Photograph by Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images

President Barack Obama departs the White House on Feb. 4, 2013 to Minneapolis to tout his gun control proposals.

The release of the White House photo showing President Barack Obama shooting skeet at Camp David comes two days before Obama travels to Minneapolis to promote his agenda for curbing gun violence, following the Dec. 14 shootings of 20 schoolchildren and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, by a young gunman wielding his mother’s semi-automatic Bushmaster rifle.

The photo of the president, recorded Aug. 4, 2012 at Camp David, was taken on a summer Saturday — his 51st birthday — two weeks and a day after a young gunman walked into the Century 16 multiplex theater in Aurora, Colo., and opened fire with a Remington shotgun and a Smith & Wesson M&P 15 semi-automatic rifle and a 100-round drum ammunition magazine that jammed, forcing him to move on to his Glock handgun. The attack during the midnight showing of “The Dark Night Rises” claimed 12 lives and injured 58 other people.

The day after the president was shooting clay targets at Camp David, a gunman with a Springfield 9 mm semi-automatic pistol who had recently bought the gun and three 19-round ammo clips walked into a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., and killed six people.

This picture was taken in the heat of a presidential campaign in which, despite the mass shootings that summer, neither Obama nor his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, were pressed to confront an issue that has haunted American society for years.

The release of the White House photo today clearly is an attempt by a president pressing for tougher gun controls to show that he understands the aims of law-abiding gun owners. Yet in many ways, the photo of the first gun-owner underscores something about the pervasiveness of firearms in American culture.

The president’s gun-promoting critics will not accept him as one of their own.

The Washington Times was quick to suggest that the commander-in-chief is no ordinary gun-owner. The paper quoted the CEO of Browning, Travis Hall, as saying of the shotgun pictured in the Camp David photo: ”I am fairly sure it is a Browning Citori.” The Times writes: “As the president is left handed, it could be the 12 gauge Citori 625 Sporting Golden Clays, adjustable comb, left hand. It features a gold engraving of a game bird transforming into a clay target on the receiver and retails for $4,799. ” (Various Browning Citori shotguns run between $3,200 and $7,000.)

And the Associated Press quoted a top official with the National Skeet Shooting Association as saying the White House photo suggests Obama is a novice shooter. ”This isn’t something he’s done very often because of how he’s standing, how he has the gun mounted,” said Michael Hampton, executive director of the San Antonio-based association.

The National Rifle Association, for its part, whose membership reportedly has boomed since the Newtown shootings, wasn’t offering the president any membership card today. The AP quoted  Andrew Arulanandam, NRA spokesman, as saying: ”One picture does not erase a lifetime of supporting every gun ban and every gun-control scheme imaginable.”

And then there was the photo itself. At a White House whose occupant suffered years of questioning about his citizenship and the authenticity of his Hawaiian birth certificate, officials today attempted to forestall all the likely Photoshop conspiracy theorists — likening a new breed of “Skeeters” to those nagging “Birthers.”

From David Plouffe (#whereistrump), manager of the first campaign and author of “The Audacity to Win:”

Attn skeet birthers. Make our day – let the photoshop conspiracies begin! m.flickr.com/photos/whiteho…

— David Plouffe (@davidplouffe) February 2, 2013

Day made. The skeet birthers are out in full force in response to POTUS pic. Makes for most excellent, delusional reading. #whereistrump

— David Plouffe (@davidplouffe) February 2, 2013

From Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director-turned senior adviser:

For all the “skeeters”: POTUS shoots clay targets on the range at Camp David on Aug. 4, 2012. bit.ly/WlDMYG

— Dan Pfeiffer (@pfeiffer44) February 2, 2013

The picture is real.

We know Pete Souza, the White House photographer, a professional’s professional.

The president’s affinity with gun-owners remains a question, yet probably averts the real question here.

