The right-leaning blogosphere has spent the better part of the morning dissecting the President's appearance at the All-Star game. Personally, I thought that his easygoing conversation with broadcasters McCarver and Buck in the bottom half of the second inning showed him to be the archetypical regular guy whom I wouldn't mind having a beer with. The good-natured bantering about his White Sox jacket and bailing out baseball (BHO: "We're out of money.") showed the unscripted and unteleprompted President that I'd like to see more of.
Rush Limbaugh riffed on why President Obama really wore the White Sox jacket (to provide a ready explanation for the boos from the St. Louis crowd) and how he threw the first pitch "like a girl". Judge for yourself:
There's been some pushback from Obama defenders and even some conservatives that the focus on the President's pitching motion is silly. On the surface, of course, they're right, but not when viewed in the multi-year battle to take back the White House. Even when President Bush was at the height of his popularity, his mangled syntax, physical stumbles, and facial expressions were derided daily by comedians. Over eight years the regular mockery, combined with incessant media criticism and substantive failures, to be sure, made most people sick of him.
Republicans are at a disadvantage because the leading comedians are overwhelmingly liberal. David Letterman, Stephen Colbert, and Jon Stewart still choose to joke about Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney's miscues but largely ignore the rich lode of material produced daily by this Administration. It will be interesting to see whether the comics and their writers can continue to hold their fire for four years and stifle themselves, to use Archie Bunker's phrase. Rush continues to poke and prod, and who knows but that he may eventually get lucky and cause the comedic dam to burst. If it does happen, it could happen quickly. Then Barack will be nostalgic for this July day at the ballpark.
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