Media Research Center President Brent Bozell had already been scheduled to appear on today's "Fox & Friends" to discuss last night's MRC Gala and Media DisHonors Awards, but President Barack Obama's laid a golden egg with his joke about the Special Olympics last night on NBC's "The Tonight Show." So the latest Obama gaffe and the media's interest in it was the first topic co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade asked the NewsBusters publisher about (audio available here) this morning:
KILMEADE: Brent, that comment. How big a deal?
BOZELL: Well, in the eyes of the regular press, no big deal at all. They're just simply going to overlook it. If past is prologue, they refuse to do any serious kind of journalism work on Obama, candidate or president. But, this is the kind of thing that is beginning to percolate out there. What is becoming evident is when you turn the teleprompter off, this man is capable of making all manner of mistakes, and the more he stays in the public eye, doing this type of thing without a teleprompter, the more mistakes he's going to make.
DOOCY: But Brent, it is such, when I heard it, I said, "What was he thinking?" For him to say that his bowling skills are quote, "like Special Olympics or something." That's awful! I get he was trying to be funny, but on its face, do you want the President of the United States to be thinking like that?
BOZELL: Well, look, in the eyes of his defenders in the press, if the Republicans say something like that, it is evidence of their meanspiritedness, if a Democrat says something like that, well, by golly, he's got a sense of humor, doesn't he. It's just amazing that there is such a double standard.
Asked by Brian Kilmeade if he expected that the gaffe would "get much traction," Bozell noted that he expected talk radio and Internet sources would be abuzz but that the "old media" would need "a defibrillator to get them interested in anything."
On a humorous note pertaining to Bozell's argument about how Obama's utter reliance on a teleprompter is "beginning to percolate," be sure to check out "Barack Obama's Teleprompter's Blog" and the Twitter page for the same, @BOTeleprompter.
A similar Twitter page, @TeleprompterOne, also makes fun of the president's reliance on the autocue machine.
