You may or may not have heard of Obama's miscue over the weekend in which he told an Oregon audience, "It is wonderful to be back in Oregon," Obama said. "Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states."

Whether or not you heard about the statement says alot about where you are getting your news.  For the most part, the main stream media has competely ignored the story.  Other sources have been dilligent about getting the story out. 

Frankly "57" was  verbal miscue, and should be treated as nothing more than that......if it were a level playing field.  But it's not.

As others have pointed out, Dan Qualyle was crucified for not spelling the word "Potatoe" correctly.  George Bush was villified for not pronouncing "nuclear" correctly.  But it seems that knowing the number of states in the US should be as (or more important) than being able to correctly spell the word for spud.


But the media has TWO motives for their treatment of Obama and McCain.  First, they want Obama to win, hence the number of positive stories on his candidacy will far outstrip the negative ones.  Second, the number of negative stories they can flesh out on McCain will have a double benefit.  Any negative stories will help diminish his standing AND McCain will have to spend valuable campaign time and resources trying to put out the media created fire.

So the next time you hear a negative story on John McCain, ask yourself, "Is this more important than knowing there are only 50 states in the US?"