I thought I’d wait to write this post until I saw mainstream media coverage of one particular aspect of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. And then, thousands of stories about the visit to Mexico later, I realized that the press wasn’t going to be covering it.
Which, assuming this story is true, says a lot about the media. Here’s how Catholic News Agency reported the most recent diplomatic gaffe:During her recent visit to Mexico, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an unexpected stop at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and left a bouquet of white flowers “on behalf of the American people,” after asking who painted the famous image.
You can read more about Guadalupe here, but Roman Catholics believe that the beautiful image was miraculously imprinted on the cloak of a 16th-century peasant. It is Mexico’s most popular and important religious image and the basilica that houses it is the second-most popular Catholic shrine in the world.
Here are the details of the exchange:Msgr. Monroy took Mrs. Clinton to the famous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which had been previously lowered from its usual altar for the occasion.
After observing it for a while, Mrs. Clinton asked “who painted it?” to which Msgr. Monroy responded “God!”
Now, it’s one thing to not know what the Catholic Church teaches about Guadalupe. But it’s another for the State Department not to have briefed Clinton prior to her visit. Of course, those are political considerations.
I'll say that I didn't know this story myself, but I do think that if I was representing our country and visiting any cultural site, I'd have somebody telling me what I needed to know not to look stupid from the perspective of those whose respect I wanted.
Anyway, think how much worse it could have gone. I'm picturing this:Who painted it?
God!
Ha ha ha. No really. Who painted it?
God!
Ha ha ha. You people kill me. Come on. Seriously.
God!
Look. I have seen paintings that were done by ordinary mortals. Leonardo. Raphael. Michelangelo. If God were going to suddenly make a painting, wouldn't it be... uh... you know... better?
The comments on the thread are predictable. Some question whether this actually happened at all, or is simply a lie promulgated by CNS (the Catholic New Service). It took someone a few minutes to get two additional sources from Mexican newspapers. Here’s one:
“¡Oh!, ¿quién la pintó?”, preguntó asombrada Hillary Clinton al ver el cuadro de la Virgen de Guadalupe.
Translation (via WordLing)
“ Oh! , who painted it? ”, it asked astonished to Hillary Clinton when seeing the picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Is this the end of the world? No. But it is one of a series of gaffes that the members of this administration are making indicating a group of people who are amateurish and that I would not want near the levers of power.
Ignorance of THE major cultural icon of Mexico when you set out to visit is stupid. Giving a SET OF CDs as a gift to Britain’s Prime minister (ignoring the fact that the CDs cannot be played on British equipment) is either a deliberate insult or incredibly low class. Obama and his verbal crutch, the teleprompter, has become a rather funny joke and spawned a website. Telling the Special Olympics joke on Jay Leno exhibits a brand of careless frat boy cruelty that’s off-putting in a President. The tax problems of Obama’s appointees seem to indicate that his kind of people are more apt than usual to believe that laws are for little people.
And let’s not even go into his friends, associates and pastors before he became president.
If we had a president who just wanted to revel in the perks of office, this may be tolerable. But instead we have someone who appears to believe that he has the wisdom to transform America, re-write the constitution, and turn the country into a quasi-Fascist state.
That’s when gaffes become an issue.
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