The Tonight Show with Barack Obama

President Barack Obama appeared tonight on NBC's Tonight Show with Jay Leno, an appearance which received a fair amount of hype leading up to it. I'll admit right up front that I didn't vote for President Obama, but I have to say I was impressed with the way he handled himself for the most part.

I was sure that conservative pundits would take some pot shots at President Obama for his appearance on a comedy program at this time of financial crisis in our country. I wasn't disappointed. Flipping through the channels after the show, Fox was already dissecting the appearance less than 30 minutes after it aired in the Eastern and Central time zones.

But for me that criticism is groundless. The President has a message he wants to get out to the people and he chose an outlet that would reach a significant portion of the population. There are some in the media who have forgotten that a significant portion of our population does not educate themselves on current events by watching the news or reading anything more intellectually stimulating than People magazine. President Obama certainly got his message in front of a number of Americans who would have missed him if he had appeared on 60 Minutes or one of the other news programs produced by the alphabet networks.

Things weren't all roses for the President though. He's going to take some flak for one small, off the cuff remark during his appearance. Jay Leno was teasing Obama about his bowling skills, or lack there of. A fuss had been made when he bowled a 26 during a photo op somewhere on the campaign trail. Jay asked if he was going to be removing the bowling alley in the White House since he was such a bad bowler. Obama said he'd made some improvement in his game and had even bowled a 129 recently.

All would have been good, except our Supreme Leader tried to be funny and added a line about how his bowling skills were suitable for the "Special Olympics". I have a feeling Barack is quoting Homer Simpson about now "DOH!!!!".

I'd try to come up with my own funny line now, but I'm afraid I might fall victim to the same syndrome as the President and who knows who I'd offend. So I guess I'll stop now while I'm ahead.

Dave