Monday, August 25, 2008

The gift that just keeps giving: Obama insults KC by mistaking it for St. Louis

Everyone from the KC metro knows that Kansas City and St. Louis are major rivals--from conventions and tourist dollars to legislative appropriations and funding, these two I-70 rivals have always fought to have the upper hand, and the 1985 World Series between the Royals and the Cardinals was a spirited demonstration of the intense rivalry between citizens of the two cities.

Barack Obama was in Kansas City tonight to speak to airline workers bracing for an upcoming round of layoffs, and while addressing delegates during the first night of the DNC in Denver by satellite, Obama mistakenly said he was in St. Louis. His daughter had to correct him by saying "where are you, Daddy?" to which Obama hastily mumbled, "oh, Kansas City."

Excuse me? I know that we should just expect these flaps (like when Obama said he had campaigned in all 57 American states, an odd flap unless he was thinking about the 57 internationally recognized Islamic states of the world), but this is getting ridiculous. It's an insult and slight to Kansas City when he confuses us with St. Louis--and he's spending the night here!

I expected more from the savior of the planet and the "The One." But it's not like St. Louis and Kansas City have similar sounding names, or are interchangable--the cities could not be more different--opposite sides of the state, opposite histories, opposite cultures.

Obama is either just lazy or completely uninformed and unprepared. In either case, these latest examples prove that the state senator and community activist from Illinois who has yet to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate is not ready to to be leader of the free world.

No comments: