The Washington Post digs in to the very important question of whether or not Obama goes skeet shooting “all the time” while at Camp David, as he once claimed.

  • jimbuck

    He has binders full of clay pigeons!

  • JoeBuck

    Who cares?  Isn’t he busy with other things?

    • bkad

      An important part of negotiating with opponents to gun control is to show at least an appearance of empathy and sensitivity to the fact that gun ownership in America is a cultural issue and laws which threaten that are going to evoke emotions.

      For those growing up in rural America, gun ownership in general, and gun-based hobbies in particular, are part of the cultural identity. Not just ‘cultural identify’ in a nationalist sense, but also woven into rites of passage and family bonding — those early hunting trips with dad or family reunions skeet shooting with the cousins, the first woodchuck dispatched from the family garden. That’s probably why attempts to limit access to guns arouse so much popular emotion. You may hear from the crazies, but the popular reaction comes from fear of threatened tradition and identity.

      As do most Politicians, Obama tried to claim ‘he feels your pain’ and understands your life. He, after all, goes shooting all the time. He knows that shooting guns is part of life, and he doesn’t intend to take that away. But people are VERY sensitive to hypocrisy. It’s much worse to be a hypocrite than it would have been to just say, “hey, I’m a city kid and never have been into guns myself, but I have nothing against hunting or target shooting. That’s not what we’re talking about here’.

      *To deter people attacking me for beliefs I do not have, I support regulating firearm ownership, especially of hand guns, and would even get behind a licensing and registration scheme, beyond the pale for most gun owners. However, I grew up in a rural area, in a family of hunters, and have some sensitivity into why people take these things personally.

      • http://cobramcgiantballs.tumblr.com/ Xploder

         Unfortunately, there are a lot of people that will believe that Obama is being hypocritical and lying about skeet shooting in order to do exactly as you say.

        Personally, I believe he probably DOES do a lot of skeet shooting. Camp David has an awesome skeet range and skeet shooting fun enough that I’ve had some friends that were rabidly anti-gun ask if they could try it when I was out shooting skeet with some friends. It’s one gun sport that harms nothing and nobody with the exception of some clay targets and is pretty much like a live action video game.

    • http://twitter.com/Steven_Patz Steve

      He’s the one that brought it up.  Seems if he’s claiming to do something, he ya know should actually do it.  Or, wait, is he just trolling?

  • PhosPhorious

    I KNEW it!

    Plus, he’s a Kenyan anti-colinialist.

    • hymenopterid

      This must be like when they would make accused witches recite the Lord’s prayer.  Secret Kenyans are unable to engage in ‘Merican activities without bursting into flames.

      • Luther Blissett

        Both of you: Keynesian. It’s spelled Keynsian.

    • Brainspore

      OBAMA: SOFT ON SKEETS

  • http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

    Let’s see, he doesn’t have to load the trap, or the weapon either if he chooses. Everything can be ready for the instant he steps on the range. Hmm. “All the time” does not mean he did it for long, more likely whenever he felt like it for as long as he felt like it.

    If there is a fully equipped range at Camp David I don’t doubt he would use it. Who wouldn’t? Walk up, take a few shots, go back to whatever else you wanted to be doing…

    I guess news is hard to find in Washington D.C., at least at the Post. And besides, who the hell cares, even if he never even saw the range, oh no, the black guy told a white lie, ITS THA MUSLIMS EVEISL!

    • Ronald Pottol

      If given the choice between full auto and a double barreled shotgun to shoot, most people choose full auto. After trying both, I’d be it’s 90+%. 

      Skeet my ass.

      • http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

        I dunno, skeet is legitimate sport

        Since everyone is likening crazy stuff to video games, I’ll draw the analogy that not everyone uses God-Mode, even if everyone tries it. Sport is fun.

  • kobrakai

    I took this comment from someone else so it’s not mine but: If only they’d done this type of deep investigation in the lead-up to the Iraq war. Sigh.

    • http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

      Or, indeed, when Cheney shot a man in the face.

      And Cheney’s hunting accident.

      • creesto

        I see what you did there!

      • RElgin

         The lawyer, wasn’t that Paul Skeet . . . ummm

        • http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

          Whoa, for a minute you had me going. The hunting accident was Harry Whittington.

          And I think the guy he shot in the face was Jeff Gannon.

  • Brainspore

    This has the potential to be the biggest Obama scandal since that time in 2008 when everyone found out he wasn’t that good at bowling.

  • chortick

    Skeet, trap and sporting clays are lots of fun.  In the current toxic US climate where firearms are either 1) CHILD-SLAYING DEATH MACHINES or 2) A GOD-GIVEN RIGHT, there is no sensible conversation occurring, only shouting back and forth at each other.  I mostly just tune out the issue, as I do with so many other things these days.

    • creesto

      Lalalalala…wait, what did you say?

  • skeptacally

    i’m willing to bet he takes a shit all the time too. where’s the photo evidence of that?!?!

  • LinkMan

    Next they’re going to tell us he’s never even been Skeet Surfin’.

    • creesto

      Is that by THE Jon Davison of the Huge White Teeth?

