POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

A simple illustration of the legacy media’s double standard at work

I don't know how many here are old enough to recall Dan Quayle's famous gaffe, where the then Vice President told a child at a school photo-op, "that he had left the 'e' off of the end" of the word "potato" while spelling it at the board.  Indeed, if you google, "potatoe", the top search results return references to Quayle's mistake.  For those of you too young to recall the incident directly, let me fill you in; essentially, the late night comics had a field day.  This one slip provided material for months, and clearly demonstrated the Quayle was a silver spoon, trust fund, idiot who was so stupid that his daddy must have bought his way through college with endowments; a lot like the same conclusions reached based on G.W. Bush's accent and malaprops.

Isn't it great though that now we have such a smooth, Harvard educated, obviously Brilliant! President?  I mean, that is what all of the lefties are always cooing about; that we needn't hang our heads in shame over having an idiot in the oval office.  Never mind that without a teleprompter, he sounds like a stammering ignoramus.  Or, when confronted with fluid situations-again sans teleprompter, like his interview on Fox with Brett Baier this week, where he had to actually, you know, answer questions instead of get fellated by an adoring and compliant press, he came off as small, petty, shifty, a little clue-less, and, yes, disingenuous (YOU LIE!).  That despite all of his Ivy League education, that of course we can't see any of the pertinent records for, he seems to be "historically challenged" as Victor David Hansen put it; Dr. Hansen having too much class to call-a-spade-a-spade, cut to the chase, and say it-Obama is too often factually challenged!  Suffice it to say that, in spite of his obviously HUGE! support staff, the President still manages to screw up basic historical facts in a way that should be cringeworthy to the faculties of Harvard and Columbia.

But despite all of the available evidence that so easily destroys the meta-narrative of Obama's brilliance, we still have yet to see him get the same treatment that Gerald Ford, Reagan, Quayle, or G.W. Bush did; where are all of the jokes about his educated idiocy?  About Hirohito signing the surrender aboard the Missouri?  About him listing the 57 states?  No one seems to see the humor in any of this.

And indeed, the Legacy Media has moved from a position of studiously ignoring Obama's gaffes, mis-statements, and general errors to a position of correcting and covering them for him!  A simple example is brought to you today courtesy of HotAirPundit who details how ESPN edited out Obama's misspelling of "Syracuse" on his NCAA bracket chart, instead showing animation containing the correct spelling.  But ESPN's continuity department forgot to scrub the video piece completely, as Andy Katz is clearly heard saying to the President, "should be an 'r' in there"; what can I say, good help is hard to find sometimes!  Also, be sure to click through the links at the HotAirPundit piece to "Newsbusters" for some other great examples from the “Let Us Fluff Your Pillow Award for Obsequious Obama Interviews” category.

So just to review where we are, if you spell potato wrong, or are white and speak with a heavy southern accent (but are not LBJ), then you are obviously an idiot and are considered a laughing stock for all time.  But, if you are Obama, the smoothest guy in America since Billy Dee Williams, then regardless of the gaffe or how you screw up, it only serves to underscore your Brilliance! as well as that of the media for dragging you across the finish line...

Rocketman