Oh for goodness sake. The Nancy Reagan joke was good natured and spontaneous. Had Nancy been there she would have chuckled herself. If anything, Obama was being self-deprecating here because he realized he sounded pedantic or silly saying that he had spoken to all the "living" ex-presidents. The adjective was superfluous. So he made a joke about it.

You're right - Obama's gaffe isn't the stuff legends are made of, but as I pointed out on my blog (thanks for your link to it above), it's at the least in questionable taste.

There are other far more substantive issues in Obama's first presser as President Elect.

Bryan Ellis
http://politics.BryanEllis.com

It was a *joke*. Hello!? And one that, evidently, nobody got. The only way he could have spoken with Reagan was through a seance. Get it?

Listen, it was Reagan who turned this country away from its path of economic/environmental sustainability, and so he deserves an posthumous ribbing possible. If you don't get *that* joke now, you will in 20 years.

This is what you choose to discuss? Who cares. She did consult astrologers.

Seance? How about reincarnation? One would have to be very thin skinned to be offended by that comment.

Besides, how can one know if those on the other side can communicate with we who are on Planet Earth?

It has been said that no one knows about the 'other side.' I agree. As soon as you go over, come back, please write a book.

I have to listen to it again to be sure, but in fact what I thought this was, was a save by a very self-aware guy who caught a mistake he almost made, and had his wits about him enough to pull something out of the air to try and fix it. If you listenend closely I think the quote is more long the lines of: "In terms of speaking to former presidents, I've spoken to all of them...that are living." That is, there was a slight pause before "that are living" that made it sound like he was saying he had talked to "all" presidents, and the comment about Mrs. Reagan was an attempt to correct that. That he even remembered that long ago incedent to use as a save is what impresses, but I guess that is asking too much of you, Achenblog and The Fix. A gaffe would have been a slip up about the economy, Iranian President's letter, of something of that nature.

There was no "joke" at Nancy Reagan's expense. Astrologers do not hold seances, so Mrs. Reagan was not the name Obama was reaching for. He said "Nancy Reagan" when he meant a different first lady.
Obama was obviously looking for the name of a 19th century First Lady said to hold seances after the death of her child on the way to her husband's inauguration.
Or he was remembering right-wingers' attack on Hillary Clinton, who made an innocuous comment about talking to Eleanor Roosevelt's portrait. The wingers misunderstood her comment, claiming that Hillary was holding seances with Mrs. Roosevelt.
Why do right-wing bloggers so easily misunderstand common English usage?

Sweet start, taking on an 87-year old widow, or maybe it was meant for HRC (http://www.cnn.com/US/9606/24/clinton.houston/). The dude's got women issues ... and needs a reapplication of super-glue to his teleprompter, don't leave home without it.

Nancy Regan is one strong women she been joked about far more worse than this, so whats the writers point,gosh write about the important process Obama has talked about,and besides hes talked to Nancy Regan since his comments, so what is the writer saying now,GET REAL i would have liked more from the writer as to,how the transition period could and would effect job losses if the economy is not prop up

Please, it was a poor attempt at a little humor! Our country is going down the tubes, and this is not important. We have her husband to thank for a lot of the policies that got us in this mess. I always thought the GOP's messiah was a meathead to begin with. His 90 billion dollar star wars project that never made it off paper, didn't tear down the Berlin Wall. He presided over an economic mess with close to 2000 bank failures, bordering on the mess today. He cut and ran, after hundreds of Marines were murdered in Beirut, Lebanon. He was knee deep in the Iran-Contra scandal, while Nancy was telling kids to just say no to drugs. I can go on and on. Ronald Reagan is the holy grail to all the stupid
neo-con talk show hosts, but I remember the 80's as not thru rose colored glasses. He interest rate,
and taking away loads of tax write offs that helped the Middle Class like writing off credit card interest on my income taxes. I worked for the gov't thru-out that period, and we didn't view him as
anything special. I'll cut him some slack, because I don't know when his Alzheimer's sickness began.
Clinton spent years fighting off the morale right like Newt Gingrich, David Vitter, and Kenneth Starr who all turned out to be morally lower then a street corner hooker. Thanks God, we have a real honest and true family man as President elect who really has brains. Reagan's IQ was about the same as GWB. He was a nice guy and a fair speaker, but our country spent the mid 80's in the cr@p house!

Sorry, about my previous posts typo's--> Please, it was a poor attempt at a little humor! Our country is going down the tubes, and this is not important. We have her husband to thank for a lot of the policies that got us in this mess. I always thought the GOP's messiah was a meathead to begin with. His 90 billion dollar star wars project that never made it off paper, didn't tear down the Berlin Wall. He presided over an economic mess with close to 2000 bank failures, bordering on the mess today. He cut and ran, after hundreds of Marines were murdered in Beirut, Lebanon. He was knee deep in the Iran-Contra scandal, while Nancy was telling kids to just say no to drugs. I can go on and on. Ronald Reagan is the holy grail to all the stupid neo-con talk show hosts, but I remember the 80's as not thru rose colored glasses. He helped in taking away loads of tax write offs that helped the Middle Class, like writing off credit card interest on income taxes. I worked for the gov't thru-out that period, and we didn't view him as anything special. I'll cut him some slack, because I don't know when his Alzheimer's sickness began. Clinton spent years fighting off the morale right like Newt Gingrich, David Vitter, and Kenneth Starr who all turned out to be morally lower then a street corner hooker. Thanks God, we have a real honest and true family man as President elect who really has brains. Reagan's IQ was about the same as GWB. He was a nice guy and a fair speaker, but our country spent the mid 80's in the cr@p house!

I think the conservative upset is nothing more than sour grapes they lost and that's it, get over it. They've run their mouths for the last 8 years and at one point it seemed most people were worried about making any sort of negative comment about any of W's criminal goings on. Reagan was a nasty mean spirited SOB and he Nixon are burning for all of their crimes against humanity, and someday W will join them. I will never forget when Reagan and his pole dancing ho wife Nancy were in New York City staying at the Waldorf Astoria. Nancy heard some of the other guests at the hotel were not like her in the least regard. Nancy was terribly upset at the indignity of being in the same hotel where the city of New York had housed homeless families! She exclaimed, "Why are these welfare people staying here?" At the time it was reported in the media as being equated with what Marie Antoinette had said before she got her melon chopped. She said when informed the peasants were starving and begging for bread but there wasn't any, she remarked incredulously, "Well let them eat cake" there problem solved. She was then and still is a poor example of humanity and she'll burn too.

I think the conservative upset is nothing more than sour grapes they lost and that's it, get over it. They've run their mouths for the last 8 years and at one point it seemed most people were worried about making any sort of negative comment about any of W's criminal goings on. Reagan was a nasty mean spirited SOB and he Nixon are burning for all of their crimes against humanity, and someday W will join them. I will never forget when Reagan and his pole dancing ho wife Nancy were in New York City staying at the Waldorf Astoria. Nancy heard some of the other guests at the hotel were not like her in the least regard. Nancy was terribly upset at the indignity of being in the same hotel where the city of New York had housed homeless families! She exclaimed, "Why are these welfare people staying here?" At the time it was reported in the media as being equated with what Marie Antoinette had said before she got her melon chopped. She said when informed the peasants were starving and begging for bread but there wasn't any, she remarked incredulously, "Well let them eat cake" there problem solved. She was then and still is a poor example of humanity and she'll burn too.