  • http://bemused.geek.nz Robert Cruickshank
  • franko

    wait, why is this important news again? i thought we WANTED him to focus on working, and not leisure activities!

  • fenester

    Perhaps he was using the word ala Dave Chapelle.

  • OldBrownSquirrel

    Aaron Burr was Jefferson’s VP, and a firearms enthusiast, IIRC.  I don’t recall that it did much for his political career; it hardly got him on the ten-dollar bill, did it?

    • Brainspore

      Didn’t do much for Alexander Hamilton either.

  • heavystarch

    AWWWWWWWW SKEET SKEET SKEET SKEET! MAW’FUKA’

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqRg0J_gt1A

  • cellocgw

    All in all, I’d far rather our DC pols  partake of a rather different sort of shooting gallery.  It’d be sure to improve the quality of laws they generate.

  • http://blog.doomsdayzen.com agonist

    I imagine the Republicans will launch an Clintonesque investigation and Obama’s attorney will then argue with the special prosecutor over the definition of “all the time”.

  • Atomic Cow

    How stupid is it to lie about something so easily disproven?

    • Antinous / Moderator

      Like our Kenyan-born, reptilian, Muslim President going back in time to fake the moon landing?

  • urpBurp

    I’ll tell you why it matters. Because it’s a friggin’ lie. Plain and simple. How is that a witch hunt?

    If we want a better political world we have to stop this glossing over of crap like this. If you can honestly say that a comment like this wouldn’t have bothered you if it came from the other side of the isle, then more power to you. But history has proved that isn’t true. The slightest misstep by someone we are against is pounced upon and dragged through the streets. While bold-faced lies from our own side are religiously accepted and overlooked as we use “faith” (ie: I don’t think he would have done that!) to abolish “fact” (ie: He said it and he lied.)

    I don’t care what side of the isle or political affiliation someone is if they are honest. But blind, willfull, ignorant, unapologetic hypocrisy will destroy any credibility that party has developed and will never encourage others to understand your point of view.

    • Brainspore

      I’ll tell you why it matters. Because it’s a friggin’ lie.

      If anything it’s an exaggeration. That’s a falsehood on the same order of “I’m so happy to be here to speak to you tonight…” at a political rally.

  • http://twitter.com/intensitystudio Antonio Carrasco

    I really hate the way presidential candidates have to pretend to engage in all these foolish activities just to make themselves more acceptable to the God and Country Crowd.

    God forbid we have a leader who’s not a gun nut or religious zealot!!!

  • Brainspore

    No, I’m all for attacking Obama when appropriate. But attack him for meaningful shortcomings, like warrantless wiretapping and drone strikes and going soft on Wall Street crooks. 

    “He doesn’t go skeet shooting as often as he implied he does!” is just a stupid waste of time.

  • Finnagain

     I’m positive that shrub really was clearing brush all those times he fled D.C. for his “ranch” in Texas.. Sure he was.

  • urpBurp

    Sorry, I just can’t sweep it aside. It’s not in my makeup.

    A President who lies so easily to the people he is sworn and pledged to support really gets under my skin. I didn’t like it when Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, etc…  did it; I don’t like it when Obama does it. Why is it ignored?

    Don’t dismiss it as a “shortcoming”. Picking your nose in public is a shortcoming. Burping on a date is a shortcoming. But telling me something meaningless that you know isn’t true and then asking me to trust you on important things? … That’s just asinine. It ain’t happening, Jack. It’s not a “stretch” of the truth. No one can even remember seeing him shooting Skeet more than once.

    Expect more from your leaders. Hold them accountable. This current blase attitude is what leads us to the wiretapping and drone strikes. It’s the frog in the frying pan.

  • Brainspore

    I think you’re picking some pretty trivial semantic bullshit to get worked up about, but I suppose if that’s the way you want to live your life then good luck with the whole “Skeetgate” thing.

  • urpBurp

    Brainspore,  I think it’s sad that you consider a lie from your President to be “pretty trivial semantic bullshit”. You think I care if Obama has ever shot Skeet? Nope. But I do care that he felt the need to lie about it. It would be the same thing if he said, “I bake cakes all the time.” What’s the point of lying over such a stupid thing?

    Don’t patronize me. This isn’t just about “Skeetgate”, that’s what I’m trying to say. This isn’t a one-time thing: Closing GITMO; Bringing the troops home; “Mission Accomplished”; “I did not have sex with that woman”; “No new taxes” and on and on and on… It’s about the character of a person who is my President. Is it really such “bullshit” to ask for an honest President?

  • Brainspore

    @boingboing-033730fd6fb7948798db987eebba322f:disqus :
    First of all it’s been established that he has been skeet shooting at Camp David at least once, so at worst he exaggerated the number of times he’s gone.

    Second, he didn’t say “I” go skeet shooting all the time, he said “we,” referring to those who visit Camp David. So a perfectly reasonable interpretation of his statement would be “skeet shooting is a common activity at Camp David, and I have participated in this activity.”

    Misleading? Maybe so. A scandalous indication of a serial liar? Hardly.