I know you're wondering who Robert Wood is. He's the acting spokesperson for the State Department. Hillary Clinton's mouthpiece started his first day on the job with this fun little gaffe: "Czechoslovakia holds the EU presidency, as I think most of you know."
Did you catch it? A reporter did: "Except that, I'm sorry, Czechoslovakia hasn't existed for a while." It was good for some light chuckles in the press room, but nothing beyond that, really.
That's a bummer. I always wish small faux pas (how do you pluralize faux pas?) like this lead to someone getting up in a tizzy. But Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and hell, even the Czechs and the Slovaks didn't have anything to say on the matter. It became another mundane misstep in the annals of political blunders.
I'll have to wait until Mr. Wood's up for an elected office for it to become a big deal. That's when the real heat comes. Take, for instance, this knee-slapper that punched John McCain's ticket back to the Senate: "The fundamentals of our economy are strong." Now, when you use the words "economy" and "strong" in the same sentence during a recession, you're called "out of touch." When you use the words "economy" and "strong" in the same sentence during a recession that also happens to be during an election, you're called "out of a job."
Maybe that's why President Barack Obama, six months and -4,000 points on the Dow Jones later, didn't use the word "strong" when he was describing the fundamentals of our economy. Obama wisely proclaimed last Friday, "If we are keeping focused on all the fundamentally sound aspects of our economy... then we're going to get through this."
As is patently clear, "strong" and "sound" are very different beasts, because one has six letters and the other has only five.
Not to mention, Obama's statement came with a caveat (not to be confused with a cover-up) when his chief economist Christina Romer explained on "Meet the Press" that "I think when the president says he's focusing on fundamentals, what he means is 'we're focusing on fixing the fundamentals.'" That, of course, makes sense, because the top of our national "to fix" list should be things the president considers "sound." Our nuclear arsenal comes to mind.
Rush Limbaugh had something to say about this gaffe. He replied Monday, "Wait a minute. The fundamentals...? See, the fundamentals were stronger back during the campaign than they are today, and McCain said that and he got beat up over the head."
Here we go again-a flip-flopping Democrat who steals all his good ideas from Republicans while trying to simultaneously push a socialist agenda. Thank Jesus for visionaries like Rush Limbaugh who can point this out to us simple folk, because the last thing we want is for people to discuss issues. We want the harping on minutiae that has characterized every moment of every day of every news network that covers politics. We want our leaders elected because they rhetorically outmaneuvered their opponents, or defeated because they may not have been on this or that "Swift boat," or blasted because of how much their party spent on their clothes. That's the most efficient way to pick the leader of the free world.
If John McCain wanted to say, "The fundamentals of our economy-American ingenuity and pride in hard work-are strong," he should have said that. It proves that he's unfit to lead for having phrased it differently. And if Obama wanted to say, "We need to stop panicking and start spurring growth by spending a bit again," he should have said that, too.
And I hope that, should the day ever come, Robert Wood fails to get elected because he momentarily forgot that Czechoslovakia is now two countries.
Danny Lewin is a Trinity junior. His column runs on Thursdays.
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