Barack Obama at Thursday's G8 summit three times called British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne "Jeffrey."
According to London's Financial Times, the President eventually apologized and said that he was confusing him with "his favorite R&B singer" Jeffrey Osborne:
George Osborne was the victim of an unlikely case of mistaken identity at this week’s G8 summit, after US President Barack Obama confused the chancellor with a black soul singer.
The chancellor’s attempts to explain the complexities of tax avoidance to G8 leaders were thrown off course when Mr Obama interjected on three occasions to indicate that he agreed fully with “Jeffrey”.
Mr Osborne battled on in spite of the US president having apparently forgotten his name. It was only after his presentation that Mr Obama realised his mistake and apologised.
Mr Obama explained that he knew who Mr Osborne was, adding: “I’m sorry, man. I must have confused you with my favourite R&B singer.”
It should be easy to forgive the President. After all, the two look exactly alike:
It's going to be interesting to see how much attention this gets from America's Obama-loving press.
Consider how Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was savaged last summer for some comments he made in London just before the Summer Olympics.
And one can't forget how Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush was similarly attacked in 2000 when he couldn't correctly name who the leader of Pakistan was.
By comparison, since Obama first threw his name into the presidential ring in February 2007, the press have either ignored or covered for his many gaffes.
Will that be the case with this embarrassing performance in front of America's leading allies?
If it is, the folks at Sky News have an explanation:
UNIDENTIFIED SKY NEWS REPORTER: The Obama stardust is such that we’re willing to forgive him that sort of thing as though we say, "Well, look, you know, why should the most powerful man in the world be expected to remember the name of that pasty-faced chap doing the economic exposition?" It would have been very different if it had been a previous American president. We got George W. Bush up here. There, we’d be jumping on the Bush buffoon bandwagon and defending George Osborne.
A clip of Bush fumbling the Musharraf question was shown followed by a Romney gaffe in London last year.
If this is how the British press excuse Obama for fumbling the name of one of their government officials on their own turf, one can imagine what America's media will do if they do anything at all.
Stay tuned.
