MSNBC Dives To Cover For Obama With New 'Special Olympics' Theory
mike
During MSNBC's 9am ET hour on Friday morning, anchor Alex Witt
presented viewers with the lame suggestion that President Obama's
joke on NBC's Tonight Show -- about how his bowling ability was "sort
of like Special Olympics or something" -- was really an attempt at a
compliment of disabled athletes. Witt seized upon the hypothesis of
the head of the Special Olympics in Illinois that Obama really meant
to cite the Special Olympics as a sort of "inspiration for the
President deciding to be a bit better as a bowler."
The actual exchange on the Thursday, March 19, Tonight Show does
not make that explanation seem even remotely plausible:
HOST JAY LENO: I imagine the bowling alley has been burned and
closed down.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: No, I've been practicing.
LENO: Really?
OBAMA: I bowled a 129. I had-
LENO (in a mocking/patronizing tone as the audience laughs): Oh,
no, that's very good. Yeah. That's very good, Mr. President.
OBAMA (laughing): This is sort of like Special Olympics or
something.
[This item is based on an article by intern Mike Sargent posted
Friday afternoon, with video, on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org:
newsbusters.org ]
Friday morning on MSNBC, Witt offered up this exotic theory to
absolve Obama of being insensitive to the disabled: "Nothing goes
unescaped when it comes to the President. He did talk about the
Special Olympics. Some people took that as an offensive remark.
However, this morning on a radio show, the director of the Special
Olympics for the state of Illinois, a man by the name of Doug Snyder,
talked about that, and he thinks he knows where all this came from,
because he remembers a couple years back introducing the President to
a little girl named Caitlyn, who showed the President how to bowl, and
did a darn better job of doing it at the time than the President was
able to do it. He thinks Caitlyn is actually perhaps the inspiration
for the President deciding to be a bit better as a bowler."
Presumably, the President did not intend to offend when he cited
the Special Olympics as a way to laugh off his low bowling score, but
it's quite a stretch to suggest that his remark on the Tonight Show
was an attempt to cite the Special Olympics as a positive example.
It's at least too much for Obama's own press people, who have not made
such an absurd claim -- leaving it up to his fans in the media to try
and explain away such an obvious blunder.