Political Gaffes of the Decade

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Courtesy of MSNBC. Chris Matthews actually did a whole show on the top 10 political stories of the decade (9/11 was unsurprisingly the #1 story).

However, they also did a little spoof of the top five biggest gaffes of the decade.

#5: "YEEEEEE-AAAAAAAH" Howard Dean, 2004. Presidential Primary Campaign.

#4: "You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie" George Bush, 2005. Said of the performance of Mike Brown, then director of FEMA, and FEMA's response to Hurricane Katrina.

#3: "Our economy remains fundamentally storng." John McCain, 2008. Said right after the banking crisis hit, and the stock market crashed.

#2: "I voted for that bill before I voted against it." John Kerry, 2004. Presidential Campaign.

#1: "Mission Accomplished" George Bush, 2003. Said from the back of an aircraft carrier about the military activities in Iraq.

 

Just a small point ... the "Mission Accomplished" came from a banner on the aircraft carrier.

 

I got some suggestions:
"Change we can believe in." Obama campaign, 2008
Sarah Palin, 2008
Dick Cheyney, umm, all the time.

 

T2 is right - The "Mission Accomplished" was on a huge banner that could be seen behind Bush as he spoke on the carrier that day. He did say we were "victorious" in Iraq.

I think Palin and Cheney get passes because you could do a top 10 list just with them. Plus with Palin, a lot of them aren't gaffes - they are the real Sarah. Same thing with Cheney - he actually believes a lot of what he says.

I don't think "Change We Can Believe In" can be considered a gaffe. While a lot of people where hoping for a lot more change that we have received up to this point, I consider it more of an unkept campaign promise than a gaffe - sort of like the first president Bush's, "Read my lips - no new taxes." It has to really be dumb from the moment it's spoken for it to be a gaffe.

 

I'm not sure we should include campaign pledges, and technically Obama has three more years to keep (or break) that one. Yet if pledges are ok, I must insist on including George Bush Jr.'s "I will restore integrity to the White House" of 2000. 8 years later... well, I think he kinda missed the mark.

 

In Finland the gaffe of the decade would have to have been this year by the leader of the parliamentary group of the Center Party Timo Kalli. When reporters asked him about why he had not filed all his campaign support funds accordingly he answered by saying that he had not done it because there is no punishment set in law for filing lacking reports.

This single statement caused the political scandal of the decade when the press started to dig up the campaign fund reports and dozens of politicians were found to have filed lacking reports about their fund acquisition. The scandal indirectly caused Finland to drop in the anti corruption rankings (which we had topped previously) and was a serious blow to the credibility of the political system.

 

Shaman

I was totally agree with you and had intended to add "A Reformer with Results" from the Bush 2000 campaign but I think your comment drives home the point better.

Morgoroth

That may be a gaff but I think Finland may end up better for it as this means they will take a more serious look at their government and the possibility its officials may or may not be corrupt. I think the problem with some rankings of "corruption" is that they are done more on perception than reality. Of course people involved in corruption have an interest in keeping it hidden and thus harder to measure so perception may be easier to survey.



For Wisconsin in 2002 the Jim Doyle, a candidate for governor who later won, promised to tear the "For Sale" sign off the capital in figurative terms.

As he nears the end of his 2nd term and decided not to run for reelection (he could have but decided not to due to unpopularity due more to high unemployment than anything else) about the only major change in campaign financing was for Supreme Court Elections. Meaning campaign fundraising for the state legislature and governor's office has been left unchanged.

It is a gaff that isn't brought up much in state news so it isn't as well known but was there.

Sorry for being local (state) rather than national but I figure at least it is something new to many of you.

 

The SC in Minnesota is elected?

 

We have a minority-oriented party, MRF (Movement for Rights and Freedoms, DPS in Bulgarian), whose head for some 20 years is supposed to be one of the most influential and, well, supposedly corrupt people in the country. He made two statements which I consider iconic... not gaffes, per se, because in the end it didn't seem to impact his standing one bit.

When a media report (however watered down) said that this man had a "ring" of companies supported by his political patronage (and he has had much influence over some areas in the last 20 years), he basically said that everyone in politics has those. Nothing changed.

Some time later, his party was accused of "buying votes" for elections - effectively offering money or other small things (anything from wood for the winter to free lunches) to get people to vote for his party. His comment? "That is how it's done in Europe."The nerve of this guy...

 

Don't know, they could be.

I'm from Wisconsin-not a bad memory for regions though.

 

My bad - I meant Wisconsin - I have no idea why I wrote Minnesota - they are closely related geographically but aren't spelled similarly.

 

But they taulk the saam yaah. Not a yooge difference yaah.

 

T2Bruno

So how are daagh Bears doing?


Aldeth

Yes, the WI SC is elected and I would prefer to see it stay that way with public funding for elections.

Some of the talking heads (in terms of commentators) have brought up the possibility of moving to a more federal-like system with SC Judges being appointed by the governor and the approved via the legislature but I don't see that as a solution as plenty of politics and corruption can end up being involved in letting political, and possibly bribed via campaign fundraising, officials do the picking for voters.

 

Why do I care about the Bears? I wasn't a fan before I moved into this area and the rabid, cutthroat fans (and even worse press) are certainly not ever going to change my mind.