Do Political Gaffes Matter?

Do political gaffes matter?
I was about to say no.
But then I thought, "What would Rick Perry say?"

President Obama said on Friday that “the private sector is doing fine.” Was this "gaffe" taken out of context for cable news ratings?
Let's go to the tape and hear what he said in context-




Nope, I'm going to go with- he completely meant what he said, and he wasn't taken out of context. (As compared to, let's say, the Romney "gaffe," where he said he "likes to fire people." Watch the link, and you realize that that is only a gaffe when taken out of context. In context, I think what he said is something nearly every single American agrees with! We like being able to fire service providers who do a bad job and hire better ones!)

Now, President Obama would like us to believe he didn't mean what he said. And maybe he didn't. I mean, he only explained himself quite well for over a minute.

It's not like very specifically suggested that the people need to give more money to the government.  Because that just sounds a little bit too much like Prince John and Robin Hood, doesn't it?






Do political gaffes matter?
"You betcha."

And the Pinocchio goes to the Fact Checkers at the Washington Post!

Normally I am a very big fan of the Fact Checker on the Washington Post. They do a great job of taking a statement by a politician and then checking the facts. They tend to be very transparent. However, I am very disappointed in their "fact check" today.
On May 4, 2012, on "Fox and Friends," Mitt Romney said,“We should be seeing numbers in the 500,000 jobs created per month. This is way, way, way off from what should happen in a normal recovery.”
So the Post went to check whether or not 500,000 jobs really is "normal."
His conclusion?
They pulled up Bureau of Labor Statistics for the past 65 years (Why 65? Because that is Romney's age, not exactly a scientific comparison.), for a total of 784 months to compare the claim to.
And well, no,what he found was only 14 times out of those 784 that the jobs rate hit 500,000. So they said Romney was wrong and gave him 2 Pinocchios.
Well... this is where my problem comes in. He used very faulty comparison and math, didn't he? Was the country "in a normal recovery" during all of those 784 months? No, not even close.
So the real fact that these so-called Fact Checkers should have checked was first, what months over the past 65 years, was the nation in a recovery? And then checked to see what the job growth rate was during those months, and then, it should have adjusted for population growth.
I'm tempted to sit down and try and figure out the numbers myself. It would be very time-consuming to say the least. But stay tuned, you never know. I just might do it anyway.

Source: Mitt Romney's new normal for job creation.