Patterico's Pontifications

8/12/2009

Getting The Numbers Right

Filed under: Obama — DRJ @ 9:34 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

The Obama Administration can’t seem to do its math homework:

“Before presenting tennis legend Billie Jean King with the Medal of Freedom Wednesday, President Obama ticked off some of her accomplishments: 12 Grand Slam titles, 101 doubles titles, 67 singles titles.

“Pretty good, Billie Jean,” he quipped.
***
But he didn’t get any of it right, according to King herself.

Asked what Obama got wrong, she said, “Well the Grand Slam’s at 39 not at 12.”

Billie Jean laughed it off but information like how many Grand Slams King has won is readily available at her website. If Obama’s staff can’t get little things like this right, what about big things like health care?

— DRJ

25 Responses to “Getting The Numbers Right”

  1. I’m sorry but the Obama administration is changing the history books. She won 12.

    Alta Bob (6ae698)

  2. check her wikipedia entry. thats where they got their stats. and w/ this admin’s usual prowess for math hilarity ensues.

    chas (74529e)

  3. Yes, the Obama team was sloppy here. The 12 is the no. of singles titles. The rest of the Grand Slams were women’s doubles and mixed doubles, coming to a total of 39. (So Wikipedia is right, just to clear its name).

    He should have said either “39” or “12 individual Grand Slams.”

    Of course, none of this has anything to do with health care, but I understand that there must be an obligatory shot at Obama in nearly every post for conservative blogs to retain their street cred. It’s the Bush thing all over again, just on the other side.

    In other news, that’s pretty amazing, her record.

    Myron (ba9235)

  4. our thanks to My-ron @ #3 for demonstrating the new ObaMao support mantra: “No excuse left behind.”

    at least they didn’t have to translate it into Russian: no telling how *that* would have turned out. %-)

    redc1c4 (fb8750)

  5. Idiot is as idiot does and/or says

    1. USPS proof government won’t run private competition out of business…..
    2. AARP does not support Obamacare except when it does or not.
    3. Most transparent administration in history, minimum of days prior to presidential signing so that bill can be published.

    krusher (5ed94c)

  6. He should have saved himself the embarassment by simply saying “Billie Jean and I have one very strong thing in common — we won”
    /sarc

    voiceofreason2 (b059c7)

  7. Well, at least he didn’t say that 64 million women lost their health insurance last year. One of his big supporters said it, on MSNBC, of course.

    MIke K (2cf494)

  8. Big fan of King’s…

    but what do her accomplishments, which are many, have to do with the Medal of Freedom?

    sookie (60809e)

  9. I don’t think Barack Obama knows what the Medal of Freedom is opposed to do. He just sort of shows up where they tell him I think.

    He consistently doesn’t impress. It would be hard for me to work at ABC News or CNN or the Newsweek cause there’s just nothing about Barack Obama to where I’m like damn I’d like to hit that. Brian Williams needs to look inside and give more better insight into the place where the nuzzlely guzzlely feelings come from.

    It might could just be he wasn’t very good at team sports in high school or something.

    happyfeet (42470c)

  10. First he apologizes to tinhorn dictators and tyrants for us, even though we have nothing to apologize for in the first place – then he basically throws our most loyal and ersthwile ally (Israel) under the bus. Now he give the Medal of Freedom to an anti – Semite. If I were the Israelis right about now, I’d be making serious contingency plans to start bombing Iran in about three weeks.

    Perhaps they should now rename the Medal of Freedom award the “Walter Duranty.”

    Dmac (e6d1c2)

  11. 12? 39??
    Picky, picky, picky!

    It must be only twelve, for The One has spoken!

    AD - RtR/OS! (2a3014)

  12. Dmac…with that you have sunk to a new level…ROTHFLMFAO!

    AD - RtR/OS! (2a3014)

  13. Hmmm. Of more interest was the awarding of the Medal of Freedom to Senator Edward Kennedy, who was absent and ‘too ill’ to attend the White House event (and ‘too ill’ to show up for his job when Congress was in session for quite some time as well) so his daughter accepted the award on his behalf at the ceremony. Yet today, on MSNBC during an interview with Andrea Mitchell on the passing of Eunice Shriver, his nephew, Robert, revealed that Teddy wasn’t ‘too ill’ to be out yesterday aboard his yacht for some enjoyably brisk sailing off Cape Cod. Certainly every terminally ill soul should spend the remainder of their lives as they see fit. But regardless of your political persuasion, if politicians in either party are incapable of showing up for the job were elected to do for such extended periods, they ought to just take their lavish pensions, resign and sail off into the sunset. The United States has many pressing problems requiring immediate attention with all hands on deck… and on the job.

    DCSCA (9d1bb3)

  14. @13:

    You just want a fillibuster-proof majority and want a reliable body in Teddy’s place.

    Dr. K (eca563)

  15. Now imagine them controlling your medical records and prescriptions……

    Techie (482700)

  16. Kinda nitpicking, aren’t you

    JEA (2f926f)

  17. Another devastating riposte from JEA.

    JD (788853)

  18. Every time Bush made an error, it was heralded by people like Myron as proof of Bush’s stupidity.

    Now, errors seem to have no meaning at all … I wonder what changed?

    The reality is that an error like this is indeed meaningless, until a pattern shows up. And the pattern has been that Obama’s White House is really not run by adults. Reminds us of the Carter and Clinton White Houses in that.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  19. I didn’t think Billie Jean was into mixed doubles, so I can see how a mistake could have been made.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  20. When you guys start up about things like this, you sound EXACTLY like the ultra-liberals who criticized every little mistake Bush made.

    JEA (9f9fc9)

  21. Daleyrocks – How very homophobic of you. Denounced.

    JD (e7fedc)

  22. It wasn’t the ultra-liberals, JEA, it was the Dem party, and their friends in the MSM. And for the smartest President EVAH, the basic facts of a Congressional Medal of Honor winner should not be that damn difficult.

    JD (e7fedc)

  23. When you guys start up about things like this, you sound EXACTLY like the ultra-liberals who criticized every little mistake Bush made.

    Comment by JEA — 8/14/2009 @ 3:30 am

    To BHO Bots, “Every little mistake Bush made” was supposed to be evidence that he was a moron. Ditto with Sarah Palin to the point that suddenly, major newspapers made a point of it to drop the “g” on present participles when quotin’ her. But when it comes to The One, his mistakes just prove that he’s human after all, not a messiah or Mr. Spock. Joe Biden is treated like VP Dick Van Dyke, whom everybody loves even though he fell down a lot.

    We are making more of Obama’s screwups than is warranted in order to equalize the overreactions of the left when right-of-center folk make minor mistakes. Get it now?

    L.N. Smithee (88263d)

  24. And for the smartest President EVAH, the basic facts of a Congressional Medal of Honor Presidental Medal of Freedom winner should not be that damn difficult.
    Comment by JD — 8/14/2009 @ 5:22 am

    Fixed that for ya bud! 😉

    Stashiu3 (ed6467)

  25. Oops. Isn’t it cute when a racist winger makes a simple mistake like that?

    JD (545da5)


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