I don't want to get all political on you guys, but Clay Travis hits the nail on the head here about Obama and bowlingate. Are you telling me he couldn't bowl better than a 37? Can this country really elect a guy that can't bowl better than a 37?
Here's the video:
Here's the article:
Words matter to Barack Obama. But spares and strikes don't. That's the only thing you can conclude after Obama's disastrous game in Pennsylvania. The man who could be president bowled a 37. In 10 frames. Quick ClayNation math tells us that's an average of a paltry 3.7 pins per frame. Obama's bowling score of 37 is less than the number of Presidents we've had -- 43. Unacceptable.
Over a year ago I suggested that the person who ended up being elected President was going to be the top fan-in-chief. That we'd entered an era where, "For better or worse, we now choose our President based not on such antiquated notions of intelligence, skill or acumen, but rather, on whom we would prefer to attend a football game with." (This is either a new high or a new low in that I'm now quoting myself in my own column from previous columns. I'm inclined to believe it's the latter.)
After all the fawning press coverage over Obama's basketball playing and the like, I was inclined to write a column announcing it was clear that Barack Obama was going to be our next President. But then bowlingate happened. (Is anyone else annoyed that every time a new political scandal emerges the media adds a "gate" at the end? At first this was mildly amusing in the way that looking at your grandmother's 485 pictures of her kitten lying on the couch is mildly amusing. Next thing you know it turns scary when she e-mails to say she's changed her will to leave everything to the kitten. Yep, Kittengate.) It was frightening to see the man the press has turned into a superb athlete stumble and bumble his way down the lane. The would-be President had no clothes. Obama looked like a flamingo on skates, a pink dolphin trying to walk on land -- an utter and complete non-athlete. John Fitzgerald Kennedy? Hardly. Obama meet Steve Forbes.
Don't believe me? Here's the video of Obama's bowling performance.
Plainly, Obama's becoming President would be alarming given my fan-in-chief theory. Nobody watches football games with the guy who bowls a 37. They just don't. Guys who bowl 37s own the football teams, they don't root for them.
Watch this video. I love how Obama tries to start off confident when he's getting the bowling shoes. Look at the jaunty steps and beaming smile. You know that inside he was trembling in fear. We've all been there, about to play a sport that we know we're going to do really bad at but no one else suspects how truly terrible it's going to get. For me it's like playing badminton. But we try and convince ourselves that we're actually better at the sport than we are just before the game begins. Watch Obama strut around just before the bowling game begins.
You know what I'm talking about -- you stand off to the side sort of rolling your neck and then loosen up your shoulders with a couple of shoulder shrugs, maybe windmill the arms a few times, just to slacken up the old joints. Then you start playing and you are horrible. It takes a little while for the confidence to fade. Witness the first gutter ball, watch the strut immediately after. It's OK, Obama seems to be saying, I got the next one. Only he didn't. At all. Ever. He was bad, really bad. This sort of ghastly performance could end up swaying the primary in Pennsylvania. First rule of politics/life, if you truly suck at something do it privately. (Bill Clinton thinks this should be modified to if anyone sucks anything, but that's excessive.)
Do you know how many redneck white people in Pennsylvania base their lives around bowling? How many leagues are going to be tipping back pitchers of beer while they ridicule this performance? Redneck white people take bowling seriously. It's like ping pong to the Chinese or camel racing to Arab oil sheiks. You don't mess with the purity of their sport.
I know because I grew up around lots of redneck white people who love bowling. Hell, I love bowling. True story: When I was a kid and first heard the term redneck I asked my dad what it meant. My dad said, "Well, some people think everybody in the South is a redneck. But we're not." I asked him why we weren't and he said, "Well, rednecks shoot off fireworks in their back yards and wear t-shirts everywhere they go." That was it. And that made perfect sense to me. We were out shopping for father's day when I was 8 and I picked out a t-shirt for my dad and my mom was like, "Clay, your dad won't wear a t-shirt out in public. That's what rednecks do." And I wanted to slap myself in the forehead because I'd been so dumb to forget about this. Anyway, in addition to deciding elections as the ultimate swing voters, rednecks are also good at bowling. And every redneck knows that bowling a 37 is indefensible.
Let's be clear, there's no nuance or complicated strategy involved in bowling -- there's a ball and you roll it straight ahead. No one is playing defense or trying to stop your ball from reaching the pins. I'm not saying that you have to put up a 200 or bowl three strikes in a row, or even one strike, but if you're a good athlete you should be able to roll a ball straight and break 100. Easily. Especially if you're a fully grown man. Don't believe me and think Obama's score was decent? Hillary Clinton held a press conference yesterday to make fun of Obama's bowling. Yep, Hillary Clinton is talking trash to Obama. Did you ever think that would be possible? Just in case you're not a bowler here's what bowling a 37 is like in 13 other sports:
1. Showing up for a baseball game, being sent to the outfield, picking up a rolling baseball and throwing it underhanded back to the infield.
2. Shooting a 298 during a leisurely 18 holes of golf
3. Insisting on wearing arm floaties for the start of a triathlon
4. Being unable to hit a single tennis ball back over the net to your opponent
5. Dribbling a basketball with both hands while intently staring at the ground as soon as the ball is passed to you
6. Not being strong enough to have a dart reach the board at a bar. Then, putting all your weight behind the dart toss, and hitting a bespectacled man at the adjoining booth in the left earlobe
7. Pinning yourself in the weight room while bench-pressing only the bar
8. Playing croquet
9. Starting the Tour de France with training wheels
10. Driving the Indy 500 without ever shifting out of first gear
11. Showing up for a football game in the state of Alabama carrying a soccer ball
12. Boxing with your thumb inside your fist
13. Each time someone sets the volleyball for you, shrieking and running in the other direction with your hands on top of your head
Screw the debates and answering the red phone at 3 in the morning, it's time for Obama to lock himself inside a bowling alley and master what's really important: rolling a ball in a straight line. Anything less and Bowlingate will continue to fester.
1 comment:
Hmm. Seems like a Clerks joke would be in order here given the score he shot. 37 in a row?
Seriously though, any "normal" person who grew up in a "non-privileged" lifestyle could bowl better than a 37 with their opposite hand.
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