Remember when Obama confused Kansas City and St. Louis?
The Twitter world is all atwitter. In a tweet congratulating the Chiefs, President Trump wrote, "You represented the great state of Kansas and, in fact, the entire USA, so very well."
In fact, the Chiefs do represent Kansas. At least half their fans live there. In our bifurcated metropolis, there is a city called "Kansas City" on either side of the state line. Arrowhead Stadium is on the Missouri side.
The president got this wrong. It is a common mistake. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard celebrities says how pleased they were to be in Kansas when they were in Missouri.
Barack Obama's mistake was much worse. On the opening night of the Democratic Convention in 2008, while Michelle Obama addressed the delegates in Denver, Barack Obama camped out in a Missouri home to watch. The Kansas City Star's political reporter was there to take notes.
At the end of Michelle's speech, Barack joined his wife and daughters over closed-circuit TV. Said he unthinkingly, "I'm here with the Girardeau family here in St. Louis."
This was an awkward moment for Missouri Democrats, not because Obama needlessly repeated the word "here," but because the Girardeaus live in midtown Kansas City just a few blocks from my house. By Show Me standards, this screw-up ranks with the missed call at first base in the sixth game of the 1985 World Series, the one that allowed the undeserving Royals to slip by the haughty Cards.
Missourian Rush Limbaugh caught the significance. "You people don't understand this," he told his national audience at the top of his show the next day. "This is a gaffe. Kansas City and St. Louis hate each other."
The Star edited out the reporter's comment on the screw-up, and the rest of the media kept mum as well. For Obama, it was all omertà, all the time, which is why you have not heard of this one gaffe out of the 57 or so gaffes Obama made on the campaign trail alone.