Did Dan Rather make just a simple mistake saying Osama instead of Obama? Do you make this mistake sometimes?

Question

I saw the clip on Fox News.

"When asked for his opinion on the whole Jesse Jackson/Barack Obama dust up, Dan Rather talks about his admiration for the legendary civil rights activists, and says Osama bin Laden wouldn’t be possible without him. What?

I can understand accidentally mixing up Obama and Osama. It happens. What I don’t understand is how Dan Rather could make the mistake of actually calling him the full Osama bin Laden. More astonishingly, how can the entire”Morning Joe” cast sit there and not correct him? Stupefying."

Is this just simply a slip in the tongue? Age?

Thinking faster than you can speak?

My dad is 81, and he sometimes refers to Luther from the Reformation as Martin Luther King.

Answer 1

Yes, slip of the tongue, age, thinking faster than speaking, all of the above.

Answer 2

Slip of the tongue, but it also shows how he really thinks.