COMMENTARY | Proving again that one cannot make a dumb statement if one is a liberal Democrat, President Barack Obama recently had a news conference in Hawaii in which he suggested the 50th state of the union was "here in Asia."
Obama has, from time to time, fractured his geography. In a speech in Iowa last year he referred to Europe as a country. Obama once referred to the 57 states of the Union he had visited at a campaign stop in Oregon.
The media, when it notes them at all, tends to pass on the president's alternate geography without comment. Suggesting Obama continuously flubs basic facts such as that Hawaii, the state of his birth, is in America, that Europe in a continent and that there are 50 states in the Union does not jibe with the narrative that he has Spock-like intelligence.
The double standard becomes clear when one remembers the story -- which turned out later to be false -- that Sarah Palin thought Africa was a country and not a continent. Obama cannot get basic facts of geography right and still be considered smart. Palin can be falsely accused of not knowing what Africa is and that is just further evidence that she is a ditz.
Flubs made by Republicans such as the infamous brain freeze suffered by Rick Perry or the recent performance by Herman Cain about Libya are magnified, scrutinized and repeated over and over, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Obama's geographic misstatements a not even a factor in the larger, political narrative.
One would almost think that the media has a liberal bias or something.
One of the great anxieties clutching the Republican electorate is to find a candidate who can stand up to President Obama in the general election. One of the key indicators of such a candidate is that he must perform well in a debate. Perry and Cain seem to have been measured in the balance and found wanting in that regard. Mitt Romney, for being smooth, and Newt Gingrich, for being smart and sharp, have so far passed the test.
However, considering the above examples, one suspects that Obama is just as capable of having a bad debate moment as any of the Republican candidates. Imagine if he were to say that Europe is one of the 57 states or that Texas is part of Mexico. That would be something.
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