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Reader question: Please explain this headline: Obama stumbles out of the gate (Politico.com, May 25, 2017). My comments: Obama stumbles out of the gate. What gate, you ask? Not Watergate or another gate of that nature, for sure. In other words, nothing scandalous here. Obama just struggled a bit, suffering some setback. Initially. To stumble, you see, is to put your foot down awkwardly (after hitting the curb on the sidewalk, for instance) while you are walking, so that you almost fall. Yes, but out of the gate? What gate? The gate refers to the starting gate in a horse race. At the starting line of a horse race, all the participating horses are lined up behind a gate. When the starting signal is given, the gate opens and the horses are let out to run. The race thus commences. Sometimes some horses will stumble, hitting their own feet, for instance and fall. Indeed some horses fall while others hit the floor running, i.e. running up to speed, smoothly and without hindrance. Apparently, those who stumble or tumble at the starting gate have a hard time to recover – indeed few are able to catch up with the rest of horses again – hence, to stumble out of the gate is a big mistake to make. In fact, it’s a debacle. It’s a huge setback at the beginning of a race or any other venture or adventure. We all know about the feel good factor. All is well that begins well, as they say. Well, you know what I mean. When we begin well, we feel good about ourselves as well as our chances and hence become more confident as we go on. If we fail to perform in the very beginning, however, we often begin to despair, have questions and doubts. We get down on ourselves and say: Maybe this is not for me or perhaps it’s not my day today. | 
