Stephanopoulos and (Matthew) Dowd, disturbed by Obama’s skeet-shooting: Last week, we noted the way the Washington post’s Glenn Kessler is turning into a partisan crank.
Three days later, he proved our point. He posted a ridiculous FactChecker piece about the president’s statement, in response to a direct question, that he often skeet-shoots at Camp David.
If you click, please note the ludicrous headline on the Kessler piece.
Kessler’s piece is almost insane. It’s a throwback to the bad old days, in which the press corps pretended to be deeply worried about such questions as these:
The press corps' greatest concerns:Over the past twenty years, very few career liberals have been willing to note the insanity of such discussions. The nation, and the world, have paid a heavy price.
Why would Candidate Gore wear a brown suit?
Did Naomi Wolf tell him to wear it?
If so, does that mean that Gore doesn't know who he is?
Why does his suit jacket have three buttons?
Why did Candidate Kerry go wind-surfing off Nantucket?
Why did Kerry get the wrong kind of cheese on his cheesesteak?
Why did Candidate Obama drink orange juice instead of just ordering beer?
Last week, Kessler was playing the fool about the skeet-shooting “issue.” Also: About a photo the White house released, in response to a request for proof of Obama’s meaningless statement.
We strongly suggest that you read Kessler’s piece. Can you see that his work is insane?
Yesterday, the lunacy spread as George Stephanopoulos spoke with Matthews Dowd on ABC's This Week. As you peruse their exchange, please remember:
When Obama said that he often skeet-shoots, he was responding to a question from a journalist. When the White House released the photo which shows him skeet-shooting, it was responding to a request for such proof:
STEPHANOPOULOS (2/3/13): We're back with our roundtable right now. And, Matthew Dowd, I want to come to you, but as I come to you, I also want to put up the new salvo in the debate yesterday from President Obama.Can you see that that entire exchange is basically insane? To wit:
You saw that picture they released of the president skeet-shooting at Camp David back in August, after he said it was something he does all the time up in Camp David. And David Plouffe, his former senior adviser, puts out a tweet saying, "Attention skeet-birthers, make our day. Let the Photoshop conspiracies begin."
Of course, they were answering the skepticism about whether President Obama was really a shooter. But was it smart to put out that photo?
DOWD: Well, I think they had to put out the photo. I think if you go back a few days, I don't think it was very smart for him to make that statement in the New Republic when he said, "I shoot skeet all the time up there," because, first of all, it wasn't going to change anybody's mind that's against him. It wasn't going to make anybody think, "Oh, wow, Barack Obama is this." It reminds me of what—
To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, which is, being a skeet-shooter, being a hunter is a lot like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you're probably not. Nobody is going to believe him because of that picture, and that picture I think just makes him look like he's pandering. And as Carly [Fiorina] said on the break, he is pandering in that.
And I think that's the problem with it, that it's sort of a distraction from the [gun] debate. I don't think they should have ever said it. Nobody believes that about the president.
It’s insane that anyone wasted their time discussing this manifest nonsense at all. That said, Dowd’s criticisms of Obama for 1) answering a question and 2) responding to a request make things even crazier.
Stephanopoulos played along with The Crazy. For decades, the career liberal world and the mainstream press have has refused to identify this for what it so plainly is.
"When Obama said that he often skeet-shoots, he was responding to a question from a journalist. When the White House released the photo which shows him skeet-shooting, it was responding to a request for such proof."
ReplyDeleteDowd: Well, George, the pic is good, but Obama shouldn't have answered the question we'll pretend he wasn't asked in the first place!
Kessler: Is Obama really shooting "all the time"? We need *more* skeet shooting pix!!
Stephanopoulos is the kind of person who seems to be on your side, but you can never really trust. A weasel in sheep's clothing.
ReplyDeleteI love this story. Here we have a president trolling the right wing crazies and the regular morons going along so as not to appear "biased" by ignoring it. Obama is having fun with this.
ReplyDeleteReading through Kessler's description of the extensive and time-consuming research he did on presidential skeet-shooting, the mind absolutely reels. How much is he paid for this crap?
ReplyDeleteAnd Kessler says he "respectively disagrees"? Did they fire all the copy editors?
ReplyDeleteActually, I think they just let them retire and didn't replace them. Spell-checker and Word's inane automatic "grammar" are supposed to suffice, it seems.
DeleteThe Sunday shows are almost always insane. I wish that Krugman would avoid these shows because he's always arguing with inferior minds.
ReplyDeleteI don't care whether the President has done skeet shooting, nor do I care if he lied about it, nor do I care if the photo released by the White House is a phony. But, FWIW Best of the Web argues convincingly that the photo is probably staged.
ReplyDeleteThe photo, purportedly shot last Aug. 4 (which happens to be the president's birthday), shows Obama holding a shotgun. The barrel is smoking, indicating that the gun has just been fired. What's odd about it is that the president is aiming straight ahead, as if he were firing a rifle at a stationary target.
But in skeet shooting, the target, a disk known as a clay pigeon, is moving. It is launched from one of two "houses" and travels in a parabolic trajectory across the field. In order to hit it, one has to move the gun so as to follow the path of the clay. It's not impossible that one would fire at shoulder level, as Obama is doing in the photo, but it's unlikely. We therefore surmise that the picture is the product of a photo shoot, not a skeet shoot.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324445904578284032388066690.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion
FWIW, "Best of the Web" is a shallow puddle of halfwitted hackery and they didn't disappoint on this one.
DeleteThis is pretty much like arguing that pictures of Obama's 2008 bowling outing were the product of a photo shoot, not an actual bowling league game.
DeleteToo bad we can't see any movement in a still photo. Or that parabolic trajectory of the target.
We're never going to get to the bottom of this until Congressman Dan Burton shoots a watermelon in his backyard.
DeleteParanoia is ugly; you best get over it.
DeleteHorse Shit. It's obvious you know nothing about skeet shooting or gravity.
ReplyDeleteObama could also have been shooting late at skeet or shooting traps at the time, in which case he would be firing at a very low angle.
DeleteOf course, it wouldn't occur to anyone in the media to inquire about such a fine point.
If they wanted to describe true hypocrisy, why didn't the press rehash the story of Ted Kennedy's bodyguard being arrested for possessing two "automatic weapons" in a government building.
A Democrat having an armed bodyguard? When only two of his brothers were gunned down?
Sheer hypocrisy!
http://articles.latimes.com/1986-01-14/news/mn-27852_1_russell-senate-office-building
USA TODAY did it right. They polled the entire US Congress to see who was naughty and who was nice.
Now we know!
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/02/04/congress-gun-ownership-survey/1891191/
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