I figured as much

The first time I heard anything of the now famous "57 states" Obama gaffe was in the subject line of an email I received from ... someone, which I never opened and just deleted immediately. My normal everyday policy being, while checking my inbox, to just delete anything and everything that the subject line informs me is likely going to be a great waste of my time. In this particular case the subject line, as I recall it, read something like "Does Barack Obama really think there are 57 states?", or something to that effect. My immediate reaction was, like I said, to just delete it and not give it another thought.

Today was the first time I've ever seen the actual Obama quote that (I guess, though I do not understand why) everyone's raving about. I've offered my theory of what Mr. Obama actually meant to say with the underlying reason for it in a comment to the tread. Feel free to correct me if you think I'm wrong. But please don't try to convince me that Mr. Obama actually thinks (or thought until very recently) there are more than 50 states in this union. That would be a huge waste of my time, though I probably wouldn't delete the comment.