WASHINGTON — Throw the flag against: Barack Obama.
Call: Intentional grounding.
What happened: Obama on Wednesday was speaking to reporters in Israel when he tried to boast about what he'd done to protect Israel.
"Just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee — which is my committee — a bill to call for divestment from Iran as a way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don't obtain a nuclear weapon," Obama said.
Why that's wrong: Obama is not a member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.
Ironically, a man who traveled with Obama to the Mideast this week, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., is a member of the committee. He was one of the "no" votes when the committee passed the bill July 17 on a vote of 19-2.
Penalty: Perhaps Obama was thinking that as the presumptive leader of his party, all of the Senate committees are his, as President Lyndon Johnson once quipped, when told he was heading toward the wrong military helicopter, that they all were his. Obama's Johnsonian hubris sets his credibility back 10 yards, and he loses a down in this offensive series.
ON THE WEB
See Obama make his claim:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjzb61wfyN0