Obama attempted to throw the first pitch at the All Star Game Tuesday and muffed it pretty bad. They must have know he’d blow it because Fox chose to cover the event with a very odd camera angle that didn’t even show where the ball landed.
Unfortunately the crowd erupted with jeers and O&Co were forced to try to explain how the spectators were reacting to anything other than his pathetic effort. O&Co partisans on chat boards and blogs we kept pretty busy over the past few days trying to argue the throw wasn’t of the “My arthritic granny coulda done better” variety. Now they’ve sunk to the “Can’t you reich wingers come up with anything better to waste your time on?” level (expecting a similar sneer from Phooey).
In response, The Beast admires like the way Matthew May framed the event:
This president happens to be a dissembling charlatan and his awkward, cringe-inducing traits were on full display once again.
The White House obviously had a metaphorical gun pointed at the Fox Sports camera crew, making sure their man was not embarrassed by what would have been a bouncer to the plate — which Albert Pujols happened to be stationed upon and not behind.
It had to have been the only ceremonial first pitch ever filmed as if the camera were a fan wedged uncomfortably in between two fat guys in the stands squabbling over nachos, unable and unwilling to make any sudden movements.
But the overprotection of President Obama sure made a contrast between President Bush taking Yankee captain Derek Jeter up on the latter’s admonition to throw the aforementioned ceremonial pitch on the mound and not in front of it.
Ouch!
“It’s funny because it’s true!” – Homer
I think Obama’s girly throw resonates in a manner similar to Gerald Ford’s portrayal as a Klutz back in the 70’s – the jeers stick because the meme reinforces a general perception: Ford as an affable bumbler, Obama as a public relations-crafted creature of purest artfice. We are served up countless stories of Obama The Fit, replete with topless beefcake shots, B-ball victories, etc. So when he gutterballs at the Bowling alley or girly-pitches at a game (despite the best efforts of TV to provide cover) he looks extra silly, because he fails to be in reality what he was sold as in the media.
Just as he pretended to be Moderate to get elected with a wink and a nod to the left (asked why Carrie Prejean was pilloried for espousing the same stance as Obama on gay marriage, Mickey Kaus said “Because unlike Obama, they know Prejean isn’t lying about it.”). He shows up at the game costumed as a baseball player, throws a pathetic pitch, gets cover from the press and then his fans try to argue he didn’t suck. As the great philosopher Groucho Marx once opined: “Who ya gonna believe; me or your lying eyes?” Ha.
Lots of pols throw out a crappy first pitch. Lots of Presidents trip and fall – some probably did it more often than Gerald Ford. So why did Ford take so much guff? For the same reason Obama catches extra hell for looking good on the screen but underperforming in reality; it’s a full-motion metaphor.
The Conservative Citizen 
I love this post!
Never forget that Bush 43, for all his faults, steped to the mound post 9/11 and threw a heater that snapped the glove of the catcher. Little things are a big deal to sports fans.
It’s his fist pump act afterwards that’s particularly offensive. That and the media’s absurd spinning it as a “thanks” to the catcher.
E, Bush was maybe the fittest President ever to inhabit the Oval Office before Obama, but unlike Obama, Bush’s fitness was often portrayed as a creepy sort of OCD Mania.
Another reason Obama’s girly pitch sticks to him is Libs as the “Limp-wristed-girly-men” thing. Who can forget Al Gore in his flannel pretending to be an “Alpha Male”, or The Duke in his Tank?
I wouldn’t expect any more from a guy that bowled a 37. My 5th grade grand daughter bowled a 62 first time out.
What a pussy.
Did you checkout the Mom-jeans the cat was wearing?
I’m a 62-year-old right-handed ex-jock with arthritis. Out of curiosity, I rescued an old baseball from the garage and tried to throw it 60’6″ with my LEFT hand. I looked pretty much like Obama throwing it, only I managed to carry the full distance. What a dork our president is.
