Beto O’Rourke represented a district in Texas that is 81% Hispanic. In such a district, fluency in Spanish would be, if not an absolute necessity, then at least a strong advantage. As of the date of this post, his Wikipedia entry claims “he is fluent in Spanish.” Nonetheless, my rusty old self spotted several errors in his brief statement in Spanish. To be specific, the genders of nouns and adjectives didn’t match (“nuestro democracia”), he initially used the verb votar when he meant the noun votante (and promptly corrected himself), and he finished with a confusing sentence where he either failed to conjugate verbs correctly, or mixed up the syntax.
Booker’s riposte contained some minor errors as well, and was hampered further by his thick, opaque-sounding accent. He sounded as if he were reading out a proclamation in Hittite or some other long-dead language, and he appeared to be in pain while doing so.
George W. Bush was another supposed Spanish-speaker from Texas, yet on an official visit to Spain he committed a number of errors, including botching Prime Minister Aznar’s name (“Anzar”). In a cringeworthy apology, he said “if I don’t practice, I am going to destroy this language.” If you remember the 2000 presidential campaign, you may recall that his alleged fluency in Spanish was one of Bush’s selling points.
“At least he tried” is not an acceptable reaction in these cases. These aren’t tourists trying to order dinner in a restaurant, they’re public figures who have to be careful with their words. There are lots of people in this country who are totally bilingual in English and Spanish. The trusty ATA website will provide you with a list of qualified translators. Why did O’Rourke and Booker (or their teams) not consult such resources before mangling a foreign language in front of a national audience?
After the debate, Booker described O’Rourke as “an incredible Spanish speaker.” He apparently meant it as a compliment.