Oh, and, Bruce, Obama has made a couple of joking comments in the past - like the "Special Olympics" comment - for which he apologized, as he should. I don't think that the media in general or "the left" give him a pass when he really says something tasteless or offensive.

I just don't put this joke in the same category as Bush "joking" about the "have mores" being "my base" or trivializing the fact that the "weapons of mass destruction" that were the premise for invading Iraq were nowhere to be found.   

This particular joke was, as mentioned above, just a Commander-In-Chief's variation on the old father's joking threat to his daughters' would-be suitors that "Remember, I've got a shotgun in my pickup."