Don\u2019t you wish sometimes you were a fly on a wall in the White House?
\nOne brazen little insect did one better Thursday, landing on the forehead of President Obama as he announced his nominees to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.<\/p>\n
The normally stoic commander-in-chief appeared visibly distracted with the bothersome bug buzzing around him. At one point, Mr Obama even noted, \u2018This guy\u2019s bothering me here.\u2019<\/p>\n
This was not the newly re-elected president\u2019s first encounter with pesky pests.
\nIn 2008, Mr Obama was flipping burgers on a grill for a photo-op while campaigning in Iowa when he was swarmed by flies, according to the L.A. Times.<\/p>\n
But the most memorable insect-related moment in his presidency to date came in 2009, when Obama killed a fly during an interview with CNBC at the White House. <\/p>\n
\u2018Get out of here,\u2019 Obama said as the fly buzzed him during his interview. The pest persisted, and when it landed on his left forearm, Obama smacked it, according to Reuters.<\/p>\n
\u2018Now, where were we?\u2019 the president said without missing a beat. Pleased with himself, he added, \u2018That was pretty impressive, wasn\u2019t it? I got the sucker.\u2019<\/p>\n
Several observers in the room gave congratulatory shout-outs. Obama pointed to the floor and instructed an obliging cameraman to get a close-up of the tiny corpse.<\/p>\n
Many animal rights activists, however, were not amused by the president\u2019s prowess.
\nPETA wasted no time issuing a statement sternly scolding the commander-in-chief for taking an innocent life, and even sent him a humane Bug Catcher. <\/p>\n
\u2018We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals,\u2019 PETA spokesman Bruce Freidrich explained at the time.<\/p>\n
This time around, however, the fly took its revenge for its fallen brethren.
\nAs it circled around the president during his speech introducing Mary Jo White as the nominee for the SEC chairmanship, Obama tried to squish it, but to no avail. <\/p>\n
One can speculate that perhaps the 51-year-old president\u2019s catlike reflexes have dulled over the past four years, or perhaps he is still trying to recover from his raucous inauguration festivities. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Don\u2019t you wish sometimes you were a fly on a wall in the White House? One brazen little insect did one better Thursday, landing on the forehead of President Obama as he announced his nominees to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The normally stoic commander-in-chief appeared visibly distracted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[688],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-infotainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}