Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Is George W. Bush Coming Back – Romney Confuses ‘Sikh’ with ‘Sheik’

It’s Okay Though – Campaign Says He Was Tired

One thing that American had hoped was over when George W. Bush left office was the confusion of the President and his inability to speak plain, ordinary sentence and even express basic ideas.  After all Mitt Romney for all his faults has not one but two degrees from Harvard.  (Of course Mr. Bush went to Yale, but that’s another story.)

So it is with some dismay that we learn that Mr. Romney in trying to express sympathy for the recent murder/massacre of Sikhs in Wisconsin called them Sheiks instead.

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Mitt Romney mistakenly confused the words “Sikh” and “sheik” at a fundraiser here Tuesday night when he offered his condolences to the victims of last weekend’s shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee correctly spoke of the Sikh religion earlier in the day when he observed a moment of silence at a campaign event in Illinois. But at the Iowa fundraiser, he instead talked about the “sheik temple” and the “sheik people.” Sheik is an Arabic honorific, whereas Sikh is a religion with roots in South Asia.

The campaign was quick to explain, Mr. Romney wasn’t confused, he was tired.

Romney spokesman Rick Gorka said the candidate “mispronounced similar sounding words,” noting that he was clearly referring to the Wisconsin shooting and not trying to offend people of Sikh faith.

Gorka also pointed out that the comment came at the end of a long day of campaigning. Romney left his New Hampshire home at 7 a.m. and traveled between three states, holding three events and taping an interview before he took to the microphone at the evening finance reception in West Des Moines.

Of course, what was making him tired was (A) raising all that money

The event raised between $1.8 million to $2 million. Romney’s Iowa campaign co-chairman, David Oman, said it was “the largest and most successful presidential fundraiser we have ever had in the history of the state of Iowa.”

And (B) criticizing President Obama for spending too much time raising money.

Apparently no harm was done to the campaign by the gaffe of Mr. Romney because Sikhs, not being Iowa millionaires, were not invited to the fund raiser.

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