N.Y. Times has egg on face after chiding Gary Johnson

Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson asked, "What is Aleppo" on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program Sept. 8, 2016.

After Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson drew a blank when asked in an MSNBC interview what he would do about  "Aleppo," the New York Times chided him for "a surprising lack of foreign policy knowledge" that "could rock his insurgent candidacy."

Johnson "could not answer a basic question" the Times informed its readers in a report on the candidate's interview Thursday on "Morning Joe."

But the confident editors at the vaunted "paper of record" apparently didn't know what Aleppo was either.

They were forced to correct themselves no less than three times, finally settling on broadly defining Aleppo as a "wartorn Syrian city."

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The Times' initial report described Aleppo incorrectly as "the de facto capital of the Islamic State," Mediaite reported.

However, the Syrian city of Raqqa has been regarded as the ISIS capital.

The Times then described Aleppo as an ISIS "stronghold," Mediaite said, but the city is divided between the Syrian government and the jihadist rebels.

Then, Aleppo was incorrectly identified as the capital of Syria, which is Damascus.

The Times ultimately published only two official corrections, with an initial correction and a correction of the correction:

Correction: September 8, 2016

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An earlier version of this article misidentified the de facto capital of the Islamic State. It is Raqqa, in northern Syria, not Aleppo.

Correction: September 8, 2016

An earlier version of the above correction misidentified the Syrian capital as Aleppo. It is Damascus.

Asked by "Morning Joe" contributor Mike Barnicle what he would do about Aleppo, the center of the Syrian refugee crisis, Johnson asked, "And what is Aleppo?"

See video of Johnson on "Morning Joe" Thursday:

Johnson later issued a statement through his campaign:

This morning, I began my day by setting aside any doubt that I’m human. Yes, I understand the dynamics of the Syrian conflict -- I talk about them every day. But hit with “What about Aleppo?”, I immediately was thinking about an acronym, not the Syrian conflict. I blanked. It happens, and it will happen again during the course of this campaign.

Can I name every city in Syria? No. Should I have identified Aleppo? Yes. Do I understand its significance? Yes.

As Governor, there were many things I didn’t know off the top of my head. But I succeeded by surrounding myself with the right people, getting to the bottom of important issues, and making principled decisions. It worked. That is what a President must do.

That would begin, clearly, with daily security briefings that, to me, will be fundamental to the job of being President.

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After the interview, "Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough commented.

"Boy, that’s depressing," he said.

“It is staggering that somebody would run for president of the United States, get 14 percent, 15 percent in polls, and be so ignorant on foreign policy they would ask the question ‘What is Aleppo?’ on national television,” said Scarborough.

Barnicle said he was "stunned."

“It’s been on the front page of every newspaper for months," he said of the Syrian city.

In an interview story with Johnson in July at the Republican National Convention, WND reported the Libertarian nominee's strategy is to meet the 15 percent threshold in key opinion polls, which would enable him to participate in the presidential debates with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.