This photo of a sporting shoot two weeks after one massacre and the day before another, released as the president sets out to rally public support for gun controls following the most shocking mass shooting of all, isn’t likely to make any real connection between Obama and a gun-owning public. It’s simply another reminder that there’s probably nothing to worry about with guns in the hands of the right people. It’s the rest of them — and their high-powered weapons — that are the problem.

Original post is Obama’s $5,000 Shotgun Real McCoy, Wrong Question in Gun Control Debate? by Political Capital.

Photograph by Pete Souza/The White House

President Barack Obama shoots clay targets with a shotgun on the range on Aug. 4, 2012 at Camp David, Maryland.

The proof is in the picture.

After President Barack Obama allowed in a recent interview that he and friends shoot skeet “all the time” up at Camp David, cynics started to question why there are no photos of the clay-clobbering president at camp — Presidents from Dwight Eisenhower, who opened the skeet range at the camp named for his grandson, to John F. Kennedy and George H.W. Bush have been pictured plugging away at flying clay at the mountain retreat.

The White House today released a photograph of Obama skeet shooting at Camp David last August after some Republicans expressed doubts that the Democratic president had actually engaged in the activity revealed in that New Republic interview.

“Pull!” — the shotgun is smoking in this presidential photo by White House Photographer Pete Souza.

Obama, who is seeking a ban on assault weapons and other measures to reduce gun violence, told the magazine in its Feb. 11 issue that he shoots skeet “all the time” at Camp David and respects the nation’s hunting tradition. He was responding to a question about whether he had ever fired a gun.

The photo, sent to reporters via Twitter by White House spokesman Jay Carney and Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer, shows Obama shooting clay targets on a range at Camp David Aug. 4.

Asked earlier this week about a photo of the president skeet shooting, Carney replied that when Obama “goes to Camp David, he goes to spend time with his family and friends and relax, not to produce photographs.”

Thereafter, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, expressed doubt about the president’s skeet shooting.

“You know, if you don’t have the photos, if this is not something that’s a new hobby, then I think he should invite me out to Camp David and I’ll challenge him,” Blackburn said on CNN. Asked for a reaction to Blackburn’s challenge, Carney responded, “I have none.”

The president will continue his pressure on Congress to curb gun violence when he speaks Monday at the Minneapolis Police Department’s Special Operations Center.  Obama has responded to the Dec. 14 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting deaths of 20 children and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, with proposals to mandate background checks for all gun buyers, a ban on high-capacity ammunition clips and reinstatement of a ban on the sale of assault weapons.

With the photo in, we’re still waiting for the video, like this one of JFK and Jackie Kennedy learning to shoot skeet.

Original post is Obama Skeet-Shooting: Picture-Proof — JFK-Styled Video Next? by Political Capital.

Photograph by Chris M. Rogers/Getty Images

Skeet shooting

A question came up at the White House today:

Just how much skeet shooting does President Barack Obama do at Camp David?

He said in an interview with The New Republic released over the weekend that he and friends go shooting “all the time” on the range that President Dwight Eisenhower opened at the presidential retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains named for his grandson David.

There are pictures of John F. Kennedy shooting skeet there, pictures of George H.W. Bush and his young, at the time, son Jeb shooting skeet there.

But the Camp David Web-site offers no photo album of the 44th president’s riflery (make that shotgunry).

“I don’t know how often,” the president shoots skeet at the mountain retreat, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said today in response to a reporter’s question at the West Wing press briefing.  “He does go to Camp David with some regularity, but I’m not sure how often he’s done that.”

If there’s a photo of the president shooting skeet, Carney said, he hasn’t seen it.

Asked why this hasn’t been mentioned before — the president revealed it when asked in the TNR interview if he’d ever shot a gun, at this time when Obama is promoting a plan to curb gun violence — Carney explained: “Because when he goes to Camp David, he goes to spend time with his family and friends and relax, not to produce photographs.”

There is, however, video of the Kennedys at the Skeet Range — they liked to relax, and produced a lot of photographs, too.

Original post is More on Obama’s Skeet-Shooting: Camp David for Fun, Not Photos by Political Capital.

