Last week during the debate, Joe Biden made a reference to "Bosniaks," something many in the mainstream and conservative media found absolutely hilarious. Here was another example of Biden putting his foot in his mouth, the inept gaffe machine that he is. Mona Charen at National Review described a moment of mirth she shared with her family during the debate:
Our family's favorite moment last night was when Joe Biden crowed about his diplomatic skills. "I brought Serbs, Croatians, and Bosniaks together."My son David: "Captain we've detected a Bosniak ship on our sensors." "On screen."
Oh dear! How droll! How terribly amusing!
Charen wasn't the only one who had a laugh though, Charles M. Blow of The New York Times thought the term "Bosniak" was hysterical, before the paper changed the column and issued a correction. Cokie Roberts, who is never tired of being wrong about anything, added her two cents that if Palin had used the term "Bosniak" it would have been a huge deal.
Roberts might be right, but not for the reason she thinks. Bosniak is a term referring to Bosnian Muslims, something anyone with a dictionary (or even a "Google"!) could have figured out. If Palin had used the term unprompted, that might have betrayed some actual knowledge about the region. Which could have been a big deal.
The trouble is these journalists had fallen in love with a narrative: Biden is a gaffe machine. And so they naturally assume that something they hadn't heard before had to be false or incorrect.
Journalism is a discipline of verification, say Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, but this time people couldn't be bothered to verify. They were too busy having a laugh.
--A. Serwer
