Much has been made in the blogosphere about the number of people - from Cokie Roberts to Charles Blow - who heard Joe Biden's reference to "Bosniaks" in Thursday's debate as a gaffe. Bosniaks is indeed the correct, self-adopted term for Bosnian Muslims. Charles Blow has manned up to his error in his OpEd piece in the NY Times today. I did a quick Google search for a Cokie Roberts apology, but I didn't find one.
Even if it were an error, how small is mis-terming an ethnic group, or in Palin's case, mis-naming a general, compared to publicly supporting Dick Cheney's power grab? I haven't made up my mind whether Palin actually understands the implication of her comments on the vice-presidence. My feeling is that she does, as she is an astute politician. She really does have good political instincts. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, her good political instincts aren't accompanied by corresponding abilities to govern.
Again, BRAVO TO JOE for pointing out the Dick Cheney is the biggest danger to Americans.
This tit-for-tat counting of gaffes and ignoring the larger issues makes me think of Bill Clinton. At the time, I thought Bill Clinton was a weasel (I still pretty much do) for the way he dissed the American people by having sex in the Oval Office and then lying about it. Little did we know that the next president down the line would commit acts that were exponentially worse insults to the American people, and the rest of the world, and not only lie, but never admit they were mistakes.
The point is: George Bush's be-fouled presidency is a whole different order-of-magnitude than Bill Clinton's sexual transgression. Just like calling General McKiernan Gen. McClellan is a whole different order-of-magnitude than calling for expanded powers of the vice president.
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