Don't Vote By Malaprop

Yes, this is funny. McCain references John Murtha's comments about Western Pennsylvania being "a racist area" to a crowd near Pittsburgh and says "I couldn't agree more," and recognizes his mistake and funbles all over himself trying to get out of it.



This is the kind of stuff people beat up Bush for. And while McCain isn't the brightest bulb, there are a host of these kinds of innocent misstatements by Sen. Obama as well. I think we have to reassess the notion that Bush is stupid because he mangles his sentences a bit. It's not necessarily an indication of intelligence. Presidential candidates are on the road non-stop for close to two years, in the modern era. They eat like crap. They sleep on planes, if at all. They're tired as hell. They're going to make some mistakes. Either side can choose to harp on them, or they can choose to recognize the reality of saying millions of words in front of large audiences and TV cameras. You're going to screw up every now and again.

Bush's stupidity is about judgment and stubbornness, not occasionally messing up a speech he didn't write. Same with McCain.