Oops: Perry Botches Kim Jong Il's Name

Candidate repeats Bush blunder on Kim Jong 'the Second'
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 20, 2011 4:21 AM CST
Oops: Perry Botches Kim Jong Il's Name
The death of "Kim Jong the Second" is "an opportunity to reunify the peninsula if the situation is handled effectively," Perry said in a statement.   (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

It's an easy mistake to make, but looks like Rick Perry's campaign was the only one to make it. An email from the Perry campaign yesterday about the death of Kim Jong Il repeatedly referred to the late North Korean leader as Kim Jong the Second. The upper-case I and a lower-case l next to each other probably tripped up a Perry PR person, but "Kim Jong Il was a regular old tyrant, not a monarch, which is probably something a presidential candidate (or at least the team surrounding him) should know," writes Dino Grandoni at the Atlantic. Perry's gaffe has precedent. When he was running for president, George W. Bush called the leader "Kim Jong Two," the New Yorker notes. (More Rick Perry stories.)

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