Tuesday, Dec. 08, 2009
The President Executes a Housefly
The occasion was a CNBC interview in June. President Obama was trying to discuss the economy, but a fly kept buzzing around him. Finally, he stopped himself, let the insect land on his left hand, then crushed it with a ninja-fast blow. Half-joking, half-gloating — "I got the sucker," he said — he invited the cameraman to "film" the fly's corpse. One doesn't want to make too much of the symbolism, but this was Obama at his height — after it had become clear that we wouldn't enter another Great Depression and before the health care debate got so tense, liberal groups carped at him and he had to decide about Afghanistan. It's tempting to think the fly might have gotten away alive now.