Good Wednesday morning Fellow Seekers,
After state Sen. Terri Bonoff’s announcement event Monday morning, I wrote a bland, neutral piece. Bonoff, whom I had never seen before, didn’t blow me away with her eloquence, but competently delivered a well-constructed script that, as these things do, roamed freely among biography, philosophy, issue positions and tributes to the innocent bystanders. Upon reflection, because I have that kind of snotty proofreader’s mind, I noted a couple of instances in which what she said was one word or syllable off from what she plainly meant. But they didn’t seem noteworthy.
Next day, I picked up some buzz about a YouTube video that portrayed the event as a “gaffe-a-thon.” (I’ll link to the video below.) Turned out my acquaintance Michael Brodkorb of Minnesota Democrats Exposed, with whom I have enjoyed several respectful conversations, had assembled and posted the video on YouTube. By the time I became aware of it, Brodkorb had also written two posts mocking Bonoff’s inarticulateness and promising future posts on future Bonoff “gaffes” while the comment threads gleefully pronounced Bonoff to be a moron and an airhead.
The 30-second video strings together four alleged gaffes. In one, Bonoff refers to Europe and Asia as countries, instead of continents (or collections of countries.) In another, she describes herself as a mom, a community activist, a former business executive, and “a Minnesota State Senate” instead of “senator.” In one, Bonoff says that “the House of Representative(s) was meant to be the body where the people’s voices are heard.” Brodkorb apparently felt she dropped the “s” at the end of Representatives. You can decide for yourself, just as you can decide whether pronouncing the word without the final letter constitutes a gaffe.
For me, no, not even close. Almost anyone, speaking for half an hour, will commit these kinds of errors in roughly these numbers. The current occupant of the Oval Office, whom I presume Brodkorb admires more than I do, has been known to occasionally mangle a word or two.
The video struck me as a cheap shot, as an effort to create a resonant chord so that every time Bonoff speaks, more evidence of her ditziness can be claimed, and as an an object lesson in how to eradicate civility and substance from our politics. I called Brodkorb, told him how I felt and what I was thinking of writing, and, after a rough start, we had a good exchange.
Brodkorb hotly disputed that his video constituted a cheap shot, denied that he was calling Bonoff stupid, said it was well within bounds to assemble a few gaffes, let people see and hear them, and decide for themselves how embarrassed Bonoff should be.
Contemporary politicians have to understand that every public event is videotaped, often by the opposition, and that anything embarrassing they say or do will end up on YouTube, Brodkorb said. (That is true, although I call it regrettable.)
“Politicians live and sometimes die by the microphone and by the words that come out of their mouth,” Brodkorb said (I should point out that he should have said “out of their mouths.”) “At the end of the day, in the give and take of politics and of the blogosphere here in Minnesota, it is certainly well within the bounds of fairness,” Brodkorb said of his video.
He pointed out several instances in which Democrats had made Republicans pay for gaffes, such as Dan Quayle’s notorious inability to spell “potato,” Sen. George Allen’s infamous “macaca moment,” which may well have cost him his Senate seat, and others. I contended, and still contend, that nothing in the Bonoff “gaffeathon” resembles those incidents very closely.
But the most apt comparison was to a very recent and local example, involving state Rep. Erik Paulsen (at left), Bonoff’s potential general election opponent, and his own effort to say, in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio, why he was running for Congress. It started out fine, and then degenerated into a grammar-free string of words:
“This is absolutely another wonderful opportunity to enter public service at a different level, focusing on issues like globalization and issues that I think that I genuinely care about and I think have learned a lot about some expertise on now and try to carry that to a new level as we do try to educate our kids for a global economy,” he said. “So that’s something in the back of my mind that definitely interests me and the opportunity, and I think I would do a good job.”
The liberal blog MNPUBLIUS did to Paulsen something very similar to what Brodkorb did to Bonoff, and then declared a second round off the same infelicitous quote, just as Brodkorb did.
