With national press watching, Perry's "tweeter" gaffes draw more scorn

Gov. Rick Perry may be a whiz on Twitter but he has a problem with saying the name of the popular social networking site.

Perry reportedly drew laughter when he referred to the site as "tweeter" in a video shot for a conservative convention in Minneapolis over the weekend. The story was quickly picked up by several national news outlets.

What's remarkable is that Perry made the exact same gaffe two years ago and barely anyone noticed. Back in 2009, then-Houston Chronicle reporter R.G. Ratcliffe taped Perry encouraging young conservatives to use "tweeter" to mobilize voters. Ratcliffe posted the video online. It prompted some guffaws and that was the end of it.

Now, as a potential candidate for president, Perry makes the same mistake and it draws considerable attention and prompts reporters to cite it as another example of how Perry is like his predecessor, who also occasionally mangled the English language.

Check out the two videos. The first is Perry's video address from this weekend. Below that is Ratcliffe's footage from an event in 2009. 

 

-Aman Batheja

Comments

[Jay]

You completely miss the point of this story. His award was for use of new media - and he cant pronounce the leading new medium? You only prove was a farce that is further by showing us that he didn't learn anything about new media in the last 2 years.

[Karen]

I am sure he has been told that he mispronounced "Twitter" and "Tweeter". He probably keeps doing it to give you something to talk about. What matters is that he certainly understands how to keep an economy growing, which is something our current president is woefully inept at.