REILLY: But they attacked us?

GOLDBERG: The Japanese --

O'REILLY: Attacked us.

GOLDBERG: -- army attacked us.

O'REILLY: The air force did.

GOLDBERG: Sorry, the air force did. You understand my point?

Well, if we're going to split hairs (and this includes you, too, Bill), it was the Japanese Navy that attacked us. In fact, we could make a finer point that it wasn't the Navy, but the Japanese aircraft carriers and planes that attacked us. This is a military industrial complex version of "if we only had stricter gun laws..."

But wait, there's more:

O'REILLY: New study today, Jews in America are far more likely to be persecuted than Muslims, just came out today.

GOLDBERG: You know what? I'm sure that someone believes that, but I believe that in neighborhoods where they don't want Muslims, they beat up kids.

You can believe whatever you want to Whoopie, that the Japanese or Muslims never attacked us, for example. You can believe it, but that doesn't make it true.

Obamaism Five:

"The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings and inefficiencies to our health care system"

(artist unknown)

Richard Dreyfuss...
...said something dumb recently. In an interview on Parker/Spitzer, he was asked an admittedly dumb question: "Could the threat of terrorism have become another civics lesson and has it been a civics lesson and have we learned the right lessons from it?" Instead of replying, "Are you high?" Dreyfuss actually answers the question. At least he puts a series of unrelated phrases together -- if you can follow this, you're a better man than I:

"We learned the wrong lessons from it. We are learning the wrong lessons from it. Because we're lying about it. First of all, at the Wall Street Journal this morning, they said it would have been better if we'd said we are at war with extremist Islam. And I said, 'of course,' because that would have given the opening to the majority of Islam to go against the extremists. Instead, their silence has allowed us to think that they agreed with the extremists. And that silence is hurting us. 'The war on terror' is like saying it's a war on the flanking movement; it's a tactic. That's all it is. It doesn't tell us anything. And we have started to live in this Alice in Wonderland common senselessness. We say things that are stupid."

In other words, if we'd actually used the word "Islam" and hitched it together to form "extremist Islam," instead of just using the word "terror," that would have gotten those silent Islamists on board with us. They, who want to decapitate cartoonists who draw Mohammed would suddenly be OK with our using the word "Islam" to paint terrorists. Got it.

Obamaism Six:

"One such translator was an American of Haitian descent, representative of the extraordinary work that our men and women in uniform do all around the world -- Navy Corpse-Man Christian Brossard." In addition to using a incorrect and morbid "Corpse-man" he also got the seaman's name wrong: it was Chrisopher, not Christian.

All public speakers make gaffs. My favorite of George W. Bush's was "Is our children learning." My favorite from Palin is the perky portmanteau "refudiate." And my favorite by Obama is "It is wonderful to be back in Oregon. Over the last 15 months, we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it." What does that come out to, like 59 states all together?

People, all people, say dumb things. It doesn't make them stupid and they shouldn't be labeled that way. To misdesignate South Korea as North is silly, but it isn't dangerous. This, on the other hand, is dangerous:

"If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,' if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's gonna be harder and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2." (Barack Obama, Univision radio interview, 25 October 2010) In Obama's world, people who don't agree with him are "enemies." Chilling.

Thomas J. Clement

(Michael Ramirez)

If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed.
If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.
Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, 1869