NY Times' Healy claimed Clinton's use of "pueda" didn't make sense -- but she got only the tense wrong

Summary: In a blog post, New York Times reporter Patrick Healy wrote that as Spanish-speaking voters chanted "Si se puede" at a rally in California, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton "bellowed into her microphone, 'Si se pueda is right!' " Healy added, "Several colleagues who speak better Spanish than I do say that 'pueda' (as opposed to 'puede') has meaning in other contexts, but it does not really make sense in this one." In fact, Clinton used the correct verb but the wrong tense.

In a January 22 blog post titled "No Habla Español," New York Times reporter Patrick Healy wrote that as Spanish-speaking voters chanted "Si se puede" at a January 22 rally in California, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) "bellowed into her microphone, 'Si se pueda is right!' " Healy added, "Several colleagues who speak better Spanish than I do say that 'pueda' (as opposed to 'puede') has meaning in other contexts, but it does not really make sense in this one." In fact, Clinton used the correct verb but the wrong tense. The Spanish word "pueda" is the first- and third-person conjugation in the present subjunctive tense of the verb "poder," which means "to be able to; may." "Puede," meanwhile, is the third-person conjugation in the present indicative tense of the same verb.

Further, in writing about Clinton's purported gaffe, Healy himself made a grammatical error. Healy wrote that "Clinton repeatedly heard the crowd chant 'Si se puede.' " In fact, the crowd chanted "Sí, se puede," meaning, "Yes, we can," (or, literally, "Yes, it can be done"). By using "Si" (without an accent above the "I") -- as Healy did -- the meaning of the phrase is altered. In Spanish, the word "si" means "if" and is most commonly used in conditional phrases -- without the accent over the "i," the phrase would mean "if it can be done." "Sí" (with an accent above the "I"), on the other hand, means "yes." Hence, "Yes, we can."

From Healy's January 22 post on the Times political blog The Caucus:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton does not usually speak in Spanish as she makes overtures to Hispanic voters, and now we have evidence of why.

Speaking Tuesday afternoon before a predominantly Hispanic audience of more than 2,000 people here, where she accepted the endorsement of Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers union, Mrs. Clinton repeatedly heard the crowd chant "Si se puede" -- a signature political phrase at Hispanic rallies that translates to "Yes, It Can Be Done!"

Politicians usually join in, but Mrs. Clinton refrained from doing so on one, two, and then three occasions; she simply nodded and smiled and said nothing.

Finally, as the crowd began shouting the phrase again, Mrs. Clinton bellowed into her microphone, "Si se pueda is right!"

Several colleagues who speak better Spanish than I do say that "pueda" (as opposed to "puede") has meaning in other contexts, but it does not really make sense in this one. In any event, the crowd was chanting "si se puede." The audience made no noticeable fuss over Mrs. Clinton's use of "pueda," although they stopped chanting sooner afterward.

By contrast, in the January 15 Times article to which Healy linked the words "Si se puede," reporters Adam Nagourney and Jennifer Steinhauer spelled the phrase correctly:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has eaten beef tacos in East Los Angeles and sat on the living room couch of a working-class family in a largely Hispanic neighborhood here for 30 televised minutes. At a rally of the culinary workers' union in the shadows of the Strip here one night, Senator Barack Obama pumped his fist and chanted with the crowd, "¡Sí, se puede; sí, se puede; sí, se puede!" or, "Yes, we can!"

—A.I.