Party Like It’s 1992
July 15th, 2008, 3:50 PM EDT
John McCain, for the second day in a row, referred to the Czech Republic as Czechoslovakia. He also talked about Czechoslovakia in an October debate and, more recently on Don Imus’ show. Maybe it’s not the biggest deal in the world unless, of course, you’re running for president of the United States with foreign policy as your calling card.
At the same time McCain referred to Czechoslovakia, he mentioned how much he’d miss Vaclav Havel, expressed sadness at Johnny Carson stepping down as host of the Tonight Show, said he wished he had time during this election season to stop by the Olympics in Spain, and reiterated how much he was looking forward to facing Clinton and Gore in the general election.
Isn’t he taking a trip to Yugoslavia?
July 15th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Of all the gaffes, I don’t care about this one. It’s an honest mistake. For most of the 20th century, it was called Czechoslovakia, with the exceptions being prior to 1918 (part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), 1938-1945 (German invasion of Czechoslovakia and subsequent “splitting” of Slovakia into a puppet state), and after 1992 (the peaceful dissolution).
July 15th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
57 states anyone?
July 15th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Clemetsson- that’s a stupid mistake to harp on. let’s see you on the campaign trail, and see how perfect your speech remains.
is mccain touting foreign policy as his strength, or his war strategy born from military experience? and by war strategy, i mean strictly that- when to fire, where to move the troops, etc. he’ll have to leave the foreign policy, economy, social security, etc. to someone else.
July 15th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Maybe it was one of those “senior moments”. I really don’t think McCain really knows what the heck is going on! Even the stage craft of his speech on “Jobs” was mixed up with his talk on Afghanistan, er was that a last minute flub?
July 15th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
cheryl- you make it sound like it’s a war game? “How’s about a nice game of chess?”……lol
July 15th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Joshua~One should not claim he is a foreign policy expert….especially after the flub was made more than one, and after being corrected on it just as much.
July 15th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
I need a job?
July 16th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
I’m caught on this one – I’m generally fairly up on current events, and in the last fifteen years *I* hadn’t caught the fact that the “Czech Republic” was actually a fundamentally different country than the Czechoslovakia I grew up with – I’m not entirely sure I’ve heard the country of Slovakia ever make the news.
So I had to look stuff up on Wikipedia and update myself. Embarrassing that.
On the other hand, I’m not a U.S. Senator running for President based on my foreign policy experience either. And once it was brought to my attention that I had missed this – I *did* look it up.
Evidently, McCain *kept* saying this.
Jonnan
July 17th, 2008 at 6:03 pm