Like Thomas, I couldn’t believe the fist-pump either. But it’s perfectly consistent with The One’s self-congratulation-for-basically-nothing that marks his career. Pathetic.
“The Mom-jeans” That’s funny.
Why don’t you girls get together and talk trash about how big Obama’s butt is and how he buys his outfits at the wrong stores?
‘Cos, you know, bitching and whining about the sports skills of an adult elected as the Chief Executive is just a little bit girly in itself.
What a decidedly Nancy-boy snark from a librarian. If you are above such gossip why did you comment honey?
Oh, I enjoy the sight of the unpopular girls in class getting together to trash talk the popular school captain, in between braiding each others hair and obsessing over which boy band member they’d most want to marry.
Please, continue on with whining about how awful it is that the President of the United States isn’t a good baseball pitcher.
You are very strange little man Phooey. In a weird attempt to be insulting on another thread you link to a Sadly No! page that calls people names and makes fun of their physical appearance. Then there are the Sadly No! obligatory scat jokes and anal references. Well it goes down hill from there.
Then you come on this thread and act like a prissy little librarian Ann Landers shaking your finger at the gossip. It is a tradition in American for males of all political stripes, regardless of sexual orientation for that matter too, to make fun of another man who throws like a girl. I made fun of Mitt Romney on here for the same thing. It is cultural.
The Beast also used the incident to illustrate Obama’s disingenuousness. You of course per your SOP blew right past that to insult and nitpick. But of course your boorish behavior is excused due to the titanic ideological struggle going on here.
They way you justify your behavior is bizarre. Yes – A very strange little person. It is sad. You are no fun to pick on anymore.
Alternate video
O’Bambi is such a candy-ass.
You are very strange little man Phooey
And yet, pg, it is you displaying your gender anxieties for all to see…
Pray, carry on. This is hilarious.
I had a long comment here that I removed. Instead I will leave it at this: Alas you are no longer fun as I said before. I shall be happy to address any valid point you may make in the future. I won’t hold my breath. Until then adieu mon ami.
As somebody who can do neither (let’s just say Damien once had to explain to me why it was so funny that I was the pitcher on my softball team), I must add don’t forget this.
Somehow I think that resonated, too, Beast.
Andre, and Gerald Ford made it down scads of stairs without tripping. Again, what resonates is what reinforces a perception. What Obama did on that B-ball court is laudable because it was real – he wasn’t tricked out in a Bulls uniform and they hadn’t worked out angles to make it appear as if he’d sink the ball in the bucket no matter what. But the All Star game was preplanned artifice. They knew he stunk yet pretended he didn’t. They even set it up in advance to make him look less sucky than they knew he would be. There’s too much image and not enough reality here.
Beast, Who is “they”? That’s what I don’t get. Point of fact, there is no liberal conspiracy here. He tried to throw a pitch while wearing a bullet proof vest, almost hit the plate, the catcher caught the ball, albeit lunging forward, the network tried some new version of helmet-cam, everyone came out looking silly, I just don’t see what you do.
I have plenty of reasons to be filled with buyer’s remorse, but this just ain’t one of them.
I have plenty of reasons to be filled with buyer’s remorse, but this just ain’t one of them.
No, but it does give the people here a marvellous excuse to engage in gender-reinforcing gossip in order to salve their anxieties.
Obama appears to have a passionate marriage to an intelligent woman, is a father to two healthy and sane children, and has succeeded in three different careers, reaching the very pinnacle of success in his last. As far as “manhood” goes, I’d say he’s demonstrated he’s more of a winner than, oh, all of us commenting here.
Oh I get it. So Phooey believes then, that both Obama and Bush (who were both married to intelligent women, fathered healthy and sane children and succeeded in careers) are above the silly chit chat of the blogosphere.
Except that he really doesn’t think that.
Oh I get it. So Phooey believes then, that both Obama and Bush (who were both married to intelligent women, fathered healthy and sane children and succeeded in careers) are above the silly chit chat of the blogosphere.
You don’t get it at all.