Canada’s President
Aug 10th, 2007 | 12 responses
Barack Obama believes that NAFTA should be amended. If he were president, he said, he would call the president of Mexico and the president of Canada, “to try to amend NAFTA, because I think that we can get labor agreements in that agreement right now.”
The only problem?
Canada does not have a president.
As David Frum points out, this is “the kind of misstep that would cost a Republican candidate for president dearly.” When, however, this misstep is made by a Democratic candidate for president, the situation seems to be different. Yes, he is criticized by some on the right, but somehow it does not get the media attention it deserves.
It deserves, you ask? Yes, this type of error should get a lot of attention. To some, this might be a minor error. I disagree with that. Foreign policy is never minor and a candidate should know whether a country is ruled by a president or a prime minister, especially if the country involved is a close ally.
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12 Responses to “Canada’s President”
That’s some serious nitpicking which ignores the larger policy issue at hand. I know you probably don’t want to talk about NAFTA because it’s a much more difficult subject, but it’d probably be more useful.
Welcome back Michael
Well, I guess I should be offended as a Canadian…oh well!
That said, I think you’re right. If it had been a Republican, we wouldn’t hear the end of it, though I doubt the damage would be so bad. It didn’t hurt Bush in 2000, although foreign policy was not as a big a priority as it most likely will be in ’08.
David Frum must have forgotten that his previous boss flunked a similar question while running for president in 2000 and managed to survive just fine.
qft.
I honestly can’t get too worked up about this. I do think there’s a difference in the way people either excuse or condemn the “gaffes” of candidates, but I think it’s inevitable for bias to occur in the way we view these things. And really- Bush was much worse when it came to mangling words, forgetting leaders’ names, etc, so one slip up like this from Obama is not a big deal. I think if we’re going to hold candidates to the standard of never having verbal slip ups, we really are nitpicking. So instead of having EQUAL criticism of candidates from both parties on this type of thing, I’d rather see a bit more leniency toward both sides.
How many Democratic voters know such facts, anyway?
Now there’s an ad hominem for ‘ya…….albeit only in good fun!
The Jean Poutine story, for reference.
I can’t believe he doesn’t know Canada’s leader is Supreme High Potentate.
Obama’s gaffe is minor, but why stop free trade with Canada? We obviously make use of their oil exports and its not like US manufacturers are outsourcing jobs to Winnipeg. What’s the beef with the hosers, ey?
I remember that W did not know which was the traditionally neutral country, Switzerland or Sweden. This was early in his administration. He, like Obama currently, could have used more foreign policy experience.
When George Bush was running for office he referred to a former Canadian prime minister as Jean poutine and it was ignored by the American press. On the other hand Obama’s gaff is being kept alive by the right leaning press and Clinton supporters for the obvious reasons.