(Image source: The White House)

BY NATHAN GIANNINI

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After taking a ‘shellacking’ at the polls in November’s mid-term elections, President Barack Obama took another hit Friday morning - this time, right to the face!

While playing in a pick-up basketball game, the president took an errant elbow to the lip while playing defense, requiring 12 stitches.

Richard Wolffe, an MSNBC commentator and a White House basketball veteran, told the Today Show, the games can get pretty rough and the president is usually right in the thick of things.

“These are tough games, but it’s ‘old man basketball.’ What we lack in finesse we make up for in the physical stuff. So it’s rough, it’s competitive. I suspect if he’d worn a mouth guard he’d have been just fine, but he likes to trash-talk, so that’s the kind of game it is.”

Mr. Obama’s fat lip is just the latest in a long line of presidential pratfalls. Good Morning America has a recap of some recent casualties suffered by the Commander-in-chief.

Reporter: “President Clinton needed surgery after he stumbled down the stairs at golfer Greg Norman’s house. Here’s Gerald Ford getting clotheslined on the ski slopes. And then there’s George W. Bush.”
Julie Mason, The Washington Examiner: “President Bush rode his bike all the time, recklessly. He was always flying over the handlebars.”

Now if you’re thinking 12 stitches sounds like a lot for a busted lip, you’re probably right. A White House statement explained The Fat First Lip was treated with a special fiber, which increases the number of stitches, but leaves a smaller scar. NPR’s Scott Simon wonders -- humorously --  if White House doctors made the wrong decision.

“Imagine a president with a gnarly, vivid scar telling the rulers of China, ‘Nice country ya’ got here. I’d hate to see something happen to it if you didn’t stop foolin’ around with the value of your currency. Know what I mean?’”

After initially covering up the culprit, the White House eventually revealed the guilty elbow as that of Rey Decerega, the director of programs for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.

A writer for the Broward-Palm Beach New Times suggests maybe Mr. Decerega should take his talents to South Beach.

“What the [Miami] Heat needs is an enforcer. And if Decerega is willing to throw an elbow to hit the leader of the free world, he qualifies.”

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