THE NEW YORK TIMES
November 26, 2010
Obama Gets 12 Stitches in Lip
By HELENE COOPER
WASHINGTON — President Obama had to get 12 stitches in his lip after getting a blow from an opponent’s elbow during a basketball game Friday morning, White House officials said.
“After being inadvertently hit with an opposing player’s elbow in the lip while playing basketball with friends and family, the president received 12 stitches today administered by the White House medical unit,” the press secretary, Robert Gibbs said in a statement. “They were done in the doctor’s office located on the ground floor of the White House.”
The statement did not say whose elbow was involved, but one denial has already come in: Reggie Love, the former Duke University basketball player who is Mr. Obama’s aide, was on the court but said it was not him.
Maybe Michelle Obama’s brother, Craig Robinson, the basketball coach at Oregon State University? Mr. Obama was, after all, according to the pool report, playing with “members of his family.”
In any event, Mr. Obama was never knocked out completely, so to speak, so Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was not required to step up to the top spot.
The White House said Mr. Obama was given a local anesthetic while receiving the stitches. The stitches were made with a smaller filament than is typically used, which increases the number of stitches but makes a tighter stitch and results in a smaller scar.
CAMERON DUODU WRITES: A very competitive President, isn’t he? He should curb his macho instincts, though. Already the US mainstream media are publishing comments making fun of him. Here is a small sampling:
Was he playing with some of Dick Cheney’s hunting buddies??
I hope it knocked some sense into him!
Bull, she hit him.
