Political speech blunders and internet amplification in the Obama presidency

¶ … Internet When a Politician Makes a Blunder in Speech

President Obama is noted for blunders of speech and one of the worst blunders involves his presentation of the Medal of Honor to a serviceman who is deceased for nearly three years and the blunder of President Obama goes as follows:

"First time I saw 10th Mountain Division, you guys were in southern Iraq. When I went back to visit Afghanistan, you guys were the first ones there. I had the great honor of seeing some of you because a comrade of yours, Jared Monti, was the first person who I was able to award the Medal of Honor to who actually came back and wasn't receiving it posthumously." (Zurko, 2011, p.1)

In May 2012 President Obama was forced to apologize after he called the Nazi death camps that were constructed in Poland "Poland death camps." (Bates, 2012, p.1)

Statement of Thesis

The blunders of speech committed by President Obama and other politicians have, due to the Internet, become instant news traveling faster than the speed of light across social media websites and online news websites and play a great role in the public perception of a politician in the present highly technologically enabled age.

I. Speech Blunders Are Natural In Politics

There is always someone ready to pounce on a blunder in speech and to stretch and skew the misstated information to the greatest extent possible due to the competitive nature of politics. While speech blunders are natural what seems surreal is the rate of speed at which such gaffes travel on the World Wide Web. For example, one merely need to Google the phrase "Obama sex joke" to see how extensively these speech blunders are discussed via the Internet. For the purpose of this study, the writer of this work did just that and what resulted as the top 10 Googled websites are those as follows:

(1) Did Obama make a joke about oral sex?

(2) Obama makes oral sex joke about Michelle;

(3) Media fabricate obama sex joke

(4) Did Obama make sex joke about Michelle?

(5) Now That's a Gaffee: President Obama Makes Accidental Oral Sex Joke

(6) Classy, Obama Cracks Sex Joke About His Wife;

(7) Obama's Oral Sex Joke Abut His Wife Michele

(8) Reports swirl about Obama Sex Joke

(9) Did Obama Crac, an Oral Sex Joke About Michelle?

(10) Poll: Was Obama Sex Joke appropriate? (Google, 2012)

Of these ten Googled items there are:

Blogs 2

News reports 6

Social Media Websites 1

News Polls 1

Total 10

Analysis

While the President's joke does seem to have been other than sexually intended since his remark was the following in regards to Michelle and Ellen Degeners push up match which was televised:

"Michelle didn't go all the way down." (Zurko, 2012)

The President, as a public figure is a criticism magnet for anything he says either innocently or intended that might be taken more than one way by the public.

Conclusion

Because the President and other such political figures are in the public's eye and the resulting limelight and most specifically when they commit a blunder of speech, the Internet has served to exacerbate the public outcry because the news travels so fast and so far and wide, it is not possible to simply smooth over blunders of speech by today's politicians and instead they are required to answer to the blunder and woe is the politician who is unable to give a convincing justification for the blunder in speech. The Internet has connected the world and that includes the political world very closely and while in the past, news would be old by the time it reached most ears, in today's highly technologically enabled society, news is still juicy and good to chew the fat on when it reaches today's public.