We are all familiar with the image of our super-cool president on camera dealing with a house fly.
In this diary, I will present less well known presidental responses to this type of pest.
Richard Nixon put the fly on his enemies list. Charles Colson Swatted it, and J.R. Haldeman covered up the incident.
Gerald Ford swung at the fly, missed, fell off his chair and killed it by landing on it.
Jimmy Carter devised a complicated plan for trapping the fly in a corner of the Oval Office, which turned out to be a problem. He then talked to the White House staff about how we needed to learn to live with hardships like the occaisional fly.
Ronald Reagan shot it with his trusty revolver, which shot blanks since it was only a prop. Al Haig killed it when Reagan wasn't looking, after which Reagan took a long nap.
George H.W. Bush asked one of the servants to get rid of it.
Bill Clinton got out his fly swatter and nailed it, after which, lower lip trembling, he said he felt its pain.
George W Bush made sure he had a bigger fly swatter than Clinton's. He took the fly swatter off of his ersatz saddle, and swung at the fly. He missed, but pretended that he hit it, and his staff all acted like he had, so he was happy. Dick Cheney captured the fly, took it to an undisclosed location, and started removing its legs, while asking it about other flies' plans to invade. When he eventually returned the carcas to the White House, Dubya had it mounted and hung it up out at his ranch as a trophy.
In contrast, Barack Obama, on camera and under pressure, first took the measured response of trying to brush the fly away. When the fly persisted, he waited, concentrating, finding the right time, then SWAT, one dead fly. He even stooped to pick up the fly and dispose of it himself.
While there has been a lot of talk on Dkos about Obama's sins of comission and omission in his first 150 days, I know we are united in hoping that the rest of his presidency goes as well as this incident, and that at some point, Mitch McConnel plays the role of the fly (Metaphorically of course)