Obama Kills a Defenseless Fly

President Barack Obama seems incapable of handling a recession, a nuclear armed North Korea, an Iran in turmoil or (as he complained in the interview with John Harwood) Fox News. But he can kill a fly with his bare hands and that impresses some folks.

Typical of the reaction to Obama's fly killer exploit was the following in the Daily Kos:

"Personally, I just like how cool and calm the President is...and he is the one to pick up and dispose of the late fly.

"Can't wait to hear the freepers call for protests in memory of the fly."

"Freepers" refers to people who post on Free Republic, a kind of conservative version of the Daily Kos. To be perfectly accurate, Barack Obama may have more to fear from animal rights activists such as PETA than his right wing opponents.

Gushing over how Barack Obama killed a fly with his bare hands-one commentator compared Obama to an ninja-seems to be taking Obama worship to a new level of absurdity. For one thing, it is not known whether Obama could kill a fly with his bare hands consistently.

The incident brings to mind a recent episode of Mythbusters when an actual expert in ninjutsu to examine a particular ninja myth-could a ninja actual catch an arrow in flight. After quite a few strikes with arrows, it was determined that indeed a ninja could catch an arrow in flight, but not consistently. The ninja was hit by far more arrows than he managed to catch.

There is another story of two ninjas who competed in killing flies with their swords. The first ninja killed a fly with one stroke of the sword, cutting the little insect in half. The second ninja struck, but the fly flew away. When asked about his apparent inability to kill the fly, the second ninja said, "Indeed, I did not kill the fly. But it will never sire children again."

All joking aside, going into rhapsodies over Obama's ability to kill a fly in flight demonstrates a kind of mental unbalance. (If he had gelded the fly, like the ninja in the story, then maybe we could talk.) One could suggest that Obama should have opened up diplomatic dialogue with the fly before resorting to brute force. If it is good enough for Iran and North Korea, it should be good enough for an American house fly. But instead Obama acted like George W. Bush, unilaterally killing the fly before trying to find out what he was doing to irritate the fly. If that is indicative of what he means to do with his other enemies, then we're in trouble.

Source: Obama kills fly during TV interview; President "got the sucker", Lauren Smith, College News, June 17th, 2009

Obama Kills Fly... (really), Oxblue, Daily Kos, June 16th, 2009