I know Allahpundit hit this one last night, but no set of Obamateurisms would be complete without including the Navy “corpseman” remarks from Barack Obama. Besides, I disagree with my esteemed blog partner on this one. Had Obama said this just one time and corrected it afterward in his remarks, then I’d have bet that some helpful staffer had loaded the Teleprompter with an incorrect phonetic spelling. However, after the first time “corpseman” came out of his mouth, any speaker with even a passing knowledge of the military would have realized that the word had been mispronounced. After the second one, it should have been obvious. Instead, Obama went for the hat trick:

One such translator was an American of Haitian descent, representative of the extraordinary work that our men and women in uniform do all around the world — Navy Corpsman Christian [sic] Brossard. And lying on a gurney aboard the USNS Comfort, a woman asked Christopher: “Where do you come from? What country? After my operation,” she said, “I will pray for that country.” And in Creole, Corpsman Brossard responded, “Etazini.” The United States of America.

God’s grace, and the compassion and decency of the American people is expressed through the men and women like Corpsman Brossard.

Next time, maybe a White House staffer should make sure that all of the hard words really are spelled phonetically — or maybe our Commander in Chief should familiarize himself with the nation’s military instead.

Update: Several readers have pointed out an Obamateurism I missed. Obama calls Brossard “Christian” in one place and “Christopher” in another. The text comes from the White House.

Got an Obamateurism of the Day? If you see a foul-up by Barack Obama, e-mail it to me at [email protected] with the quote and the link to the Obamateurism. I’ll post the best Obamateurisms on a daily basis, depending on how many I receive. Include a link to your blog, and I’ll give some link love as well. And unlike Slate, I promise to end the feature when Barack Obama leaves office.

Illustrations by Chris Muir of Day by Day. Be sure to read the adventures of Sam, Zed, Damon, and Jan every day!