Barak Obama has caused lots of journalists to get giddy reporting on his ’typical white person’ comments:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/03/21/2008-03-21_barack_obama_tries_to_explain_that_good_.html

One thought came to mind while reading Obama’s comments: when you find yourself in a hole, quit digging. While I appreciate that he was trying to clarify himself (and stop all the talk about him TWP comment), I don’t think he accomplished what he wanted and just added fuel to the fire.

Quite honestly, after reading his clarifying remarks, I don’t know what he was originally trying to say or if he’s trying to clarify or madly scramble away from something he shouldn’t have admitted he believed.

Hilary Clinton is also all over the news for a ’misstatement’ about a trip to Bosnia she made while her husband was in office:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/25/campaign.wrap/index.html

Twice she has described landing under sniper fire and rushing from the plane (as part of her descriptions of her foreign policy experience). Turns out that video of that trip shows it ain’t so. Clinton tried the opposite of Obama: instead of talking at length and making matters worse, she just said she misspoke and dropped it. But that didn’t work for her in my opinion. If she’d said it happened on a Thursday and really it was Monday, that’s a misstatement. Saying you were fired on by snipers when really you had a pleasant meet-and-greet on the runway isn’t a misstatement. If in fact it was a misstatement (perhaps she was remembering another trip and not the ’96 Bosnia trip) then she needs to clarify that. If not, then don’t try to get away with saying you misspoke if you made it. Plead ’false memory syndrome’ instead of saying you misspoke; it’s more believable.

If all this isn’t enough fun for you, have a try at the Time’s Democratic Party Candidates’ MadLibs:

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/03/democratic_primary_madlib.htmlmore

A columnist in the state paper defended his calling Senator Clinton ’Miss Hilary’. I don’t really read this columnist all that often, but I have to admit morbid curiosity at how he thought he could possibly justify that. His explanation is that he doesn’t just write about her but consider her a personal acquaintance, and that Back In The Day if you were on personal terms with someone so that it felt awkward to call them ’Senator Clinton’, you referred to them with Miss or Mr. and their first name. So rather than call your friend Dr. Smith, you referred to him as Mr. Tom.

I am vaguely aware of this custom, which I thought passed away shortly after the making of ’Driving Miss Daisy’, if not sooner. I have no doubt that the columnist is on familiar terms with Clinton, but to call her Miss Hilary in the paper seems quite insulting. Friend or not, she deserves to be called by her official title in the press. Plenty of journalists refer to her as just Hilary, since calling her Clinton may confuse the reader as to which one is being discussed. That’s why they should just call her Senator Clinton: that’s her title, fair and square, it avoids insulting her by referring to her on a first name basis when other candidates are addressed more formally, and it just seems like plain old common sense. She deserves as mush respect as anyone else in politics, no more and no less.