During his Town Hall meeting in Albuquerque, N.M. yesterday, the Republican presidential hopeful John McCain made his second gaffe within two days about the Czech Republic when he referred to it as “Czechoslovakia.” Bloggers immediately pounced on the mistake, as did MSNBC. (I saw no mention of it in today’s New York Times, which I found a little puzzling. Did I miss it?)
For those of you who are oblivious about what’s up, or cannot admit to yourself that you, too, are geographically challenged, in 1993 the country of Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic — the latter more commonly called simply “Slovakia.”
McCain has made this same mistake before — in 2000. President Bush — hardly unfamiliar with the problem of making gaffes — called him on it at the time.
Does it matter? Does it matter that a presidential candidate makes an error like this — not once, but repeatedly, over time? Or are bloggers pouncing on something trivial, something that’s just a little, nothing mistake and should be ignored?
After all, it’s genuinely confusing over there (wherever “there” is) to Americans. We’re known for being weak when it comes to geography (it’s barely even taught nowadays), and Europe has changed its map dramatically since the end of the Cold War. What with the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Balkan States (wasn’t it easier back when it was just plain old Yugoslavia and a couple of other unpronounceable names?), the Baltic States (What? Where are they?), etc., it’s easy to get all bollixed up about Europe. Wasn’t it neater and cleaner back when the former “Eastern European” countries (now insistent that they be referred to as part of “Central” Europe, and not “Eastern” Europe) were just parts of the Soviet bloc? (Soviet bloc? What was that?)
I never thought it mattered much that McCain graduated from the Naval Academy with a class rank of 894 out of 899. His post-college political career; his courage when he was a prisoner during the Vietnam War; his often thoughtful, independent-thinking mind made up for all of that. Some presidents have excelled as undergraduates (George W. Bush Sr. was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Yale) and some didn’t (Eisenhower ranked just below the bottom of the top third at West Point). The qualities necessary to be president of the United States extend far, far beyond what’s revealed in an undergraduate academic record.
Yet it’s precisely because we’re talking about a presidential candidate, and not an undergraduate, that causes bloggers’ hackles to rise over McCain’s mistake about the Czech Republic.
While academics fret over what American college students don’t know and why they don’t know it, they should, in all fairness, measure them against a presidential candidate who, if subjected to a Margaret-Spellings-style outcomes assessment exam on the layout of post-Cold War Europe, would not be able to pass it.
