My advice to Politico, or to anyone who wants to make a big deal out of this, is to chill out.
I think the Administration has a deliberate policy of making spelling errors in its documents, web pages, press released, and other things. The reason is that they know that there are legions of Obama critics that are elitist know-it-alls, (even if they call themselves “conservative,”) that will make a big deal of a spelling error. The white working class, (a swing demographic, BTW), will react by sympathizing with the President.
It is not beyond this White House to be so Machiavellian. The reason I know this is that this is something I would do if I were running for public office, or actually held public office. (More so the former.) I would deliberately and purposefully order frequent and noticeable (but not ubiquitous and egregious) spelling errors on my campaign websites, press releases and documents. That way, I would get liberal elitist know-it-all to pick on me, which would in turn garner me the sympathy of the white working class.
That was the kind of person I was when I was in elementary school. Now I know why everyone hated me so much, because I now hate that kind of person so much.
For several years, before my new job necessitated my moving to Carbondale, and so much of my time, I read and responded to e-mails sent in to the Council of Conservative Citizens national website, and its “Contact Me” box. About once every couple of weeks, the website would get an e-mail from some smart ass who complained about the rare spelling error on CofCC.org. Most of them were liberal, but a few were elitist pseudo-conservatives. The ones that were the latter invariably wrote that neither they nor any of their friends, colleagues and associates would join the Council much less organize for it because of the occasional spelling error on the National Website. My response to such people was this: What kind of charmed life must you lead, and what kind of pampered, elitist lives must those in your social circle lead, such that a spelling error on a website is such a big fucking deal breaker? You figure, most of our members are in black-heavy and Hispanic-heavy states and cities. Our people, in, e.g. Mississippi, are up to their asses in black crime, black violence, black hate, and typical black behavior. Do you think they care that there’s a spelling error on the website of the organization that wants to do something about all their problems? Sounds to me like you need a new set of friends.
That shut most of ‘em up.
I mean, yeah, if you’re name is Eero Saarinen, and you’re working on the mathematics of a catenary curve to design the St. Louis Arch, where an error of 1/64th of an inch meant total disaster for the project, then precision is a good thing. But we’re not building the St. Louis Arch, we’re trying to change minds and organize people.
It’s a spelling error. Get over it.
