Obama Visits Leno, Offends Special Olympics

President Barack Obama made history last night when became the first sitting president to appear on a late-night talk show.  He visited the set of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno where they talked about a number of things and most of it was very funny.   Obama even compared Washington, D.C. to American Idol.  You can check out the complete video on the NBC website but I did want to talk about the joke that ended with Obama having to apologize this morning.

NBC Photo: Paul Drinkwater

During the interview, Obama was telling Leno about the White House bowling alley and how disappointed he was with his score of 129.  As the audience laughed and cheered, he added “It was like the Special Olympics or something.”  In case you don’t know, the Special Olympics, founded in 1968, is a global nonprofit organization serving 200 million individuals with intellectual disabilities.   Everyone continued laughing but there were some people who did not think it was funny.

The White House quickly recovered from the gaffe and, on his way back to Washington aboard Air Force One, the president called Tim Shriver, the chairman of the Special Olympics (son of founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver and nephew of Senator Edward Kennedy) to apologize.  Today on Good Morning America, Tim explained that Obama “expressed his disappointment and he apologized in a way that was very moving. He expressed that he did not intend to humiliate this population.”  Additionally, Shriver revealed that Obam has invited some of the Special Olympic athletes to the White House to bowl and play basketball.

The Tonight Show interview wasn’t all doom and gloom, though.  At one point, Leno asked if people playing basketball with Obama actually throw the game to allow the president to win.  Obama pursed his lips, pretended to be offended and added “I don’t see why they would throw the game except for all those Secret Service guys with guns around.”