For Barack Obama, it was a horrible way to end the week, but perhaps that was only fitting: it had been a horrible week.
Until the last few minutes of his history-making appearance on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show, the president seemed to be on track for a political victory, mixing personable good humour with a seriousness appropriate to the times. But then one ill-considered crack about his bowling score of 129 — ”It was like the Special Olympics or something,” Obama said — sent the White House once again into a mode that is becoming increasingly familiar: damage control.
A split-second after he said it, the expressions that flickered across the faces of both men showed they knew Obama had committed easily the most wince-inducing gaffe as president yet.
Flying home on Air Force One before the pre-recorded interview had even aired, Obama called the chair of the Special Olympics to apologise, while his deputy press secretary spun the press corps, assuring them that the president had meant no offence.
On Friday, the administration invited Special Olympics athletes to bowl or play basketball at the White House. There was talk of a game between Obama and Kolan McConiughey, a Michigan man with a learning disability who holds the Special Olympics bowling record, with scores far in excess of the president’s.
The remark was a rare failure of Obama’s legendary televisual poise, but it was the second time in a week that his powers of communication had failed him. At a White House ceremony with Irish taoiseach Brian Cowen on Tuesday, a teleprompter mix-up caused him to thank himself for hosting himself, drawing attention to what critics say is an overreliance on prepared texts.
But the worst week so far of Obama’s 60-day-old presidency was dominated by the outcry over the $165-million in bonuses paid to executives at the insurance firm AIG, which received $170-billion in federal bailout money.
The administration suggested it was powerless to reverse the payments, then switched course to try to claw them back. Obama was repeatedly forced to defend his Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, in the face of Republican calls for his resignation and the allegation that he had pushed through a legal loophole enabling the executives to keep their bonuses. The House of Representatives has voted to impose a 90% tax on the payments.
Geithner ”is a smart guy and he’s a calm and steady guy. I don’t think people fully appreciate the plate that was handed him,” Obama told Leno on Thursday night. ”This guy has not just a banking crisis, he’s got the worst recession since the great depression [and] an auto industry that has been on the verge of collapse.” But the row essentially obliterated Obama’s efforts this week to garner support for his broader economic rescue plans, including his $3,55-trillion budget proposal.
In his two months in office, Obama has faced difficulties finding nominees for several key positions in the administration. Some still to be filled are at the Treasury, complicating matters for Geithner.
Responding to Obama’s apology for his disability gaffe, the Special Olympics chair, Tim Shriver, told ABC’s Good Morning America: ”He expressed his disappointment and he apologised in a way that was very moving. He expressed that he did not intend to humiliate this population … [but] I think it’s important to see that words hurt and words do matter.”
Alice Maynard, of the UK disability charity Scope, said Obama’s remarks demonstrated that ”even those with an innate belief in equality and human rights can reveal a deeper lack of understanding about the achievements and potential of disabled people”. – guardian.co.uk