Obama losing his cool?

OBAMA FOR USA. It’s been a tough week for President Obama’s cool factor.

Not only is he weathering criticism of his policies, but the Cool One has also taken a few dings to his immaculate image in recent days.

It started on Monday. Speaking at the White House, Obama was just getting into a sharp defense of his economic agenda when one of the teleprompter screens holding his speech crashed to the floor and shattered into pieces.

“Oh, goodness,” said a surprised Obama. “Sorry about that, guys.”

Needing a teleprompter is one thing. But having it crash to the ground mid-speech was, well, a long way from Obama’s on-camera fly-swatting for CNBC. Then, the chief of cool had men everywhere suddenly feeling insecure about their inferior ability to conquer insects.

On Monday, the president's audience snickered, while he didn’t crack a smile, and it took a few moments for him to adjust to reading his remarks without looking to his left, where there was now just an empty pole.

On Tuesday, Obama was put to another test: throwing out his first pitch as president. He had practiced with Reggie Love. He got advice from Willie Mays. But the pitch was a bit of a lob and while it didn’t hit the ground, it also didn’t clear the plate, like Obama had wanted. It was fine. But not the impressive performance some expected from the athletic president.

Even his hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune, said he was “lacking in style points on his short southpaw lob to home plate.”

Then there were the Dad Jeans – otherwise known as the Levis Obama sported when he threw out the pitch.

“Did Obama’s stylist come steal them from the closet of Frank Stransky?” a writer for Entertainment Weekly, Tanner Stransky, wrote in a blog post, apparently referring to his own father.

“I suppose President Obama is indeed a father, so we should allow him such a strike against humanity,” the blog continued. “And I guess he couldn't have come out in skin-tight baseball pants (or, rather, why not?) or the suit pants that he normally dons. But my, oh my. I wasn't ready to see him in such an ill-fitting pair of what look like 501s. I thought he was cooler than that, somehow. This humanizing of the President doesn't sit so well with me.”

And in one more embarrassing incident this week, Obama, a stickler for pronunciation, stumbled over the name of his surgeon general-designate's hometown – and had to ask Dr. Regina Benjamin for help pronouncing “Bayou La Batre.”

“Did I say that right?” Obama said. “Tell me how to say…” he said, turning to Benjamin for help, and then trying again: “Bayou La Batre. That’s in Alabama people.”