I just knew there was some kind of catch. A man just couldn’t be that wicked cool, smart, tech-savvy and generally all-around groovy with two cute kiddies and an awesome, intelligent wife. Something had to give.

Behold, Obama the Fly Killer!

A fly on the wall has no business during a White House interview, says President Obama. While CNBC’s John Harwood attempted to get an interview in the East Room, the fly simply wouldn’t stop interrupting, buzzing his own intelligible questions into the president’s ear—and our Commander in Chief had had enough.

Swatting the offending creature once it landed on his hand, he put a quick end to the multi-eyed invader.

And he didn’t even show a shred of remorse. Instead, he smiled, “That was pretty impressive, wasn’t it? I got it. I got the sucker!” It was almost the sort of line you’d expect from his witless predecessor.

Instantly the animal rights community—most notably PETA—were rabble-rabble-rabbling about the “execution” that took place, saying that the president should be more sympathetic and compassionate to the “least sympathetic animals.”

The funny thing is, while the whole TV piece was supposed to be about the biggest financial regulation reforms this country has seen since the Great Depression… all we hear about is the fly’s murder. You would think that a little perspective would come in handy here.

It reminds me of how Janeane Garafalo once described Americans being distracted by the “real” news by a journalist flashing Brittany Spears stories in front of their faces: “Look at the keys! Look—look at the keys!”

Look at the fly, America!

Okay, I’m all against bull fighting, and I think the battle to end meat is a very valid one. But swatting a fly? What if it had been a damned mosquito—and the interview were in the middle of Africa and the thing could have been carrying malaria or something? Would we still be offering the dead insect’s thousands of family members our condolences?

Come on, animal rights activists, choose your battles wisely. It’s responses like this that give us a bad rap in the first place!

One note on the positive side: perhaps the pundits from the far right can now attribute some harsh military action to Obama’s record. So he didn’t waterboard the six-legged freak first, and he didn’t hold it captive for years without a trial; but he damn well killed the sucker, all right.