If you've ever visited Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota you know how impressive and enormous it is. If you've been lucky enough to see it at night, illuminated by giant spotlights, you've had a very rare experience. The junior senator from Illinois got his chance to see the sculpture this past Friday night. It was his first visit to the landmark. If you know any of the rangers and people who have worked at Mount Rushmore all of them can tell you some funny stories about the questions they get. The funniest is no doubt the question, and they are being very serious, about whether it is "natural" or "man made." Yes, people do ask that. The question Senator Obama asked a ranger has to be one of the best ever from a guy with a law degree from Harvard and a serious chance to be the next President of these United States of America. Check this:
Obama says his ears too big for Rushmore
By TOM RAUM
MOUNT RUSHMORE NATIONAL MEMORIAL, S.D. (AP) — Democrat Barack Obama paid an unscheduled late-night visit to Mount Rushmore Friday, visiting the national memorial at closing time and joking that his ears were too big to ever be included in such a display.
Obama joined a group of reporters and staff members for an after-dark sightseeing visit to the national memorial, where the faces of four presidents are carved into the mountain. South Dakota and Montana hold their primary elections on Tuesday, the final ones in the nation, and Obama was campaigning in both states.
Asked by a reporter if he ever envisioned himself carved into the mountain, he said, "I don't think my ears would fit. There's only so much rock up there."
Obama said it was his first visit to the landmark.
He did express curiosity about the filming of a chase scene in "North by Northwest," Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 classic starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint that included a death-defying scramble over Rushmore's presidential faces.
"How did they get up there in the first place?" he asked ranger Wesley Jensen.
"They didn't. It was a movie set," Jensen told him.
"Pretty spiffy, isn't it," said the Illinois senator, summing up his overall impressions.
By TOM RAUM
MOUNT RUSHMORE NATIONAL MEMORIAL, S.D. (AP) — Democrat Barack Obama paid an unscheduled late-night visit to Mount Rushmore Friday, visiting the national memorial at closing time and joking that his ears were too big to ever be included in such a display.
Obama joined a group of reporters and staff members for an after-dark sightseeing visit to the national memorial, where the faces of four presidents are carved into the mountain. South Dakota and Montana hold their primary elections on Tuesday, the final ones in the nation, and Obama was campaigning in both states.
Asked by a reporter if he ever envisioned himself carved into the mountain, he said, "I don't think my ears would fit. There's only so much rock up there."
Obama said it was his first visit to the landmark.
He did express curiosity about the filming of a chase scene in "North by Northwest," Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 classic starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint that included a death-defying scramble over Rushmore's presidential faces.
"How did they get up there in the first place?" he asked ranger Wesley Jensen.
"They didn't. It was a movie set," Jensen told him.
"Pretty spiffy, isn't it," said the Illinois senator, summing up his overall impressions.
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The ranger and reporter were apparently asked later if BXO was joking about thinking Hitchcock actually filmed those scenes on the face of the monument. They thought that he was not. By now I'm sure his handlers, Axelrod, Plouffe et al are feeding the lapdog press the line that it was just a joke. If you've been there you know how loopy that question is. If you haven't, here's what it looked like in the movie. (photos above) Not exactly true to scale.
Oh, Senator, that girl in the shower in Psycho? She didn't really get stabbed to death.
