As Obama laced up his size 13 1/2 two-tone bowling shoes, he let everyone know he hadn't bowled since Jimmy Carter was president.
He shared a lane with Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey Jr., who endorsed him Friday, and local homemaker Roxanne Hart. As the game went on, several small children bowled with Obama as well.
Obama and Casey had a private game of basketball earlier in the day,
but they saved their F-game for the public at the bowling lanes.
On his first warm-up ball, Casey rolled a gutter ball. Obama's first ball flew gracefully off his hand but also ended up in the gutter. On his second try, he knocked down four pins.
About five lanes over, a young man in a T-shirt that said "Beer Hunter" fell on his backside while bowling and still recorded a strike.The crowd of regulars pressed in to take pictures, get autographs, and rib him on his poor skills.
Obama did improve, nearly getting a strike in one frame, and in the seventh, picking up a spare, giving him a score of 37. Casey had a score of 71 after getting a strike, and Hart, with one less frame, racked up a score of 82.
8 comments:
Or Bush as a brush clearer.
of all the photo ops, NOBODY looked more normal than ronald reagan on a horse.
Hey anonymous,
Bush owns a ranch, for goodness sakes. Ranchers clear brush - it's pretty much Ranch 101. You can bash Bush for other reasons, but that's not a good one.
Gino,
I agree - Reagan looked absolutely at home on a horse.
Mark, you don’t honestly take the ranch in Crawford to be anything more than a metaphor, do you? Starting with Andrew Jackson (maybe even earlier) the notion of the Presidential Ranch has become an archetype, especially on the Right. Bush bought the ranch in preparation for his presidential run. You can look that up. He never even lived there before he became president. Furthermore, ‘ranching’ generally involves horses, so what’s a guy who is afraid of horses (See Vicente Fox’s description of W at Fox’s real horse ranch in Mexico) doing on a ranch? Answer: The ranch is, in reality, a place for the President to relax, but it’s also a place for him to engage in physical activities that say I understand the common man. I clear brush. But clearing brush isn’t a hobby, it’s a chore. Does clearing brush somehow appeal to anyone? Am I honestly supposed to believe that someone with his money and position is doing this for any reason other than wanting to get their picture taken doing a dirty job? So, the site of Bush clearing twigs off his lawn four times a year does not, for me, erase the sense that the man came from established wealth and power. Nor does it make me think of him as a character out of a Zane Grey novel. And seeing Michael Dukakis grinning like a moron with his head sticking out of a tank doesn’t make me think for a second that he is an intrepid tank captain. And watching Obama bowl doesn’t make me believe that he is Joe Six-Pack. But this stuff obviously does work for some people. Lastly, Obama knows he isn’t a bowler, but I am not so sure about the President and ranching.
Regards,
Rich
Tell you what, Rich – if Bush moves off the ranch once he retires and buys a fashionable place in, say, the Highland Park section of Dallas (near his library at SMU), then you'll have a point.
And no, clearing brush doesn't appeal to me, either and I live on a quarter-acre lot. To each his own, though.
Mark,
I don't think the issue is whether or not he moves off the ranch. I don't doubt that he likes the place, and likes to relax there. My question would be, is will he still be clearing brush? I got a hunch he won't be. :)
Rich
I dunno, Rich - if W is as dumb as a lot of people claim he is, he may not realize he can hire someone to clear his brush for him. Maybe we'll find out, but I'm guessing our attention will turn to other matters soon enough.
i've heard the same about the bush ranch as photo-op.
it's an awefully exspensive gambit, if you ask me, so i remain skeptical.
but...
reagan actually used to do the work at his own ranch.(or some of it) he enjoyed the physical exertion of cutting his own trees and building his own patio or planting fench posts.
he was doing for yrs before he ever became president.
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