Move over, whales. Chill out, penguins and polar bears. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has a new campaign: save the flies.
Yes, the flies. As in, the maggot-laying, filthy flies.
No, this is not a story from the Onion. Apparently we’re not getting punk’d. It’s not April Fool’s Day. PETA seriously wants to save the flies. Not the flies joyously buzzing about in the wild, the flies in your house. No joke.
During filming of an interview with Barack Obama on CNBC, a fly pestered the president. Obama said, and I quote, “Hey, get out of here.” The interviewer said, “That’s the most persistent fly I’ve ever seen.” Then the fly landed on Obama’s left hand, and Obama gave it good hard slap with his right hand, killing it, dead, dead, dead. The interviewer said (and again I quote directly), “Nice.” Obama said, “Now, where were we? That was pretty impressive, wasn’t it? I got the sucker… It’s right there, you want to film that? There it is.”
Why, the heartless bastard. See the travesty for yourself:
According to the Associated Press, “PETA is sending President Barack Obama a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, a device that allows users to trap a house fly and then release it outside.”
If you think this is a joke, check out PETA’s store, where you can purchase the contraption for a mere eight dollars.
As the AP reports, PETA spokesman Bruce Friedrich said, “We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals. We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals… [S]watting a fly on TV indicates he’s not perfect, and we’re happy to say that we wish he hadn’t.”
Okay. Let me just come out and say it. The PETA crew is insane. It is not “humane” to catch a fly and release it into the wild. It is stupid. It is pathetic. It is ridiculous. It is insulting to the humanity — and the intelligence — of actual people.
The reality is that Obama’s swift, decisive action toward the fly ranks among his most impressive moments as president. If Obama would stand up to Ahmadinejad’s Iran or North Korea with half the backbone that he stood up to that fly, I wouldn’t worry nearly as much about the threat of nuclear warfare.