Special Olympics Blowler to Obama: Game on!
03/20/09
By now, you've undoubtedly heard that the first sitting President ever to appear on the Tonight Show used said appearance to open his mount and insert his foot:
It began with the president joking about how bad a bowler he is.
Toward the end of his approximately 40-minute taping on the "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," Obama talked about how he'd gotten better at bowling and had been practicing in the White House bowling alley.
"I bowled a 129," he told Leno.
"That's very good, Mr. President," Leno said sarcastically.
But then came the foot-in-mouth moment: "It's like the Special Olympics or something," the president said.
In all fairness, he really didn't know any better because his TelePrompter wasn't there to tell him what to say.
The program hadn't even aired yet before Obama was hard at working undoing his dismal performance:
“He expressed his disappointment and he apologized, in a way that was very moving,” Shriver said on ABC's “Good Morning America.” “It’s important to see that words hurt, and words do matter. And these words that in some respect can be seen as humiliating or a put-down of people with special needs do cause pain, and they do result in stereotypes."
Obama told Shriver he wants to have some Special Olympics competitors over to the White House for basketball or bowling.
It appears that one Special Olympics bowler is already up to take on the President:
The top bowler for the Special Olympics looks forward to meeting President Barack Obama in an alley.
"He bowled a 129. I bowl a 300. I could beat that score easily," Michigan's Kolan McConiughey told The Associated Press in an interview Friday. ...
McConiughey, who is mentally disabled, is just the bowler for the job. He's bowled five perfect games since 2005.
The 35-year-old McConiughey has been bowling since he was 8 or 9. His advice for Obama? Practice every day.
In related news, the screw-up made number one in this British journalists Top 10 Obama/Biden Gaffes in the 2 month old administration.