US President Barack Obama made history tonight as the first serving American President to appear on a late night talk show.
The Jay Leno appearance went mostly well. Obama cracked some jokes, spoke seriously about the economy, and defended Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. But Obama without a teleprompter always shortens the odds of a mistake, like last year when he cracked a joke about Nancy Reagan and seances. And true to form he did, comparing his Ten-Pin Bowling skills to the Special Olympics.
Q Now, are they going to put a basketball — I imagine the bowling alley has been just burned and closed down.
THE PRESIDENT: No, no. I have been practicing all — (laughter.)
Q Really? Really?
THE PRESIDENT: I bowled a 129. (Laughter and applause.)
Q No, that’s very good. Yes. That’s very good, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: It’s like — it was like Special Olympics, or something. (Laughter.)
Q No, that’s very good.
THE PRESIDENT: No, listen, I’m making progress on the bowling, yes.
Conservative blogs are naturally condemning the comments as insensitive, and the White House issued a statement apologizing for the remark even before the interview went to air. No quotes yet from disability groups, but you can guess what they will be.
Here’s the video of Obama on Leno and the Special Olympics comment:
Meh who cares? People need to have a sense of humor, in my opinion. Nobody can be PC all the time about everything.
A slip of the mask from The Obama Deception;
A Freudian Slip.
Uncle Sam or Uncle Tom?
Insensitive yes. A slippage of some sort of mask. Hilarious and no. The radical right wing fundamentalist cult of Limbaugh who only know how to obstruct and smear. But what can we expect? They're the party who now holds up Bobby Jindal as their new future leader – one who boasts about his participation in an exorcism. Whaaa!
Seesmic video reply from Disqus user Patrickometry.
Where is the news with this? This was not an attack on special olympians worldwide like some would make you think. It was a poor choice of words for sure, but not a big deal. Overall I thought the segment was pretty good, even if Jay threw softballs.
Interesting and funny take on this topic here, btw: http://tinyurl.com/obamabowlsturkey
Obama makes some good points about people's overblown sense of entitlement