No, I haven't seen the actual footage yet; all I've seen is the Olbermann clip where he talks about it, and of course Jake Tapper's breathless reporting about it at ABC News. It's entirely possible that the actual comment itself comes off as completely harmless in the actual footage.
Yes, I know that some here are taking the "don't post about it! that'll just make it into a self-fulfilling newscycle problem!" Guess what? Too late for that; do a Google search for "Obama+bowling+"special olympics" and it's already up to 19,000 results there's a whole mess of references to it before the show has even aired. FARK.com already has at least a half dozen headlines on it, and I'm sure the Freepers, RedState, Malkin yadda yadda are already all over it.
Yes, I realize that he was ripping on himself, not the mentally/physically disabled. However...
Finally, no, I'm not here to defend the statement itself. It was still a stupid thing to say, period, and Obama should issue some sort of personal apology beyond the already-released White House response. Yes, there are a hundred other far more important things that he needs to be dealing with right now--but come on, he did take the time to appear on the Tonight Show, specifically as a PR thing to get his message out, and like it or not, the "Special Olympics joke" is going to be the only real 'story' that makes it out there.
Now, there's three ways Obama can handle this IMHO.
One, he can take the "non-apology apology" approach that he did for the "bitter/cling to guns" incident during the primaries. That didn't work out too well (he eventually won, of course, but it stung pretty badly in the meantime).
Two, he can issue a simply-worded, short but firm apology, which is probably the safest course of action, and the one I'd expect him to do.
HOWEVER...
The third option would be to turn this thing into a true "teaching moment" ala the Jeremiah Wright flap. Of all the great speeches that Obama has given so far, in my opinion, the "Pennsylvania/Race" speech he gave last spring is, to me, by far the most important--more important than his DNC nomination acceptance speech, his Victory speech on election night, his Inauguration speech or his SOTU speech.
I think he could do something similar here--by confronting, head on and unapologetically, another issue that Americans are uncomfortable really talking about: how we think of, treat and deal with the physically and/or mentally disabled.
Now, he obviously wouldn't have the natural connection to this that he does to issues of race and racism; as far as I know, no one in his immediate family suffers from a physical or mental disability. However, especially given how the hypocritical Sarah Palin paraded her own 'special needs' child around as a campaign prop last fall, combined with the whole stem cell research brouhaha, it seems to me that the subject of disabilities and how the disabled are treated in our country is more than ripe for a serious, mature national discussion.
Then again, given how many other irons he has in the fire, perhaps he should just apologize sincerely, get it over with and move on. Whaddya think?
Note: I'm particularly interested in what those who are either disabled themselves or who have 'special needs' children/relatives in their family think.
Update: Here's some initial video footage from the appearance--the "bowling/Olympics" bit isn't mentioned at all, for whatever that's worth...
UPDATE: A number of people who either are themselves, work with, or have in their families someone who's disabled have explained that they have no problem with Obama's comments, and often in fact make jokes about the disabilities themselves. Some apparently find movies like that Johnny Knoxville flick and "There's Something About Mary" to be hilarious, etc etc.
...which is, in a way, exactly my point.
I'm Jewish, as is my wife and both of our families.
Naturally, we make occasional digs at each other about "Jewish geography" or about ourselves being stingy/big noses/pick your Jewish stereotype.
Black people are, according to the unwritten rules of society "allowed" to call each other by the N word (in certain circles, anyway).
I presume that similar unwritten rules hold true about every other ethnic/religious/whatever group--Asian, Hispanic, Catholic, Hindu, whatever.
If Obama himself was disabled, it would be considered "kosher" for him to joke about it...but since he isn't, it's considered offensive, even if done in an indirect way.
This is exactly the sort of thing I think he'd be great at addressing in such a theoretical 'teaching moment' speech--the 'unwritten rules' that every group of people have for themselves vs. those for people outside of that group.
UPDATE x3: Ah, here's the actual video of the "Special Olympics" reference:
Well, now.
That was...pretty much a non-event after all, eh? (Consider this my "Emily Litella" moment..."Never mind...!")
Leaving the diary up, however, as I think the larger discussion is a worthy one.