Puns at the ready

THIS morning, President Obama was out doing what a great many of his fellow citizens were not: exercising. During the course of a vigorous basketball game, an errand elbow hit him in the lower lip. Per CNN, 12 stitches were required to repair the minor injury. It’s a worthy jock wound. Unfortunately for Mr. Obama and us, it’s also breaking news. Therefore you’re going to hear every bad pun in the book about the First Lip for at least one news cycle. Expect penetrating media questions like: Will the player who delivered the blow get a presidential pardon? This will be followed by a cavalcade of bad one-liners from the late-night comedians. (And lest we forget, there’s still time for SNL to slip in a skit about it.) This, in turn, will be followed by a slew of editorials, op-eds and blog posts using the incident as a metaphor for [insert your favorite subject or grievance]. It is as predictable as the day is long. If I’m wrong, I’ll eat this post.