Ireland’s Minister for the Environment enjoyed a momentary slip of mind when he forgot who the bad guys are, telling reporters that Europe needs to break its energy dependence on a variety of entities including the European Union and the USSR.
Eamon Ryan, who serves as head of the Green Party as well as Ireland’s Minister for the Environment, struggled on Monday to remember who he was arguing against, telling reporters that European nations need to stop importing fuel from Russia.
Ryan — who has been fending off far-left rebels within his party since entering government — obviously has reds on the mind, however, with the minister telling reporters that Europe needed to reduce fuel imports from the ‘USSR’ in a video uploaded online.
Flubbing his line, the Green leader told journalists that: “…our reliance on imported fossil fuels. The best way to take on Vladimir Putin is to stop buying imported oil, gas, and coal from the European… from the USSR, from the Soviet… from Russia.”
The gaffe came as European energy ministers met in Brussels to discuss granting Moldova and Ukraine access to the European power grid.
Britain’s Diane Abbott — a veteran member of parliament from the hard-left faction of the opposition Labour Party — set herself up for a similar fall on Tuesday morning during a spot on the BBC’s Politics Live show. When invited to contribute to the panel discussion by host Jo Coburn, Abbott remarked “One of the things that Putin has gone wrong is he seemed to think his tanks could roll into Croatia…”.
Fortunately for Abbott, the obliging BBC host was on hand to correct her that they were, in fact, discussing Ukraine.
Update 02/03/22 — Biden Joins Team Flub!
Not one to be outdone, Biden misspoke at the State of the Union Address Tuesday, appearing to express sympathy for the “Iranian People” who have had their capital “Keev” circled with tanks. A text of the speech released by the White House revealed he was supposed to be talking about Ukraine, Breitbart News reported.