Barack Obama, Murderer

Well, no, not really.

Tuesday evening, President Obama was in the middle of a televised CNBC interview when a fly started buzzing him. So he did what anyone else would do - he swatted it. Fly forgotten, interview continues.

Enter PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. These are the same people who are behind some of the most ridiculous, ill-conceived and just plain offensive campaigns ever, including:

• Lobbying the town of Fishkill, New York to change its name to "Fishsave" (the "kill" part actually comes from the Dutch word for "creek" or "stream")
• Comparing factory farms to the Holocaust
• Asking college students (among whom binge drinking is already endemic) to drink beer instead of milk
• Showing up in Ku Klux Klan-like robes outside the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show
• Trying to rename fish "sea kittens" on the grounds that people are less likely to hurt cute kittens than fish
  

And so on. So they naturally could not let this one go unchallenged. Attacking Obama for his part in keeping the pest population down, a PETA blogger archly reminded the president that "he isn't the Buddha, he's a human being, and human beings have a long way to go before they think before they act."

Cue the inevitable media circus, topped off by Stephen Colbert's hilarious take on this whole brouhaha.

Once again looking like a bunch of self-righteous fools, PETA backtracked ever so slightly by claiming that Obama should have disposed of the insect without killing it. They even sent one of their $8 "humane bug catchers" to the president for free.

So PETA is not among those who call Obama a crazed murderer - for now.

He's only been in office a few months, after all.