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It happens every now and then to our public officials – they say something they weren’t supposed to. Recently, President Bush was caught off guard (and on a microphone) sharing some ostensibly private thoughts on the Middle East conflict with Prime Minister Tony Blair using less-than-diplomatic terms. And quite a bit of ink was dispensed over that gaffe. Of course, Bush didn’t know anyone was listening to that conversation – there are always those other public flubs in which the speaker doesn’t realize until later that they’ll be issuing a correction.

During his first televised press briefing back in May, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow got a bit of flack for uttering a phrase that some perceived as racist. When asked to comment on the NSA domestic surveillance story, Snow replied that he didn’t want “to hug the tar baby of trying to comment on the program.” It became some of the more notable news from his inaugural appearance. The New York Times’ Alessandra Stanley led off her review of the event with the “minor snag”:

“The tar-covered doll that Br'er Fox used to ensnare Br'er Rabbit in an 1881 Uncle Remus story is used as a metaphor for a sticky situation, but for some it also carries vague racist connotations -- it has been used as a derogatory term for a black. In a society where a District of Columbia councilman can be accused of racism simply by using the word ‘niggardly,’ most politicians and TV commentators prefer to avoid tar baby references. When a reporter playfully asked him to explain the term, Mr. Snow mumbled that it could be traced to ‘American lore.’”

Some bloggers were less charitable in their assessments, but Joe Gandelman was glad to see a press secretary who “comes across as a flesh-and-blood human being” instead of the traditional “robot-like human tape recorder.” He noted, of course, the ultimate dilemma of Snow’s casual style: “He's going to have to learn to choose his words quite carefully, because they are pitfalls and he seemingly stepped in one (in a tar pit, that is.)"

Well, someone else has stepped in it this weekend: Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

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