Political gaffe

A political gaffe is an error made by a politician.[1]

Kinsley gaffe

A Kinsley gaffe occurs when a political gaffe reveals some truth that a politician did not intend to admit.[2][3] The term comes from journalist Michael Kinsley, who said, "A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth – some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say."[4][5]

The term gaffe may be used to describe an inadvertent statement by a politician that the politician believes is true while the politician has not fully analyzed the consequences of publicly stating it. Another definition is a statement made when the politician privately believes it to be true, realizes the dire consequences of saying it, and yet inadvertently utters, in public, the unutterable.[6] Another definition is a politician's statement of what is on his or her mind—this may or may not be inadvertent—thereby leading to a ritualized 'gaffe dance' between candidates. While exhibiting umbrage or shock, and playing on the mistake, the 'offended candidate' must not exhibit anything resembling glee.[7][8] A propensity to concentrate on so-called 'gaffes' in campaigns has been criticized as a journalistic device that can lead to distraction from real issues.[upper-alpha 1] The Kinsley gaffe is said to be a species of the general 'political gaffe.'[9]

Kinsley himself posed the question: "Why should something a politician says by accident automatically be taken as a better sign of his or her real thinking than something he or she says on purpose?"[8]

Steven Pinker says that politicians use vague and indirect language to avoid making concrete statements, and that lazy journalists base political coverage around "gaffe spotting" rather than analysis of political platforms.[10]

The rise of Internet activism has created a new generation of negative campaigning where a political campaign can create attack ads within an hour of a politician making a gaffe.[11][12]

Notable gaffes by country

Australia

On August 12, 2013, at a Liberal Party function in Melbourne as part of the 2013 Federal Election campaign, Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, criticising Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, said "No one, however smart, however well-educated, however experienced, is the suppository of all wisdom." The word he meant was "repository".[13]

Azerbaijan

The Central Election Commission showed Ilham Aliyev to be winning with 72.76% of the vote via the Commission's official smartphone app a day before voting had even started for the 2013 elections.[14]

Canada

"Air pollution is the smell of money" – Philip Gaglardi.[15][16]
Pierre Trudeau and the fuddle duddle incident, 1971
Jacques Parizeau's 'money and the ethnic vote' speech, 1995
Peter MacKay calling his ex-girlfriend Belinda Stronach a dog after she joined the opposition party.[17]
"Evil reptilian kitten eater from another planet" – 2003 Ontario general election

Netherlands

During a 2009 speech in Mexico City, crown prince Willem-Alexander mistranslated the proverb "A sleeping shrimp gets carried away by the tide" roughly as "A sleeping shrimp gets screwed."[18]

Poland

Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski told reporters on 10 January 2017 that he had established diplomatic relations with "San Escobar", a nonexistent country.[19][20]

Portugal

"Everyone will give their best for a poorer country" – Prime Minister José Sócrates.

Romania

Victor Ponta's televised admission, after his party lost the 2008 election, that "their [the opponents'] system of electoral fraud worked better than ours"[21]

United Kingdom

Winston Churchill's election broadcast in the campaign for the 1945 general election in which he suggested that the Labour Party would create "some form of a Gestapo" to implement their reforms.[22]
John Major calling some of his cabinet ministers bastards.[23]
Gordon Brown referring to a member of the public as a "bigoted woman" during an election campaign.
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh has become famous for making remarks that were often construed as being offensive or stereotypical in nature.[24]

United States

The Gerald Ford Soviet Domination answer.[25]
The Jimmy Carter "Lust in the Heart" interview [26]
We begin bombing in five minutes. – A joke by Ronald Reagan in a sound check prior to his weekly radio address that was later leaked.
"Oh, the vision thing." – George H. W. Bush
Dan Quayle misspelling "potato" while attending an elementary school spelling bee[27]

