US President Barack Obama has apologized to the chairman of the Special Olympics for his late-night TV talk show quip equating his bowling skills to those of athletes with disabilities.
Appearing on The Tonight Show on Thursday, the president told host Jay Leno he had been practicing at the White House’s bowling alley but was not happy with his score of 129.
Then he remarked: “It was like the Special Olympics or something.”
PHOTO: AP
The audience laughed, but the White House quickly recognized the blunder. The Special Olympics, founded in 1968, is a global nonprofit organization serving 200 million individuals with intellectual disabilities.
On his way back to Washington on Air Force One, Obama called the chairman of the Special Olympics, Tim Shriver, to say he was sorry — even before the taped program aired late on Thursday night.
“He expressed his disappointment and he apologized in a way that was very moving. He expressed that he did not intend to humiliate this population,” Shriver said on Friday on ABC TV’s Good Morning America.
Obama, Shriver said, wanted to have some Special Olympic athletes visit the White House to bowl or play basketball.
Still, Shriver said, “I think it’s important to see that words hurt and words do matter. And these words that in some respect can be seem as humiliating or a put down to people with special needs do cause pain and they do result in stereotypes.”
Shriver’s sister, Maria, said Obama’s joke was hurtful, although she was sure he did not mean it that way. California’s first lady said laughing at such comments “hurts millions of people throughout the world.”
The siblings’ mother, Eunice Kennedy-Shriver, founded the Special Olympics and has championed the rights of the mentally disabled. Tim and Maria are nephew and niece of Senator Edward Kennedy, whose endorsement early in the Democratic primaries was critical to Obama winning his party’s nomination.
Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton told reporters traveling with Obama that the president’s offhand remark was not meant to disparage the Special Olympics, only to poke some fun at the commander in chief’s bowling skills.
“He thinks that the Special Olympics are a wonderful program that gives an opportunity to shine to people with disabilities from around the world,” Burton said.
Despite making fun of his score, the president appeared to be getting better the more he visited the White House lanes, which former US president Harry Truman installed in 1947. During a campaign photo opportunity a year ago at a bowling alley, he rolled only a 37 in seven frames. The clip of the disastrous game was replayed on late night TV shows such as Leno’s — one of Obama’s few campaign gaffes.
Meanwhile, first lady Michelle Obama broke ground on a new White House vegetable garden on Friday, digging a plot on the mansion’s south lawn to help provide her children and visitors with fresh, healthy food.
The first lady, who has made a point of reaching out to the local Washington community since her husband’s inauguration, gathered about two dozen local school children to dig up the patch, which will be the first vegetable garden at the White House since former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt planted a “victory garden” during World War II.
“I want to make sure that our family, as well as the staff and all the people who come to the White House and eat our food, get access to really fresh vegetables and fruits,” Obama said. “What I found with my girls, who are 10 and seven, is that they like vegetables more if they taste good.”
She said they were also going to have a beehive — an idea that did not thrill daughters Sasha and Malia.
“My kids aren’t very excited about the beehive,” she said. “But we’re going to try to make our own honey here.”
The garden, which will be organic, will be planted later in the spring and will include berries and mint in addition to vegetables. It is being started as the country faces an epidemic of obesity and diabetes.
Sam Kass, an assistant chef, said the White House hoped to have a year-round garden and planned to share some of the produce with a local soup kitchen.
Spinach, peas, fennel and squash would all feature in the garden, he said. The garden will produce up to as many as 55 different fruits and vegetables.
The garden was hailed as a victory by Kitchen Gardeners International, an organization of gardeners who promote home-grown food, which attracted some 100,000 people to sign its online petition asking the Obamas to plant a vegetable garden at the White House.
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