Video evidence: Barack Obama plays b-ball better than he bowls
Barack Obama probably will spend the rest of his political career taking grief over his ineptitude as a bowler.
It was last Saturday, as part of his sustained effort to curry favor with certain segments of Pennsylvania's Democratic electorate, that Obama dropped by a bowling alley in Altoona and proceeded to embarrass himself. Chris Matthews has been among those not letting him forget it; the MSNBC commentator opened an extended interview with the presidential candidate Wednesday by asking Obama if he was "ready to bowl from Day One."
Obama replied good-naturedly: "Obviously, I am not." But he added: "Basketball I can play."
Thanks to YouTube -- as well as a good friend of The Ticket, Ben Welsh, who called our attention to it -- voters now have a chance to examine Obama in his heyday as a high school hoopster in Hawaii. We aren't experts in this field, but he looks better than we ever were.
Welsh also passed along contemporary footage that proves Obama -- who not along ago revealed plans to install a hardwood court somewhere in the White House or on its grounds if he wins the presidency --has kept his stroke.
-- Don Frederick
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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so clinton might be seen as someone who prefers to play her game in a rather bulldozing way, using fairly mechanical repetitive motions propelling solid heavy spherical objects at strategically assorted club-shaped wooden targets; keeping her nails firmly clawed into her tool before reluctantly letting it roll and spin and knock over the targets which then to her great relief automatically will go away till she's left standing alone,
triumphant, and transform into points in her account.
and she's rather good at this sport, she thinks. obama, on the other hand (the left one), loves to prance around and bounce a more elastic, air filled ball. he likes to jump up and down and here and there and pass that ball to and fro with other people on the playground. and will toss it high up in the air sometimes, hoping it will land in a loop. then to watch it fall through a loophole in the net. that's net points for his team. and he's rather good at this sport, some say. is there any reliable evidence that mccain, as others say, will break into a sweat over one mad hell of a game of checkers? and if they tell him he wins though he can't and before the game's over, he might not explode in their face? but whatever they say about ron paul, remarkably he's got the toughest set of balls of them all. and it's not like he's playing ping pong. whatever his fair game.
Posted by: dave | April 04, 2008 at 01:04 PM
Obama is a champion on and off the court.
Note what he says about the gym in the Cnn interview.
Posted by: Mr. Unite Us | April 26, 2008 at 10:50 AM