Here, as promised, is Brodkorb’s latest cinematic achievement:
If you have the patience, feel free to compare and contrast the two exercises in mockery by selective perception, and decide whether one is nastier and more irrelevant than the other. If you take on that assignment, watch out for your own selective perception. And/or feel free to let me know if you agree that we’d be a lot better off without trying to turn every politician into his or her worst verbal toe stub.
Thanks again for your incredible insight, Eric. I can’t stand the fact that we demand this type of perfection from our politicians, as if elocution alone is an indication of intelligent thought.
Why we can’t give each other a break on these matters is beyond me. I suppose the 24 hours news channels are always looking for something to fill the time, and with YouTube and bloggers (but not like YOU, Eric) all these become amplified in ways that I frankly find unseemly.
PS: I am not a supporter of of Ms. Bonoff. And I agree with Eric, you can’t get five minutes out of President Bush without a similar gaffe.
For someone who links to a white supremacist’s site on his blog, Michael Brodkorb has a lot of nerve making an issue out of this crap. But then, that’s what the GOP, Norm Coleman and the rest of his clients pay him handsomely to do.
Eric, just a few weeks ago you wrote a quick piece about a vote that Bachmann changed. IIRC, the vote wasn’t close so her’s was hardly vital one way or the other. Numerous commenters slammed her for being stupid even though, as you noted, this type of thing happens now and again. After eight years of ‘Bushisms’ and the increasing willingness of his detractors to purposefully misunderstand simple malaprops, this is the world we now live in. I’m tempted to say, live by the snark, die by the snark but I don’t really like where this is going either.
The problem is that there are elements on both sides that think their best tactic is to demonize their opponent. They can’t simply be wrong and they could never actually disagree in good faith. They must be EVIL or STUPID or something like that. Frankly, it’s a childish attitude but we seem to live in childish times.
I think you get that and that’s one of the reasons that I enjoy your writing. Reasonable people can disagree on important things and still be reasonable people. No matter who you vote for next year, tens of millions of good and well intentioned people will vote the other way. I wish more people understood that.
That’s it? Brodkorb thinks these by an articulate and intelligent woman are “gaffes” which can somehow point to shortcomings she might have as a Congresswoman? She made a couple of very minor slips of the tongue which everyone makes in daily speech. I’m sure anyone watching this stupid You-tube is gonna think: “I”m so not gonna vote for that woman. She doesn’t even know Asia and Europe are continents not countries.”
Peder, I’m glad to read that you don’t approve of where things are going. But where have you been? Newt Gingrich and the Republican party lead by Newt Gingrich made demonization of Democrats and “liberals” your main tactic more than ten years ago.
I find it difficult to take the “gaffes” seriously from a member of a party who seems to consistently mispronounce “democratic” as “democrat.”
Accidentally, of course. ;-)
Since I am not a REP or DEM I am on guard of my perception, but carefully viewed both, as your assignment asked.
I don’t think either one is out of the norm. For the political culture today.
The political culture today is of course what is sucking the democracy out of this country.
The more of this junk, the more people refuse to vote, then only the extremists vote and we get extremist candidates and elected officials. And because they are all extremists all we hear is how the other side is destroying something or other.
thank you for also calling out MNPublius. i’m often shocked at how much they seem to respect and imitate Brodkorb’s tactics…
So, Brodkorb wouldn’t talk to you unless you promised not post it on Minnesota Monitor? He can dish it out, but…
“Thinking Out Loud” —–> For Crying Out Loud
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“I don’t do a lot of watching what I say, frankly.”
Al Franken, New York Magazine, November 2007
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“With the looming legislative session, the Republican National Convention coming to town, and wide-open races for president and U.S. senator, 2008 is sure to be a busy and contentious year.”
Don Effenberger, News Editor, MinnPost.com, pre-launch issue(s), November 2007
I don’t know why you’re sad. I don’t get sad when pigs stink.
I’ll never get how a paid flak can be viewed as an independent voice worthy of news coverage above and beyond what is afforded to other communications directors. How does that happen?
