About Gary Johnson’s “Aleppo Gaffe”…
I was more impressed by Gary Johnson’s subsequent recovery after his “Aleppo Gaffe” than I have been by Clinton’s or Trump’s entire campaigns.
This year’s presidential race has made political pundits of us all. We’re asking, “Can’t we do any better than this?” It certainly raises the appeal of alternatives like Gary Johnson or Jill Stein.
Yesterday Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson was asked what he would do about Aleppo while appearing on MSNBC. He responded with a blank stare. The wheels were spinning, but he was getting nowhere quickly.
“What is `a-lep-o`?” he asked, the headlights of an impending viral clip shining in his face:
While I was watching a re-hash of the clip on last night’s evening news, I too was racking my brain for a couple of seconds. “Aleppo” was simply an out-of-context word taken from the myriad of news cycles I’ve watched this year. I was unable to connect it with the viral tweet that once again raised the issue of our country’s and the world’s failure in dealing with the Syrian civil war:
Hopefully, you’ll forgive me for a momentary lapse on Aleppo. On the other hand, there’s no reason to give Gary Johnson the same break. If you’re running for President, you should obviously have an opinion on Syria, and as shown in the clip above, once he grasps the context, Johnson shares his position.
Now that we’ve got a shared context, I’d like to point out that it’s what Gary Johnson did next that I found so refreshing. In interviews about the gaffe, Johnson admitted there was no excuse for not knowing about Aleppo. When a host on The View asked him if this disqualified him to run for President, he responded, “Fair enough.” There was no dodging or bombast. He simply admitted he’d made a mistake. It was a humble response from a decent man who seems to honestly aspire to the job.
Whenever I see Gary Johnson before the media, he appears as one who doesn’t have anything to loose. He comes off as a public servant. I, for one, would love to see him in the debates with Clinton and Trump. He may have nothing to loose, but I think we’ll all miss out if we don’t see him there.