Here we go again.
Just caught a short segment on today’s Meet the Press Daily with Chuck Todd. He and his panel were discussing Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson’s major faux pas earlier today when, in answer to a question on Morning Joe, he didn’t know what Aleppo was.
This got Todd’s group to musing about similar jaw-dropping missteps made by presidential candidates in the past, with an anthology of clips to highlight the moments. And what did they come up with?
Well, on the Republican side we got:
1). Gerald Ford in a debate flatly stating that the Soviet Union was not occupying the countries of Eastern Europe.
2). Sarah Palin, in an interview with Katie Couric, being unable to cite a single newspaper or magazine she regularly read.
3). Herman Cain fumbling and bumbling and totally at sea while trying to answer a question about his policy prescriptions for Libya.
4). Rick Perry “oopsing” his way through an answer about which three agencies of government he would eliminate if he were elected President.
And what did they come up with for their Democratic examples, since, of course, there MUST BE Democratic examples to make everybody seem unbiased and fair?
1). Michael Dukakis looking silly riding around in a tank
and
2). Howard Dean’s infamous “scream” at a rally after he lost the Iowa caucus.
Notice the difference there? The Republican examples all had to do with the candidate’s shocking lack of even the bare-minimum knowledge one would need to be both Commander-in-chief and President of the United States.
The Democratic examples? Basically, photo-ops that, for whatever reason, went bad.
I think this says everything about both the quality of candidate usually put forth by each party and the different standards to which the MSM holds Republicans and Democrats.