George W. Bush was famous for making gaffes

"You forgot Poland" and numerous others - George W. Bush
"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American, who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man!" – Joe Biden[28][29]
Legitimate rape, Todd Akin, United States Senate election in Missouri, 2012
Rick Perry's "Oops moment"
47% speech by Mitt Romney
Farmer from Iowa comment, Bruce Braley, United States Senate election in Iowa, 2014
Joe Biden's remarks that: "No matter how deeply involved you are in the U.S. … there’s only one guarantee ... and that's the state of Israel" [30]
United States House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy — favored as successor to Speaker of the House John Boehner — "made Kinsley proud" as he bragged on Fox News's Sean Hannity show that the House GOP Investigation into the 2012 Benghazi attack had been effective in eroding Hillary Clinton's popularity, thus implying that the purpose of the investigation had been political.[31][32]
Hillary Clinton linking her Wall Street donors to 9/11[33][34][35][36][37]
Hillary Clinton Basket of deplorables comment on Trump Supporters.[38][39]
John Kasich's response to a question as about why District of Columbia is unrepresented in the United States Congress: i.e., purposefully, so as to disenfranchise as many Democrats as possible.[40]
Maine governor Paul LePage, in vetoing a bill that would have made Narcan available to save addicts from overdoses, stated that the drug "does not truly save lives; it merely extends them until the next overdose".[41][42]
Donald Trump's statement, "It has not been easy for me... My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars".[43]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's roll-out of her Green New Deal resolution, which her office pulled from her website and stated that the "wrong version" was uploaded. It called for payments to those "unable or unwilling to work," the phasing out of all air travel, and rebuilding every structure in the United States to comply with new environmental standards.
Michael Bloomberg's 2008 comments describing how the end of redlining triggered the subprime mortgage crisis and, while speaking to the Aspen Institute in 2015, his description of how stop-and-frisk was used to reduce minority crime.[44]
During the tenth 2020 Democratic presidential debate immediately prior to that year's South Carolina primary, candidate Michael Bloomberg nearly stated that he "bought" 21 congressional seats that contributed to the Democrats gaining control of the House of Representatives.[45]

Footnotes

". . . the episode is a perfect gaffe precisely because its content was so meaningless. . ." Chait, Jonathan (June 14, 2012). "The Origins of the Gaffe, Politics' Idiot-Maker". New York Magazine. Retrieved August 4, 2012.

