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Reader question: Please explain this headline: Obama Hit With Friendly Fire on Economy, Climate Change from Bill Clinton, Al Gore. In particular, friendly fire? My comments: This simply means that US President Barack Obama was criticized by two members of his own party, i.e. two unlikely sources. You see, both Bill Clinton, a former President and Al Gore, a former Vice-President are from the Democrat Party, as is Obama. Normally, Obama will not expect any public criticism on policy (in this case over the economy and climate change) from one of his own party, let alone two of its prominent members at the same time. Hence the analogy that he’s “hit with friendly fire”, likening it to the situation in the battlefield in which one is shot (fired) at by one of his fellow soldiers. “Fire” refers to gunfire, not the fire on the stove in the kitchen. When people shoot with a pistol or rifle, they often say that one or many shots are “fired”. This understandably points to the fact that in the old days all fire arms used gun power as ammunition. Whenever a shot was fired, there was a flame of fire plus smoke shooting out of the tip of the gun. “Friendly”, on the other hand, refers to the fact that this particular shot is fired from one of our own troops or allies (armies who are fighting with you, against a common enemy). When you fight a war, or engage in politics in general, it is obviously important to identify who are your enemies and who are your friends. Mao used to call this the No. 1 question facing his revolution, the rationale being, of course, you want to work closely with all your friends in order to bring about a concerted attack on the enemy. You don’t want to engage in infighting, fighting friends and people sympathetic to your cause – wasting energy and resources, thus benefiting your enemy. | 
