If that is true, Obama looks genuinely shocked they they were interpreting him this way.
But I must say, what does he expect with the company he keeps? This crowd is raunchy and many of them are involved in writing/acting/promoting raunch sex jokes fulltime as activists and entertainers on.
Law down with dogs...well everyone knows what you get.
> “I saw the video and think it’s likely Obama didn’t intend the comment the way the audience took it.”
I agree. Rush has been a favorite of mine for years, but this is a sloppy job and serves to weaken his credibility. He keeps saying he hasn’t seen the video. Why not? Wasn’t it on YouTube by the time his show came on? (If not, then maybe there’s some excuse for what he did.) His analysis made sense to me when I heard it on his show, but that was before I saw the video myself.
He says, “I have not seen the video attached to it. But clearly the crowd thought he was making a joke...he had the proper comedic pause. He didn’t sound embarrassed. They’re claiming he is. The media is trying to cover it up.”
That was my assumption when I heard his remark. That’s their usual practice, The problem, though, is that in this case they’re right. Obama clearly intended for there to be a laugh — a mild laugh at the excuse that Michelle cheated at doing the push-ups — and he had the proper comedic pause for that, but you can see from the expression on Obama’s face later that he hadn’t realized how that line would be interpreted (or in any case began to realize that something was wrong because the push-up joke wasn’t that funny). At times he appears disconcerted and pained by what is happening. That’s not the reaction of somebody who planned a naughty joke.
I don’t think it benefits the Obama opposition to make easily refutable claims. I oppose Obama because of what’s truly bad about him, not because I’ve been fooled by distortions. Neither do I tune in Rush’s show to hear misrepresentations and distortions. That’s what I hate about the mainstream media.
The screw-up here is that Obama let something slip through that could give rise to that interpretation (especially in that setting), not that he planned it.