"National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day — ‘A day that will live in infamy' December 7, 1941" US President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday morning. Seems fine, ordinary boilerplate for a national day of remembrance.
National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day — “A day that will live in infamy!” December 7, 1941
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2017
The only issue is that the tweet slightly misquotes the iconic line from then-US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. On December 8, 1941, FDR addressed the nation and referred to the previous day as "a date which will live in infamy."
In fairness to the president, his mistake is a pretty common one. The "day" misquote produces 1.15 million results in a Google search, compared to 690,000 for the correct quotation. However, FDR intentionally emphasized the date in his speech to suggest the historic significance of the event.
Donald Trump wasn't the only member of his family to mistweet. His wife Melania fired off a tweet of her own: "Today we honor Pearl Harbor Heroes. 11/7/1941 Thank you to all military for your courage and sacrifice!"
there we go pic.twitter.com/iIsAN0bZr0
— David Mack (@davidmackau) December 7, 2017
So yeah, she got the date wrong. The First Lady fixed her tweet, then deleted it entirely.
This probably isn't the biggest news story of the day. (Would that it were, alas.) But it is emblematic of an administration that cannot seem to get on top of the details of governance. The Trump administration has neglected to book hotel rooms for its delegation, and to follow proper procedures for requesting audiences with world figures. They've misspelled names of global leaders in press releases or assigned them to the wrong country, and casually tweeted falsehoods or, perhaps, admissions of obstruction of justice.
None of these are impeachable offenses, but each would be enough to get a copy editor fired.