References

"Definition for gaffe – Oxford Dictionaries Online (World English)". Oxforddictionaries.com. Retrieved 2012-05-29.
Webster, Merriam (June 3, 1972). "Merriam Webster definition of Gaffe". Merriam Webster Dictionary. Retrieved 2007-04-11.
Goddard, Taegan. "Kinsley Gaffe". Taegan Goddard's Political Dictionary. Political Wire. Archived from the original on August 17, 2013. Retrieved April 10, 2012.
Kinsley, Michael (April 23, 1988), "Commentary: The gaffer speaks", The Times
Friedman, Nancy (August 22, 2011). "Word of the Week: Kinsley Gaffe". Fritinancy. Archived from the original on April 10, 2012.
McKim, Brian; Skene, Tracy (January 17, 2012). "Brill makes a "Kinsley gaffe"". Shecky Magazine.com. Retrieved May 28, 2012. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
Smajda, Jon (October 23, 2008). "Michael Kinsley on the ritual of the gaffe". Retrieved May 28, 2012.
Kinsley, Michael (March 6, 2012). "Kinsley: Limbaugh and the hypocrisy of the gaffe". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 29, 2012.
Amira, Dan (June 14, 2012). "A Taxonomy of Gaffes". New York Magazine. New York, NY USA. Retrieved August 30, 2012.
Political Rhetoric, Explained - Steven Pinker. 14 October 2008 – via YouTube.
"Matthew McGregor Kevin Rudd Attack Dog, Mitt Romney Gaffe Video". The Sydney Morning Herald.
"Rudd flies in Team Obama". The Sydney Morning Herald.
"Abbott's gaffe goes global". ninemsn.
"Oops: Azerbaijan released election results before voting had even started". The Washington Post.
"Making BC a Green Jobs Machine - The Tyee". The Tyee. 21 October 2010.
"ABCBookWorld". ABCBookWorld. Retrieved 2012-05-29.
"MacKay denies referring to Stronach as a dog – Canada – CBC News". Cbc.ca. 2006-10-19. Retrieved 2012-05-29.
"Spanish quote gets prince into trouble". DutchNews.nl. 9 November 2009. Retrieved 13 January 2017.
Adam Taylor (11 January 2017). "San Escobar: How Poland's foreign minister helped create a fake country". The Washington Post. Retrieved 12 January 2017.
Associated Press (11 January 2017). "Polish FM Sparks Jokes With Mention of Nonexistent Country". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 January 2017.
Victor Ponta a recunoscut in fata intregului popor roman ca PSD a furat!. 7 December 2009 – via YouTube.
"5 July 1945". BBC News. Retrieved 7 October 2015.
"UK | Curse of the open mic". BBC News. 2001-01-29. Retrieved 2012-05-29.
Duke of Edinburgh: Five Decades of Prince Philip's Gaffes. 10 October 2013 – via YouTube.
M.J. Stephey (2011-06-13). "Gerald Ford, 1976 – TIME's Top 10 Gaffes and Mistakes in Political Debates". TIME Magazine. Retrieved 2012-05-29.
"Jimmy Carter's 'Lust in the Heart' Playboy Interview". The Washington Post. July 21, 1998. Retrieved September 1, 2012.
"Dan Quayle's 'Potatoe' Incident – 1992". 1998.
Liberman, Mark (1 February 2007). "Biden's Comma". Language Log. Retrieved 13 November 2014.
Lim, Christine; Stephey, M.J. (9 December 2007). "Top 10 Campaign Gaffes". Time Magazine. Retrieved 13 November 2014.
Robin, Corey (March 29, 2015). "Joe Biden's Israel stunner: American Jews should let Israel protect them". Salon. Retrieved March 29, 2015.
Prokop, Andrew (September 30, 2015). "A top House Republican was accidentally honest about the Benghazi investigation". vox.com. Retrieved October 1, 2015.
"Head of House Benghazi panel says McCarthy 'screwed up'". Reuters. October 7, 2015. Retrieved October 7, 2015.
"Hillary Clinton's Big Debate Gaffe: Bizarrely Linking Her Wall Street Donors to 9/11 Reconstruction". Alternet.
White, Ben (November 19, 2015). "Will Hillary's 'clumsy' 9/11 remark come back to haunt her?". CNBC. Retrieved April 23, 2016..com
Janell Ross (15 November 2015). "Hillary Clinton invoked 9/11 to defend her ties to Wall Street. What?". Washington Post.
Emily Jane Fox. "Hillary Clinton Still Can't Shake Her Wall Street–9/11 Debate Comment". Vanity Fair.
Andrew Freedman (15 November 2015). "Hillary Clinton's 9/11 moment was her biggest debate misstep". Mashable.
Graham, David A. "Gaffe Track: Hillary Clinton's 'Basket of Deplorables'". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2018-02-07.
"Clinton Says Half Trump Supporters Are in 'Basket of Deplorables'". Time. Retrieved 2018-02-07.
Benen, Steve (April 22, 2016). "Kasich makes a mistake by accidentally telling the truth". Rachel Maddow Show. MSNBC. Retrieved April 22, 2016.
Aleem, Zeeshan (April 23, 2016). "Health: Maine's Governor Just Said the Worst Possible Thing While Vetoing an Anti-Overdose Bill". The Huffington Post. Retrieved April 23, 2016.
Petersen, Lilli (April 21, 2016). "Maine Governor Blocks Addicts From Buying Lifesaving Drugs". New York Times. Retrieved April 23, 2016. In his veto letter, LePage, who is a Republican, said that naloxone “does not truly save lives; it merely extends them until the next overdose. ... Creating a situation where an addict has a heroin needle in one hand and a shot of naloxone in the other produces a sense of normalcy and security around heroin use that serves only to perpetuate the cycle of addiction,” LePage wrote.
"The 37 Fatal Gaffes That Didn't Kill Donald Trump". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved 2018-04-30.
"Bloomberg once blamed end of 'redlining' for 2008 collapse". AP NEWS. 2020-02-13. Retrieved 2020-02-16.
Porter, Tom. "Mike Bloomberg appeared to say he 'bought' 21 Democrats their seats in Congress in a cringeworthy debate gaffe". Business Insider. Retrieved 2020-03-02.