Originally posted on Wednesday, April 09, 2008

A Real Misspoken Moment

While Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft was giving a speech at Skidmore College, in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., he accidentally called Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama “Osama.”

And not only did Ashcroft got a lot of moans of shock and awe from the students at the liberal arts college, he is getting it over the Internet as well. The real misspoken moment happened when he was speaking about the Patriot Act.

“All I’m saying about the Patriot Act,” Ashcroft began, “is that the elected representatives of this country, including Osama ...” He then quickly recovered and corrected himself and apologized after the audience was shell shocked.

Now, this is a true case of misspeaking, not like a few weeks ago when Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton “misspoke” to an audience about being under sniper fire but really wasn’t when her plane landed in Bosnia in 1996.

Another famous “misspoken” incident happened when President Bush answered an 8-year-old child’s question about the president’s thoughts when he found out that American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the Twin Towers and President Bush said:

“I saw an airplane hit the tower – the TV was obviously on – and I used to fly myself, and I said, ‘There’s one terrible pilot.’ And I said, ‘It must have been a horrible accident.’”

It turns out that the President actually discovered the fate of Flight 11 from a phone call from National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. He never saw it on TV.

So, what’s the difference between Clinton’s and President Bush’s lies, and that’s what they are, to Ashcroft’s accident? It was just that, an accident. If you watch the video, you can tell he made an honest mistake and he quickly corrected himself and apologized.

In Clinton’s and President Bush’s cases, they were either trying to make themselves appear more than what they actually are (Clinton) or was trying to make a point with a little humor (Bush).

While many just want to spitefully trash John Ashcroft, there is no need to beat him over the head for an honest mistake, a mistake that many before him have made, including Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy, former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and even CNN, just to name a few.

It’s human nature to make honest mistakes and that’s going to happen with anyone and they shouldn’t be dragged through the mud by vicious, biased supporters of either side of the political spectrum.