Baller-in-Chief

Basketball was raised as a topic, briefly, in a White House meeting Tuesday between President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Brown.

From the Washington Post Online:

BROWN: I’ve enjoyed every conversation that we’ve had, both by the telephone and when we’ve met. I don’t think I could ever compete with you at basketball. Perhaps tennis.

OBAMA: Tennis, I hear you’ve got a game.

BROWN: Yes, we could maybe have a — have a shot.

OBAMA: We haven’t tried it yet.

BROWN: I don’t know. I think you’d be better, but there we are.

The London Telegraph says this exchange was “cringe-inducing” and that Brown “tried too hard” with a “forced joke about their relative sporting prowess.”

From the Guardian (U.K.) Online:

Brown and Obama in the Oval Office today. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Although the two men did not seem to show the same sort of warmth for each other that Tony Blair and George Bush did when their relationship was at its strongest, Obama did make a reference to Brown’s “wonderful family” and Brown joked about not being able to beat the president at basketball, but perhaps being better than him at tennis.

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