Pearl Harbor Day

In my teens and twenties, some NFL teams moved around and/or changed names. Even today, when the Colts play Baltimore, my head still explodes.

In 1996, Bob Dole was on the campaign trail. A Japanese pitcher threw a no-hitter for the Dodgers. Dole acknowledged this and congratulated him and "Brooklyn."

He misspoke, and I empathized. For the first 35 or so years of his life, the Dodgers were in Brooklyn, not L.A. They were "embedded" in Dole's brain as Brooklyn, and even though everyone knew that Dole knew they were L.A.'s team, his subconscious made him utter "Brooklyn."

Lots of people made hay out of this, as if Dole was getting senile. There were lots of reasons to oppose Dole, but this wasn't it. 

But eight years before, something far stranger happened. On the campaign trail, George H.W. Bush made a stump speech to veterans on September 7, 1988. Reading something somebody else obviously wrote, he said September 7 was "Pearl Harbor Day."

He didn't notice the obvious error and kept on speaking.

And Bush was a teenager when the Pearl Harbor attack happened. He fought in the war, and I think his plane was shot down twice.

And he didn't know about December 7?

What impresses me is that he was able to skate through this, just like Obama skates through nobody knowing his college transcripts.

But maybe Bush is just that forgetful. Multiple websites claim that Bush says he doesn't remember where he was the day of the JFK assassination. Forget one, you probably are able to forget the other.

But that's pretty damn forgetful.

No wonder some people think our "leaders" are literally from another planet.