How does he do it? How does the supposedly brightest president in the history of the universe stumble so badly and so often? The reference is not to Barack Obama’s snubbing clingers to guns and religion, whose support of him was never a reality, but to his alienating groups who were already in his pocket? Remember back in 2009 when Obama, while pitching his stimulus plan in Elkhart, Ind., made this unforced error? The subject was corporate restraint:
When times are tough, you — you tighten your belts. You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college. [Emphasis added]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ceoY1h5SYkQ
Then-mayor of Las Vegas and Obama supporter, Oscar Goodman, took exception with the slight on his city, whose revenues are largely dependent on the casino industry, calling the president “a slow learner.”
Obama stumbled again in 2012 when he thanked a crowd in Boston for trading fan favorite Kevin Youkilis to the Chicago White Sox, which Obama alleges he supports. His comment was met with a well-deserved chorus of boos.
You’d think that by now he would have learned that his feet belong on the ground. Yet, writes the Daily Caller:
In a speech in Wisconsin on Thursday [at General Electric’s Waukesha Gas Engines facility], President Barack Obama insulted perhaps the most fervent members of his political base: art history majors.
[…]
After extolling his own economic policies at some length, Obama … went on the offensive against America’s most useless major that doesn’t have the word “studies” or “gender” in it.
“But I promise you, folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree.”…
Linda Downs, executive director of the College Art Association, took Obama to task for “denigrating” art history, further writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education:
It is worth remembering that many of the nation’s most important innovators, in fields including high technology, business, and even military service, have degrees in the humanities. Humanities graduates play leading roles in corporations, engineering, international relations, government, and many other fields where their skills and creating [sic] thinking play a critical role.”
Typically, the White House press apparatus tried to play down Obama’s most recent gaffe by reporting that the crowd at the gas facility laughed after his blunder. It is reminiscent of White House toady Jay Carney following the Youklis flub, who tried to spin the audience reaction by disingenuously claiming they were chanting “Yoook,” the player’s nickname.
