Imagine for a moment, if you will, Sarah Palin attending an event at Ohio State University. She casually greets college aged supporters, and a group of excited, young students decide to spell out the word “Ohio” using the old YMCA routine. The group is in place, arms readied, fans surrounding them armed with their cameras and cellphones. Then this happens…
OIHI.
It is inarguable that the media, in all their smugness and ‘we are intellectually superior’ attitude would have ripped her from the California coast to the glaciated plains of … well … Oihi.
Oi. Hi.
More like oy vey.
The smartest President ever to grace us with his intellect, the man who was destined to lead us to a better America, who was to lead the nation out of the doldrums of the Great Recession, couldn’t lead three college kids to the proper spelling of a four-letter state.
The photo was tweeted by the Director of Mitt Romney’s Ohio communications team, Chris Maloney, who added:
A word of advice to @BarackObama: it's "O-H-I-O" that has 18 electoral votes, not "O-I-H-O".
Maloney sees an ‘O’ at the end, I see an ‘I’. You spell ‘potatoe’, I spell ‘potato’.
Admirably, a reporter from the Washington Post quickly tried to rescue the phonetically challenged President, claiming without much in the way of evidence, that the image was photoshopped, and thus a hoax.
Post reporter Rachel Weiner, wrote a piece originally titled, Yes, Obama Can Spell Ohio. It included a second image which showed the President and his college buddies eventually getting the spelling right. And the Washington Post tweeted out a link to her segment which included the following message:
Don't be fooled. This photo of Obama is photoshopped.
Instead of viewing the White House image and entertaining the possibility that there were two photos, Weiner jumped the gun and assumed that the spelling error was so improbable that it simply had to be photoshopped.
Turns out that Weiner and the Post were the one’s looking rather foolish. A short time later, they acknowledged the existence of two photos, renamed the piece, “Can Obama Spell Ohio?”, and issued the following correction:
Correction: There are different photographs of Obama’s attempt to spell Ohio from a similar angle. We incorrectly stated the first one appeared photoshopped.
Even in their correction, the bias shows. The Post did not say the photo “appeared photoshopped”, they said it isphotoshopped. Here was the original tweet again:
Don't be fooled. This photo of Obama is photoshopped.
Covering for the President’s embarrassing mistakes can’t be easy, but you have to give the Post and their reporters credit for trying.
The bais is strong in this one. Misspelling intended.
Find Rusty at the Mental Recession
