I’m so much worse than Marcy Kaptur…
18 Jan 2008
Jill’s taking issue with those making a big deal out of Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur mixing up the names of two people in the House that apparently the National Republican Congressional Committee thought was important enough to put out an email about and even put the video clip out there.
Considering I’ve called my children by the wrong name, really offending my son when I’ve accidentally called him one of his sisters name and more than one time in frustration stated, “FINE you know what your name is”. At least in this case the two men do look similar – Can you tell them apart?
OMG – is that really both of them – they DO look IDENTICAL!!!
January 18th, 2008 at 10:58 pmHere’s another side by side of them.
January 18th, 2008 at 11:02 pmlol – they’re both Bernanke in mine. I couldn’t resist.
January 18th, 2008 at 11:53 pmAt least they are both men – my son still complains to this date about when I called him “Emily”.
January 18th, 2008 at 11:55 pmI was wondering why this was even a story. If an R did it, who would even bother to mention it?
January 19th, 2008 at 3:19 amI would really like to know why Paulson’s old company (Goldman Sachs) is the only company making a profit off of the subprime crisis, though. But I guess that would require real journalism. Maybe after the AP gets done fine-tuning Britney Spears future obit, they’ll get around to finding out.
She’s a 13 term congresswoman, worked for carter, and doesn’t know this information. It’s her JOB for Christ sake. She doesn’t even know who she’s talking to!!!!!!!! Yea their both men ” they all look alike”!!
January 19th, 2008 at 8:31 amSeems like “much adoo about nothing” its not like she called Obama- Osama – OH wait, Ted Kennedy already did that.
No, I don’t know how to spell ado, and my labtop does not have Google tool bar spell check. ARRGGGG. Have a good weekend all.
The A-Hole
January 19th, 2008 at 9:33 amI think this is more than a slight slip of the tongue. We’re not talking about a mistaken identity in the hallway.
We’re talking about a congress person who supposed to be asking questions at a committee hearing. I think she should know the difference between the Secretary of the Treasury and the Fed Chairman because the questions you prepare are going to be different.
This is not her first mistake of this nature.
My guess. You weren’t all that forgiving when Dan Quayle misspelled “potato(e)”.
January 19th, 2008 at 10:13 amActually Gordon, I was that forgiving. I realize something very important…We are human. Good natured teasing when someone makes an error is one thing, but doing a full court press on it seems a bit over the top.
We don’t know if she was reading from notes prepared by someone else or if she made a simple mistake in identifying who a person was. Either way did it have a huge impact on that hearing? Not that I can see.
January 19th, 2008 at 10:23 amA-Hole, if you use Firefox as a browser it has a built in spell checker – it’s how I know that you spelled ado right.
January 19th, 2008 at 10:25 amAs is so often the case, Lisa Renee does a better job than me explaining why this matters, or doesn’t matter:
“We don’t know if she was reading from notes prepared by someone else or if she made a simple mistake in identifying who a person was. Either way did it have a huge impact on that hearing? Not that I can see.”
I only interned on the Hill for three months, but I’m telling you – the quantity of information these people have to know is unfathomable. Likewise for the cabinet people etc. It’s massive.
My focus is on how this story came to be about Kaptur mixing them up, versus a story about how intertwined the two men’s work is and the irony of their appearances and backgrounds being academic and ivory tower and far removed from the experience of the people suffering most from certain economic realities.
My point about women v. men reporting on the story is that typically I believe women see the forest for the trees whereas in this case, the men writing about what happened (with one exception I’ve found being the PD’s Elizabeth Auster), focused on the tree.
January 19th, 2008 at 10:41 amJill, you covered the story in an excellent manner hence there was no point in my repeating what you pointed out, in which you raised some very valid points. So I opted for the human/humor aspect. Outside of the NWO area Marcy rarely gets some of the kudo’s she deserves, with the exception of when she went to the floor to support striking workers at the Kennedy Space Center. Yet, an error as small as this one, suddenly becomes newsworthy…
Having spent many an hour watching Congress and our General Assembly mistakes like this are not uncommon, what is uncommon is it becoming news.
January 19th, 2008 at 11:05 amTx, Lisa – you know I wasn’t fishing but again, you say it best – these kinds of mistakes are commonplace, that they become news is not. With 535 members of Congress, 20 from Ohio (18 reps and 2 senators), you’d think the press had other stuff more important to us to report on.
January 19th, 2008 at 11:13 amJill, our mutual admiration/respect means neither one of us ever has to fish.
On the bright side, perhaps some of those who had never heard of Congresswoman Kaptur became curious enough to search information on her. If they as an example watched the YouTube video that the NRCC provided there are a few links to other speeches or statements she’s made that demonstrate a clearer view.
January 19th, 2008 at 12:52 pmIt is hard to imagine that the Republican Party, with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice at the helm, would have the audacity to suggest the incompetence of anybody.
January 20th, 2008 at 12:09 pmBen Bernanke, Henry Paulson — ugh, whoever the heck you are — clean up that mess!!
Perhaps now is when we find out that Henry and Ben are actually twins who were separated at birth. An otherwise asinine attack on Marcy Kaptur ends in a heartwarming family reunion. Aww!
January 20th, 2008 at 12:31 pmWhat think is interesting is, when a presidental candidate is asked a question about the leader of some small county, an incorrect answer rates national news. So, why should Marcy get a free pass when she’s asking questions at a hearing she has (supposedly) been briefed on? It may just be bad staff work, but how much legislation gets passed or passed on based on staff work?
January 21st, 2008 at 9:46 amRight Wing – are you thinking of some incident in particular?
Yesterday, Charlie Rangel almost called “food stamps” “green stamps.” Should he be excoriated for that?
January 21st, 2008 at 9:49 amIn fairness Republicans are used to the perfect language skills and articulation of President Bush.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGIH_enUS236US236&q=bush+misspeak
January 21st, 2008 at 2:56 pmSensor, when the President (this one or any other) misspeaks when answering a question in a public forum, particurarly one that is off the topic that was discussed, I have no problem with his not having exact information at his fingertips. (Others, particularly Democrats, do seem to have this problem.) That being said, when one is doing the questioning, particurarly when one is attempting to lead a witness into providing less than flattering information, one should have the facts at hand. The fact that Ms. Kaptur appears to not have taken the time to be properly briefed speaks towards either the effectivness of her staff, or her interest level in the subject at hand.
So, should we question her intelligence level based on this incident?
January 21st, 2008 at 3:25 pmYou really don’t give Bernanke much credit now do you – you think anyone could lead him anywhere?
January 21st, 2008 at 3:28 pm