how to make an awful song even worse

Some noise has been made about this photograph of Barack Obama keeping his hands down while the US National Anthem was being played at an Iowa event recently (yawn indeed).



(click through the photo and scroll down to view video)

Perhaps he was actually honoring the anthem by not honoring the performance. In 33 years of being subjected to that cat-in-a-hydraulic-press of a composition I have never heard such an acoustical dismemberment. Not only would I have not saluted or otherwise praised the singer, I would have come at her with an axe no doubt to loud applause from those in attendance still capable of hearing.