Pat Dollard | Young Americans

by Salena Zito - (Pittsburgh Trib)

Everyone in the press — myself included — is whining about the inability to interview Gov. Sarah Palin. Or, at least shout-out a question or two to Sen. John McCain’s choice for vice president.

Although considering the speed of light in which a gaffe can travel in this campaign season, her decision to steer clear of reporters may be a very wise one.

Reason enough to contact my fellow journalists to help me compile a Top Ten List of “I can’t believe he/she just said that” reasons why Sarah Palin doesn’t want to take questions from us:

Number Ten: NBC’s political director Chuck Todd says his “I can’t believe he just said that” moment came from Ronald Reagan when the “Gipper” remarked that “Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do.”

Number Nine: CNN’s Donna Brazile says her gaffe moment happened towards the end of this year’s endless primary season when Sen. Hillary Clinton cited an AP story saying that “Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again.”

Number Eight: Andrew Breitbart from Breitbart.com and the Washington Times points to Joe Biden telling CBS’s Katie Couric: “When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed.”

For those of you historically challenged, FDR was not president during the stock market crash — Herbert Hoover was — and television wasn’t around back then.

Number Seven: The Hill’s Sam Youngman said picking a favorite gaffe is like picking your favorite song. It is kind of tough, but he was able to pick one, thanks to Mitt Romney widening his hunting experience, by telling the press that he had pretty much “been a hunter all of his life.”

Number Six: Patrick Gavin, one of the co-authors of the “Yeas and Nays” column at the Washington Examiner, says he is a fan of the Sen. George Allen gaffe in 2006 when he said, “I still had a ham sandwich for lunch, and my mother made great pork chops.” Allen was trying to explain his Jewish heritage.

Number Five: Politico’s Carrie Budoff says that the first gaffe that came to her mind was John McCain’s response to how many houses he owned. Instead of knowing off the top of his head, he tells the reporter that he “would have a member of his staff” get back to him on that.

Number Four: Domenico Montanaro over at NBC News also had a tough time narrowing it down to one gaffe, he finally picked one, thanks to spending the last couple of days debating who or what is “in the tank.” This made him think of Dukakis, well, literally in the tank. Montanaro says “bad move.”

Number Three: Fox News Major Garrett gives his nod to Newt Gingrich in November of 1995, when the former speaker of the house explained that a snub by President Clinton on a plane ride back from Yitzak Rabin’s funeral as one of the reasons why Sen. Bob Dole had sent down a tougher continuing resolution on the government shut-down. “You’ve been on the plane for 25 hours and nobody has talked to you and they ask you to get off the plane by the back ramp. You just wonder where is their sense of manners? Where is their sense of courtesy?”

Garrett says that one quote came to symbolize Gingrich’s — not Clinton’s — pettiness and significantly weakened the GOP in the PR tug-of-war over the government shutdown.

Number Two: The Telegraph’s Washington correspondent Toby Harnden points to when “The Iron Lady” — former British PM Margaret Thatcher — was talking about her deputy, William Whitelaw, and remarked that “”Every prime minister needs a Willie.”

Number One: The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz gives his gaffe moment to Ross Perot, when he dropped out of the race saying that, “Republicans were trying to disrupt his daughter’s wedding”

I am with Sam and Domenico on this, there are so many delicious gaffe moments in political history it’s a tough call to pick a favorite. Dan Quayle was always a great provider of gaffe, so is our current president. And you just know, Steve Schmidt over at the McCain campaign, was looking at just one day’s worth of Joe Biden gaffes on The Drudge Report and thinking, “Mmmm not so much.”

He’ll leave the gaffes to Tina Fey.