<<< Sajak begins his brief comment reference candidate Michael Dukakis and is misguided decision to photo-op in an Abrams tank while wearing a dress shirt and tie. He lost to H Bush in the 1988 election, in part, because of this goofy moment. Understand that Obama just had a Dukakis moment and Pat Sajak makes that comparison
Defining Moments
It's as if President Obama climbed into a tank,
put on his helmet [Sajak references Michael Stanley Dukakis,
the 1988 Presidential candidate],
talked about how his foray into Cambodia was seared in his memory, looked at
his watch, misspelled "potato" and pardoned Richard Nixon all in the
same day. It's fun to imagine the hand-wringing that must be going on within
the White House as staffers try to figure out how to undo the damage their boss
has done with his anti-entrepenurial riff. Defining moments in politics are
strange beasts. Sometimes they're only recognized in hindsight, while sometimes
they throw the train off the tracks before a sentence has been completed.
Sometimes their effect can be contained and minimized, while sometimes their
effect on the political narrative mestastasizes. This one is very bad for the
White House.
These defining moments take hold most devastatingly when
they confirm what a large portion of the electorate already believes. Taken
alone, it seems unfair that a single moment, an unguarded remark or a slip of
the tongue can carry such weight. They're often dismissed as "gotcha"
moments, but when voters are able to nod and say, "I knew it," these
moments stick and do terrible damage. We have witnessed such a moment.
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