Jack Kelly Sunday

Jack Kelly's column this week is another edition in the right-wing "Obama's gaffes" talking points.

This is the second week in a row that Commando Kelly's pushed this particular rhetorical button.

Let's start with the headline of the piece:

Obama generates even more gaffes than Dan Quayle

And a number of paragraphs down the page, we find Kelly's deconstruction of the "Quayle is a Dunce" meme:

Dan Quayle was just 41 and looked younger when George H. W. Bush plucked him from relative obscurity to be his running mate. Journalists portrayed Mr. Quayle as inexperienced and not too bright, an image cemented on June 15, 1992, when, while officiating at a spelling bee in Trenton, N.J., he corrected a 12-year-old's spelling of "potato," telling the boy there was an "e" on the end.

Mr. Quayle was wrong, but not terribly. "Potatoe" was an accepted spelling through the 19th century, and the error was on a cue card provided by school authorities. But journalists needed no further proof that Dan Quayle was a dunce.

Actually, Quayle himself has a slightly different take on it. Paul Mickle of the Trentonian writes:

Quayle ruefully reported on a Washington Post article that suggested the Trenton flub got such wide media play because "it seemed like a perfect illustration of what people thought about me anyway.’’

So it didn't start with the potato(e) gaffe.

In any event, Kelly's apologia for Quayle's gaffe doesn't ring true for two reasons; 1) Quayle wasn't born in the 19th century and 2) if he indeed knew how to spell "potato" why didn't he just go with what he knew to be true? Blaming it on the cue cards he was handed is no help.

To refresh everyone's memories let's take a look at some of Dan Quayle's most famous verbal gaffes:

• What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.
• I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy - but that could change.
• The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century.

And so on. By the way Mickle also writes:

The media’s "obsession with my small verbal blunders went beyond the bounds of fairness,’’ Quayle wrote in his book.

So perhaps I am being unfair. But in the spirit of Vice-President Quayle's assertion that media obsession on "small verbal blunders" is beyond the bounds of fairness, let's return to Jack Kelly's column. He summed up last week's column with this:

In last week's column, I twitted Mr. Obama for saying he'd campaigned in 57 states, for not knowing that his home state of Illinois borders on Kentucky and for claiming the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962) was defused by President Kennedy's summit meeting with Nikita Khruschchev (June 1961). Earlier, Mr. Obama said 10,000 people were killed when a tornado struck Greensburg, Kansas, last year (the death toll was 12), and assumed Afghans speak Arabic (they don't).

Last week I took apart the Khruschev/Castro thing. When you look at what Obama actually said:

This whole notion of not talking to people, it didn't hold in the '60s, it didn't hold in the '70s, it didn't hold in the '80s, it didn't hold in the '90s against much more powerful adversaries, much more dangerous adversaries. I mean, when Kennedy met with Khrushchev, we were on the brink of nuclear war. When Nixon met with Mao, that was with the knowledge that Mao had exterminated millions of people.

you're left with the question, "Where on God's Own Earth did Jack Kelly get that Obama said that the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 was diffused by the Kennedy Khrushchev Summit of June 1961?"

Can anyone at the P-G answer me that? I know you guys read this blog down there.

Let's take a look at the "gaffe" about Kentucky. Jack chides Senator Obama:

...for not knowing that his home state of Illinois borders on Kentucky...

But yet, when you take a look at what Obama actually said:

“What it says is that I’m not very well known in that part of the country,” Obama said. “Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known — not only because of her time in the White House with her husband — but also coming from a nearby state of Arkansas.”

In that quotation, Obama is saying that while he's not well known in and around Kentucky, Senator Clinton is better known for two reasons; 1) the years she spent as first lady when her husband was the President of the United States and 2) the years she spent as first lady when her husband was Governor of of the nearby state of Arkansas.

Where is the discussion on borders?

I'll ask it again - doesn't anyone fact-check Jack Kelly down there on the Boulevard of the Allies?

Next we get to the 57 states thing. Take a look at the actual event. You might have to turn up the volume a bit. Pay attention to what you hear after he mentions the "57 states." It's laughter. It was a joke. Does Jack Kelly really think that a sitting US Senator really thinks there are 57 states?

Let's move onto so some other gaffes. The Tornado - 10,000 deaths. Here's how the AP told the story:

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Barack Obama, caught up in the fervor of a campaign speech Tuesday, drastically overstated the Kansas tornadoes death toll, saying 10,000 had died.

The death toll was 12.

This overshadowed what was probably the point of the story, that the Kansas National guard had been depleted due to the Iraq war. And then in the same article, we find this:

As the Illinois senator concluded his remarks a few minutes later, he appeared to realize his gaffe.

"There are going to be times when I get tired," he said. "There are going to be times when I get weary. There are going to be times when I make mistakes."

A correction a few minutes later. Now about the translators in Afghanistan. ABC reported that:

Obama posited -- incorrectly -- that Arabic translators deployed in Iraq are needed in Afghanistan -- forgetting, momentarily, that Afghans don't speak Arabic.

"We only have a certain number of them and if they are all in Iraq, then its harder for us to use them in Afghanistan," Obama said.

The vast majority of military translators in both war zones are drawn from the local population.

Naturally they speak the local language. In Iraq, that's Arabic or Kurdish. In Afghanistan, it's any of a half dozen other languages -- including Pashtu, Dari, and Farsi.

No sooner did Obama realize his mistake -- and correct himself -- but he immediately made another.

Curious that Jack didn't add that last part - probably because he'd have to point out that when Obama makes a gaffe, he corrects himself.

Next onto the Concentration Camp story. This is Jack Kelly at his most deceptive. As a reminder here's what he writes:

Speaking in New Mexico, Mr. Obama seemed not to understand Memorial Day honors those who died in war, and claimed his uncle was one of the soldiers who liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp. Since Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army, and Mr. Obama's mom was an only child, this is unlikely.

When this misstatement was spotted by bloggers, the Obama campaign said the senator had in mind his great uncle, Charles W. Payne, who, the campaign said, had served in the 89th Infantry Division, which liberated Ohrdruf, a slave labor camp that was a satellite of Buchenwald. This explanation has satisfied most journalists. But Charles W. Payne is not listed on the roster of the 89th Infantry Division, perhaps because the Kansas State Historical Society says Charles W. Payne entered the Navy on Nov. 10, 1942.

Sounds pretty cut and dried, don't it? But when dealing with the generally fact-free zone that usually occupies Jack Kelly's columns, it's never ever cut and dried.

First off, notice now Jack phrases it:

...the Obama campaign said the senator had in mind his great uncle, Charles W. Payne, who, the campaign said, had served in the 89th Infantry Division...

First, there's this from the Washington Post (from TUESDAY):

The Obama campaign now says that Obama was referring to his great-uncle on his mother's side, and the camp in question was not Auschwitz, but Ohrdruf, which was part of the Buchenwald camp system in Lower Saxony. Ohrdruf was the first camp to be liberated by the Americans on April 4, 1945, and it was visited a week later by Generals Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley. Eisenhower later wrote to his wife that he "never dreamed that such cruelty, bestiality and savagery could really exist in this world."

The campaign declined to release the name of Obama's great-uncle, apparently because he is an elderly man who does not want to be disturbed by reporters. Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said that he served in the 89th Infantry Division which crossed the Rhine river in March 1945. [emphasis added]

As we'll see in a bit, by Thursday, this changes. There's this from Politifact.com:

The Obama campaign did not provide any documentation to confirm that Charles T. Payne, 83, served in the 89th Infantry Division in April 1945. And we wanted more than their word. [emphasis added]

That's right, you know where I'm going here, don't you. Look at the middle initial of Mr Payne. Jack Kelly says it's a "W" and politifact says it's a "T".

So Jack Kelly would be absolutely correct if he were to say that Charles W. Payne wasn't among those who liberated Ohrdruf. Too bad he's not the right Charles Payne.

Jack Kelly's whole argument about Great Uncle Payne being in the Navy and not the Army collapses completely with that. He had to have known about it as the correct information was published on Thursday:

His name, according to the Obama campaign, was Charles T. Payne.

I'll say it again, doesn't ANYONE FACT-CHECK JACK KELLY?

Especially in a column about how one presidential candidate is a "one-man gaffe machine."

One thing I wanted to point out here was that when Senator Obama makes a gaffe, the correction usually comes a short time later. Contrast this with a recent gaffe of Senator McCain's - one where he refuses to admit he's wrong.

One last time: DOESN'T ANYONE FACT-CHECK JACK KELLY AT THE P-G?