Camp David

President John F. Kennedy shot skeet at Camp David, shown here with David Niven and The Washington Post’s Ben Bradlee in 1963. Camp David Photo.President John F. Kennedy shot skeet at Camp David, shown here with David Niven and The Washington Post’s Ben Bradlee in 1963.

President Barack Obama, seeking a ban on assault weapons, says he shoots skeet “all the time” at Camp David.

Obama told The New Republic magazine in an interview that at the presidential retreat in Maryland’s wooded Catoctin Mountains “we do skeet shooting all the time.”

“Not the girls, but oftentimes guests of mine go up there” to shoot skeet, Obama added in an interview published in the magazine’s Feb. 11 issue.

President Dwight Eisenhower, who had the good sense to rename the presidential retreat for grandson David — it had been known as Shangri-La before then — installed the skeet shooting range in the 1950s.

Obama, father of two daughters, mentioned his interest in skeet shooting in response to a question on whether he had ever fired a gun.

Obama has responded to a shooting rampage at a Connecticut elementary school last month by proposing legislation to mandate background checks for all gun buyers, ban high-capacity ammunition clips and reinstate a ban on sales of assault weapons. Obama also signed 23 executive actions aimed at circumventing congressional opposition to new gun restrictions, including several designed to maximize prosecution of gun crimes and improve access to government data for background checks.

Twenty students and six educators were killed in a mass shooting Dec. 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Skeet shooting involves shotguns, not Bushmasters. And there are no mega-clips involved.

The president also expressed concern about violence and injuries in professional and intercollegiate football in this interview, saying he would “think long and hard” if he had a son before allowing him to play. Obama, an avowed sports fan, says the National Collegiate Athletic Association in particular should consider rules changes in view of emerging evidence on long-term health consequences of head blows suffered by players.

He said he is “more worried” about amateur college players than professional National Football League players who are “grown men” represented by a union and paid a salary.

“You read some of these stories about college players who undergo some of these same problems with concussions and so forth and then have nothing to fall back on,” Obama said in the interview. “That’s something that I’d like to see the NCAA think about.”

Obama predicted that football rules will “probably change gradually to try to reduce some of the violence.” He said the while rules changes to tamp down violence “may make it a little bit less exciting,” the result “will be a whole lot better for the players, and those of us who are fans maybe won’t have to examine our consciences quite as much.”

Original post is Obama Shoots Skeet at Camp David — and Has Advice for the NCAA by Political Capital.

Photograph by Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

President Barack Obama walking from Marine One to the Residence at the White House on Aug. 5, 2012, returning from Camp David where he spent his birthday.

It’s been a short weekend at Camp David.

President Barack Obama, who turned 51 yesterday, put in a full morning and early afternoon at the golf course at Andrews Air Force Base yesterday before flying to Camp David after 4 pm for the night.

It’s 10 degrees cooler up there in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland than it is in Washington, where the mercury was pushing 100 degrees this afternoon.

Yet Obama returned to the White House today a little after 2:30 pm EDT.

Wearing a dark polo shirt and khakis as he stepped out of Marine One on the South Lawn, the president was asked how his birthday went.

“I’m feeling older,” he said with a smile.

As told by Bloomberg’s Matt Bok from the White House.

Original post is Obama: `I’m Feeling Older’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Pete Souza/The White House via Getty Images

Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom, President Barack Obama, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, and others watch the overtime shootout of the Chelsea vs. Bayern Munich Champions League final in the Laurel Cabin conference room during the G8 Summit on May 19, 2012 at Camp David, Maryland.

Anyone up for a run? Cake? How about watching some football (even if it’s the European kind)?

The White House is taking great pains to show that the G-8 summit at Camp David this weekend is uniquely informal and frank.

The day began with President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron hitting the treadmills this morning.

Then when the world leaders negotiated the language of the G-8 communique (a joint statement issued after most summits of this kind), they used pen and paper and sat around a table with their sleeves rolled up to decide on it, according to Obama aides.

Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, told reporters that the two-day summit at Camp David stands in “stark contrast to the cavernous convention center and the motorcade movements that we usually have at these summits.”

Rhodes even said Obama was going to try to watch some soccer with Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel this afternoon. Bayern Munich faces Chelsea in the Champions League finals.

Michael Froman, Obama’s adviser on international economic affairs, told reporters that world leaders “are just walking through, walking down paths or sitting on patio’s unscripted, unplanned and that’s exactly what the president had in mind” when he decided to host the summit here in Maryland’s Catoctin woods.

Obama even had a chocolate birthday cake delivered to Japan’s Prime Minister Noda at a dinner last night.

The reviews of the group dynamic aside, the eurozone debt crisis and opposing views about pro-growth policies and austerity have dominated the weekend.

Perhaps it’s time for a cook out.

Original post is White House Tries to Blunt Euro Debt Crisis with Soccer, Cake by Political Capital.

Photograph by Michael Gottschalk/dapd/AP Photo

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Barack Obama at the G8 Summit in Camp David.

As President Obama stood beneath an oak tree to greet world leaders at the start of the G-8 summit at Camp David, the heavily guarded presidential retreat in Maryland, one leader refused to smile for the cameras.

The arrival ceremony is a tradition at the beginning of diplomatic summits and is usually nothing more than a quick grip and grin for the press. Yet this time, as Obama stood sorrounded by dozens of cameras and even more reporters in front of Laurel Lodge, a green cedar-shingled building at the heart of Camp David, German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave a glimpse into the tension surrounding the two-day summit.

As Merkel approached, Obama beamed, reached out his hand and said, “Angela.”

She responded: “Mr. President.”

Things got interesting when Obama asked her, “How have you been?”

Merkel simply shrugged and said nothing.

In response Obama said, “Well, you have a few things on your mind.”

The interaction, which was less than a minute long, underscores the tension sorrounding the meeting where the European debt crisis will be the biggest topic of discussion. At the helm of Europe’s largest economy, Merkel has taken the lead on trying to fix the crisis, and her austerity demands are butting up against calls for pro-growth policies, leading to a fraught 24 hours at Camp David.

Original post is Merkel Shrugs at Obama’s Camp David Greeting by Political Capital.

Photograph by White/House/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

President Barak Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Claire Duncan, daughter of Education Secretary Arne Duncan, watch a tennis match at Camp David.

President Barack Obama’s decision to host the G-8 leaders at Camp David this weekend marks a milestone for the presidential retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains. It will be the biggest gathering of heads of state there in history.

So who sleeps where?

And how did the White House decide?

Determining which leader gets which cabin without sending insulting signals is no small feat. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon was asked about it at a news briefing today.

“The allocation system, of course, is classified,” he deadpanned.

White House deputy chief of staff Alyssa Mastromonaco and George Mulligan of the White House Military Office were involved in making the delicate determinations, Donilon said. The team made sure there was a cabin for each head of state with room for at least one key staffer, he added.

“It’s adequate,” he joked.

Obama may have decided to hold the summit at Camp David to re-familiarize himself with the place.

The trip marks only the 23rd time he’s gone to the rustic presidential retreat, compared with 81 visits by former President George W. Bush during the same point in his presidency, according to CBS News reporter Mark Knoller, who tracks presidential statistics. That makes 54 days at Camp David for Obama, compared with 256 days for Bush.

Most of Obama’s trips to the getaway in the cooler mountains of Maryland have been short weekends with his family during Washington’s hot summers. He hasn’t been there since October 8, and he has never hosted foreign dignitaries there — until now.

Few people have seen the camp — hidden down an off-limits forest road of the national park there — best known for the 1978 summit that President Jimmy Carter held with Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin which led to the Camp David Accords.

The camp was established by President Franklin Roosevelt, who designed the main building to look like his vacation home in Warm Springs, Georgia. It was named Shangri-La. Eisenhower renamed it after his grandson David.

Kate Andersen Brower contributed to this post.

Original post is No Bunk Beds at Camp David by Political Capital.