Yeah, yeah, "Obama" as in "Barack" as in Deval Patrick's buddy sounds similar to "Osama" as in the despicable terrorist. But those are two names that you don't want to mix up in polite company. You don't want to mix up those names in impolite company.
Alas, that's exactly what former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential aspirant Mitt Romney did.
Marc Ambinder has the quotation from a Romney presentation in Greenville, South Carolina:
Actually, just look at what Osam, uh, Barack Obama, said just yesterday. Barack Obama calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to come together in Iraq. That is the battlefield. That is the central place, he said. Come join us under one banner.
Making it worse is the fact that Romney said "Barack." Fumbling your "Obamas" and your "Osamas" is bad enough, but the "Barack" makes it seem as if Romney was trying to connect the two for the benefit of his audience.
A side note: Romney's also been subjecting his audiences to PowerPoint presentations. If you want to drive voters away screaming, that's one way to go about it.
Mashup of Mitt on a particularly dingy day by Caroline Roberts.
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I don't understand how somebody could make that sort of error...He had it RIGHT, and then corrected himself to the WRONG NAME. Unbelievable.
We all know Mitt is an idiot, but this case of misspeaking does seem deliberate to me.
Didn't Ted Kennedy make this blunder already?
Ah--yes, he did. And that would have been good for me to mention in the spirit of fairness. However, I just watched the YouTube video again, and he did the "Osama/Obama" swap, but he didn't throw in the "Barack" like Romney did. The "Barack" bit was what helped Romney dig his own hole.