Brodkurb is lowering Minnesota politics into the cesspool. It is typical of these wingnut bloggers that they would try to equate “macaca” with “Minnesota State Senate.” Fortunately, we have people like Eric trying to lift the discourse back up again.
[…] Posted by Phoenix Woman on November 7th, 2007 This is so pitiful it had me rolling on the floor: After writing about Democratic congressional candidate Terri Bonoff’s announcement Monday that she’d be running in the Third District, Minnesota Monitor’s Eric Black learned that Michael Brodkorb of Minnesota Democrats Exposed had edited a video of Bonoff’s presentation into what Brodkorb calls a “gaffe-a-thon.” Black considers the montage of Bonoff’s verbal errors a “cheap shot” and “an effort to create a resonant chord so that every time Bonoff speaks, more evidence of her ditziness can be claimed, and as an an object less on in how to eradicate civility and substance from our politics.” Black called Brodkorb to inquire. As Brodkorb refuses to be quoted on Minnesota Monitor, we agreed to link to Black’s piece on his own blog. Read Black’s More in Sadness than Anger: Brodkorb, Bonoff, YouTube and Gaffes. […]
Eric, I agree with just about everything in the column except putting George Allen’s macaca moment in the same category as someone who flubs their words. Allen, who has a long history of racist behavior, picked out the only person of color in the crowd, referred to him as macaca several times and said “welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.” Do you really think that is the same thing?
Brodkorb, the blogger who rarely completes one day’s posts without a typo, grammatical error or turgid phrase, picks on a candidate for verbal flubs. At least posting, he could edit his mistakes.
Dan, I agree with you. I don’t think the macaca moment has much in common and I said so in the post. Dan Quayle and “potatoe” might come a little closer. And I’m also undecided about the comparison to mnpublius’ use of Paulsen’s fractured explanation of why he was running. For those of us who are trying to be fair and intellectually honest, we have to struggle to take into account how much our perception of such an attack is influenced by our underlying feelings about the person making the attack and especially of the person being attacked. It’s nearly impossible to screen that out, but believe in trying.
cheers, and thanks to all for an excellent thread.
I’m glad you called out both Michael Brodkorb AND MN Publius on this stuff. They both use the same tactics. When we get Michele Bachmann stuff, we get more substantive stuff - stuff she actually says, rather than grammar trivialities.
I’d like to hear Bonoff’s full speech on video.
On their show this past weekend, Brodkorb and King Banaian interviewed Andy Barnett - who blamed a St Cloud City Council candidate for complaining to management (and specifically complaining to John Sowada on Pusateri’s blog) - for his firing. It turns out (according to the Station President), that this wasn’t true. This didn’t matter. The lie had been spread through Leo Pusateri’s blog, Mitch Berg’s blog, King Banaian’s blog, Andy Barnett’s blog and through the St Cloud Times comment thread - and through the radio show - that the liberal candidate had tried to get Andy fired because he’d asked her a question about abortion during an on-radio debate.
This City Council candidate lost.
I checked with the candidate - and she was NOT asked to respond to Andy’s claims before they had Andy on their show - which was the last weekend before the election - so she had no opportunity to respond.
Barnett will be on Glen Beck’s show now to whine about being oppressed as a conservative - and that he was fired because he asked a question about abortion on his radio show. This is nonsense. He was fired from a conservative radio station - a station that carries Mike Savage. The day he was fired, he yelled at his producer on air - then deleted that segment from the show audio before he left the station.
http://lloydletta.blogspot.com/search?q=andy+barnett
[…] not even real sure what a cagematch is. And Michael Brodkorb (Republican operative, blogger of Minnesota Democrats Exposed, and part of the Saturday Northern Alliance Radio Network lineup) and I can usually talk to each […]
[…] alleged “gaffes” committed by state Sen. Terri Bonoff during her announcement event, I wrote a dour but heartfelt post regretting the way this kind of cheap shot diminishes our politics. I stand by […]