-By Warner Todd Huston
Well, maybe John Sexton and I both gave Obama a little too much credit on this “intercontinental railroad” gaffe? When he and I wrote about this little gaffe we both assumed that it was no big deal, that it was juts a slip of the tongue — and an easy one to make at that — but that it was evidence of how the Old Media gave Obama a free pass on mistakes. But now it is starting to look like Obama really doesn’t know the difference between the words “intercontinental” and “transcontinental.”
The first incident that John found was posted at Verum Serum a few days ago. He found a video clip of Obama calling the famous American railroad line finished in 1869 an “intercontinental” railroad. Of course it was not intercontinental at all as it was fully contained inside but one country: ours. It was, of course, a transcontinental railroad as it ran across our own country from coast to coast, bringing our nation into one more easily traveled land mass for the first time.
Now, when John and I first saw this gaffe we imagined that it was less evidence of Obama’s stupidity and more evidence of the Old Media’s penchant for covering for any Obama mistake simply because the gaffe had never been reported by the national news. Obviously Obama’s verbal mistakes are not ballyhooed like those mistakes made by conservatives and this little incident was an example of that.
But since John and I gave Obama the benefit of the doubt, John found yet another instance where team Obama called the railroad in question an “intercontinental” project instead of properly calling it transcontinental.
John’s eyebrow was raised on this. He found the coincidence a bit too coincidental and thought it smacked of a mindless talking point, one never reviewed carefully by those mouthing it.
Well, I’ve been alerted to two other incidents of Obama making this same gaffe.
Bill Vargas emails to let me know that during his Florida townhall in in 2009, He again said “intercontinental railroad” (At about the 5:10 mark of this video):
You know, somebody — Governor Crist mentioned Abraham Lincoln. He — in the middle of the Civil War, in the midst of all this danger and peril, what did he do? He helped move the intercontinental railroad.
Who knows, but this may have been his first use of the incorrect term.
But also on May 1, 2010, in Obama’s commencement speech to the University of Michigan, the president again called the railroad an “intercontinental” railroad.
In that speech, Obama unleashed this now rote sounding line:
It was the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, who said that the role of government is to do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves. He would go on to begin that first intercontinental railroad and set up the first land-grant colleges.
Sorry, big guy, but it was a transcontinental railroad, not any inter anything. With this it is plain now that Obama and his minions really don’t know the difference between the words transcontinental and intercontinental.
One time a gaffe like this can easily be considered a slip up and dismissed as unimportant. We now have at least four examples of Obama and his underlings misidentifying the transcontinental railroad as an intercontinental railroad. It is clear that they really don’t know what they are talking about and are so ignorant of American history as to not be able to see this obvious mistake written down into their talking points and to be able to correct it on the fly.
So much for Obama being the smartest man in human history, eh?
Finally, this whole intercontinental FAILroad issue really does highlight the Old Media’s bias in favor of Obama. Can you imagine any situation where the Old Media would have ignored so many instances of Bush or members of his administration repeatedly blurting out the same incorrect talking point?
It’s yet another…
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John Sexton of VerumSerum.com and I have been double teaming this Obama “intercontinental railroad” gaffe and the subsequent refusal of the media to take any notice at all. Here are our previous stories:
- 5). Obama’s Veritable Intercontinental FAILroad
- 4). When is a Gaffe Not a Gaffe? When Obama Repeats it Over and Over
- 3). David Axelrod Agrees: Lincoln Built an ‘Intercontinental Railroad’
- 2). Obama’s Lincoln/Railroad Gaffe, why Did Old Media Ignore This?
- 1). The Gaffe that Time Forgot: Lincoln’s Intercontinental Railroad
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.
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