Big Frick Dot Com

“Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

In what has become an almost tiresome noting of historic firsts the President of the United States Barack Obama made an appearance on NBC’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno. His intent was to deflect outrage at the ongoing AIG saga and make an early pitch for his near $4 trillion budget, but in a rare moment of unguarded candor this president showed a side of his character rarely seen in public.

Mocking retarded participants in the Special Olympics, Barack Obama compared his marked inability to bowl a respectable score to a Special Olympics event. His meaning was clear and his intent was equally so. So much so that this teleprompter president’s staff switched into immediate damage control mode. Even as the president’s plane was heading back to DC, his press aides were working the accompanying media by re-explaining that the president’s remarks were in no way derogatory to the retarded but only a bit of self-defacing humor poked at his lack of bowling prowess. The President called the Director of the Special Olympics from his plane to offer his personal apology even before the taped interview aired that evening.

It was a valiant effort to deflect criticism, but the explanation was as shallow as the comment was demeaning. I understand that this president of hope and equality for all was trying to poke fun at himself. But he did so by using the retarded as a sarcastic example of poor performance. By comparing his inability to successfully perform a task to a group of handicapped athletes he actually made them the punch line and the butt of his joke. The audience was no longer laughing at a president that can’t bowl. They were laughing at the mental image of retarded kids poorly performing in athletic events. Certainly not a comparison that should have been made by a thoughtful self-biographing leader of the free world, but perhaps a pretty good look inside this president’s thoughts when they are not written by someone else and read off a teleprompter.

Take just a minute to reflect on the media reaction if George W. Bush had said something similar. Or if Dick Cheney would have explained that the hunting accident where he shot his friend in the face with bird shot was “Like a Special Olympics hunting trip.” I doubt the press would have ignored it or passed it off as an unfortunate gaffe, as they are with Obama. An example was evident as CBS radio news ran audio clips the following morning of the president’s comments about his bowling. They edited out his demeaning comparison to the Special Olympics and made no mention of it in their initial reports. Directors at the Special Olympics have attempted to turn this disgrace into a positive by using the publicity to get their message out. I hope they are successful.

Much has been said and written about this president’s ability to communicate and touch an audience with his rousing oratory. But the words he is using during those rallies of adoration are all preplanned and honed to a razors edge to extract every last ounce of emotion. The problems come for this “Great Communicator” when he goes off the script and does not have a teleprompter to remind him of what exactly it is that he thinks.

Barack Obama has written two books about himself and has spent the last two years publicly speaking at campaign events. He certainly has a command of the English language. One would think that a man who based his entire campaign on hope and change could have come up with a more appropriate reference for self-degradation. How about something like “Yea, but no matter how bad I bowl Joe Biden still has to lose” or “The only guy I can beat at bowling is Rush Limbaugh”.

It was interesting to get a rare unedited inside view of the personal thoughts of Barack Obama when they are not written and displayed with notations on where to place the emphasis.

Not hopeful. Not uplifting. But interesting.