Barack Obama Shoots Pool (forgets about Bowling)

OK, so Barack Obama can't bowl. That much was established with his dismal performance back in Pennsylvania. But apparently he's not a bad pool player, as he proved today at Schultzie's, a dimly lit pool hall in South Charleston, W.V. Obama, according to a media pool report, arrived in rolled-up shirt sleeves. "We heard there were pool tables and chips and salsa," he said. He drank lemon lime soda from a straw and introduced the retired military officers with him: former Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig; John Nathman, a former Navy four-star admiral; and Jim Smith, a former Air Force brigadier general.

"I can't vouch for their pool playing, but they're good guys," Obama said. "We can bowl," Nathman shot back, to laughs. Obama lamented the attention he knew would be paid to his skills. "There's pressure involved in everything I do," he said.
Obama played Paul Scott, 24, who said he served two tours in Iraq. The senator led off with an even break that landed a solid in the corner pocket; he went on to sink two more in a row to cheers from the crowd. "That's a sign of a misspent youth," he said.

Obama managed to sink more complicated bank shots, even if it wasn't always clear they were the shots he intended. (He was also the subject of a little charity: No one said anything when he accidentally sank the eight ball.) When Obama took a big lead, Scott said, "They told me to let you win." As he kept landing his shots, he said to a Newsweek photographer, "You didn't think I could play -- you thought it was going to be another bowling outing." Scott edged him on the final ball, but Obama took heart in his performance, saying, "I didn't embarrass myself."
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/05/he_cant_bow...
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Barack Obama is going to get down if it kills him. Bleeding white voters...The lioness of Chappaqua is hot on the trail of the Chicago gazelle, eager to gnaw him to pieces, like a harrowing scene out of a George Stubbs painting. Proclaiming that the upcoming elections in Indiana and North Carolina would be "a game changer," Hillary and her posse pressed hard on their noble twin themes of emasculation and elitism. Cherry-bombing the word "pansy" into the discourse, Gov. Mike Easley of North Carolina said Hillary made "Rocky Balboa look like a pansy." Paul Gipson, president of a steelworkers local in Portage, Ind., hailed her "testicular fortitude," before ripping into "Gucci-wearing, latte-drinking, self-centered, egotistical people that have damaged our lifestyle." James Carville helpfully told Eleanor Clift of Newsweek that if Hillary gave Obama one of her vehicles of testicular fortitude, "they'd both have two."

Then came the Big Dog [Bill Clinton], crazy like a fox, for the coup de graceless. Campaigning in Clarksburg, W. Va., he said that his scrappy wife can win working-class voters, as compared with Obama's Viognier-and-Volvo set. "The great divide in this country is not by race or even income, it's by those who think they are better than everyone else and think they should play by a different set of rules," the former president said. "In West Virginia and Arkansas, we know that when we see it." Oh, well, at least Bill didn't use the word uppity. And don't you love this paean to rules coming from a man so tethered and humbled by rules that he invented an entirely new sexual etiquette to suit his needs in the Oval Office?
Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/opinion/04dowd.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

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• Obama
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• pool
• shoots
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• Richard
• Danzig
• navy
• billiards
• table
• 2008
• primary

[KWcomicbookhero]

hes actually pretty dang good, i like this president for his down to earth nature.

[califoolio]

"thats a ball in hand" that guys dosent know what hes talkin about

[dFLuXb]

Wow. Our president can play pool. We are all safe now.

[captianmarvel01]

monkeys are just good at handling sticks

[PKDR4G0N]

Woah lol USA is lucky to get that kind of President except for us we have to be Serious all the time -_-

[soldierside365]

it makes you wonder just how much presidents actually have to do nowadays... or in this case, in his youth lol

[califoolio]

focefollow ur the best. i would vote for any president who can play pool.

[wornoutshoes81]

it is not ball in hand. he stroked and shot the cue into the 1, failed to pocket the 1 on the corner and it just bounced back and forth cushion to cushion from end to end of the table. if you strike an object ball and the object ball strikes a rail, it's a legal shot. this technique is generally used for a safety to block an opponent from a clear shot at the object ball. the reporter is mis-informed. How about that, Obama can play pool.

[madman13lm]

It isn't a ball in hand because he hit the 1 and it is the 1 ball that goes rail to rail. The reporter either doesn't know what ball in hand means or he must think it is the cue ball moving end to end. However, he struck a ball and that ball hit a rail which is a perfectly legal shot.

[Beretta9tt]

Ball in hand because he did'nt strike another ball. A legal shot is pocketing a ball, striking a ball and something goes to a rail or a legal pushout. i almost fell out of my chair because the reporter knew what it was. On the other hand if you play in a bar just keep spending money and they'll let you do anything.

[forcefollow]

He gets the six.