Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson (R-LA) refuses to put people over politics. Or, that's what a fundraising email issued by his office claims. This is, of course, a simple error, the kind we all make from time to time. But Democrats, apparently having nothing better to do, pounced on the error.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) appeared to get his words mixed up in one of his first fundraising emails since taking the top House job last week.

Johnson capped a standard fundraising message Friday with a new turn on a familiar phrase: “I refuse to put people over politics.”

That apparent mix-up garnered jeers from House Democrats and their allies, eager to go after the new leader. 

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) took an indirect shot at Johnson just after the email made the rounds online Friday afternoon.

“House Democrats will continue to put people over politics,” Jeffries said on X, formerly Twitter. “Why is that an issue for our Republican colleagues?”

Gun control advocacy group Giffords, founded by former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), also piled on, hitting Johnson for his record on gun control legislation.

“Mike Johnson says the quiet part out loud: ‘I refuse to put people over politics,” the group said on X. “For politicians bought by gun lobbyists, the people are never top priority.”

The reaction from Giffords is, to put a point on it, stupid. Speaker Johnson, who almost certainly did not personally write that fundraising email - he has a staff for such things - did not "say the quiet part out loud." He is not "bought by the gun lobby." Giffords is predictably getting this hysterically wrong, as Second Amendment advocates don't "buy" politicians, they support politicians who already favor pro-Second Amendment policies. 

This is the kind of error that warrants some good-natured joshing, and nothing more. It's a simple mistake. That's all.

What's more, it's hardly the first time a pol has made a slip-up of this kind. We have, of course, had almost three years of President Biden's stumbles, slipups, and nonsensical statements, as well as VP Harris's constant flow of word salads; those are not innocent mistakes but a clear display of dementia and outright stupidity.

But there are plenty of examples of pols tripping over their own metaphorical tongues:

• In 2021, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi thanked George Floyd for "sacrificing his life for justice," which was not only staggeringly wrong but accorded Floyd a moral high ground he didn't deserve.
• In 2010, Representative Hank Johnson famously worried that a buildup of American Marines on Guam would cause that island to tip over.
• During the 2004 Presidential election, Democrat candidate John Kerry (who by the way served in Vietnam) claimed of funding for the Iraq War that "I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it.” The actual chain of events was more complicated than that, to be fair, but the Bush campaign cudgeled Kerry with the quote for the rest of the campaign.
• And one of the worst cases of actually saying the quiet part out loud, in 1982 New York Mayor Ed Koch, while running for Governor, said this about Albany and people who live, well, outside of New York City: "Have you ever lived in the suburbs? It’s sterile. It’s nothing. It’s wasting your life, and people do not wish to waste their lives once they’ve seen New York! This rural American thing — I’m telling you, it’s a joke.” Koch then lost the gubernatorial election, badly.

More examples abound.

People who talk a lot and write a lot make mistakes. That goes with the territory. Some good-natured joshing is in order when a pol makes a slip-up like this, but anything more than that is just petty. Speaker Johnson is, so far, handling the job with aplomb; under his leadership the House has passed a (paid for!) stand-alone aid bill for Israel, leaving the usual Hamas-supporting members of the House literally shaking. (These are some of the same Democrats who, in recent days, have been demanding to know why the new Speaker isn't rich.)

The appropriate action by Speaker Johnson here is to have a heart-to-heart with his copywriters and to expect some laughter and jabs from his political opponents. That's fair. But there's just nothing more to it than that.

Back when I was a kid, the pre-woke Marvel comics' "Big Guy" Stan Lee had a thing called a "No-Prize," which was awarded to readers who spotted a mistake in an issue of any Marvel comic and then wrote in to explain why it wasn't really a mistake after all. Maybe Congress should make a similar award, to be presented to pols who slip up and make silly or nonsensical statements. The President and Vice President would quickly amass a huge number of these Congressional No-Prizes.

Maybe even enough to make the White House tip over.