Baller-in-Chief

(By Colin Orcutt for The Obama Presidency Blog at City University of New York School of Journalism)

So we know that Obama is the “sports president.” He’s been to a Wizards game, aired a video to kick off Monday Night Football, taken in an Oregon State Beavers basketball game (wifey’s brother coaches the guys team there)–he even went to a George Washington University men’s basketball game (insert a Guantanamo joke here at your own discretion). He’s definitely a hoops and football fan (he hosted a Super Bowl party after his inauguration). But I don’t believe he’s been to any hockey or baseball games yet. And certainly not any golf.

But, if the president has any good sense, he’ll book his tickets now for the next tournament Tiger Woods is playing in, and then every one following.

Because thanks to Tiger Woods, Obama’s Afghanistan policy was pushed to the back up role in the news rotation for a lot of Americans last week, replaced instead with the latest gossipy developments about Woods’ extramarital affairs.

Andy Borowitz wrote a sarcastic post about this for Huffington Post’s humor section. And Frank Rich picked up on it in his most recent Op-Ed:

As long as our wars remain sacrifice-free, safely buried in the back pages behind Tiger Woods and reality television stunts, he’ll be able to pursue [the bet he made about Afghanistan].

The reality is, there has been plenty of discourse about Obama’s decision to surge 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan–a good many of the New York Times opinion writers have weighed in at this point–but we’re in an updated news model now. While the Afghanistan speech coverage and reaction may be out there, in this updated model, it’s not finding its way to me.

As any good Jeff Jarvis disciple will tell you, with the advent of Facebook, Twitter and the like, stories and news make their way to the reader. And so, less and less readers make their way to the stories. I personally haven’t checked my Google Reader in weeks; it used to be a daily occurrence (then again, so did sleep, so perhaps my normalcy level isn’t the best standard at this point).

Last week, one of the people I’m following on Twitter tweeted that excess of Tiger Woods updates he’d received from CNN led him to unsubscribe from their feed. I read no such complaints about Afghanistan social network traffic.

You could argue that it’s a reflection of the demographic that uses social networking perhaps, but I find that the demographic is expanding and argument is starting to show gray hairs.

What I think really happened is that Tiger Woods spared Obama some short-term scrutiny. I am not saying I either agree or disagree with his decision, but nothing happens in the presidency anymore that doesn’t garner at least a dull roar and a tea party. Whatever Obama had decided, there would have been loud voiced naysayers. Woods muted their effect.

And, since it will be hard to measure the results of Obama’s plan anytime soon, you could argue that by averting some of the public reaction, perhaps Woods improved Obama’s chance at a re-election bid. A bit of a stretch perhaps, but not entirely.

Either way, I firmly believe that some Obama staffers were at least a little happy with the timing of Woods’ accident. And if next week Woods is suddenly bestowed the title of “Distraction Czar,” (also known as the social secretary) remember, you heard it here first.

(From Eamonn Brennan for Yahoo Sports)

If you’re a hoops fan, you have at least one reason to enjoy our current president: Basketball is Obama’s favorite sport, and he approaches it with the reverence of someone who both plays and spectates, someone who appreciates the game from all angles. But you knew all this before Barack Obama became president.

What you also probably knew, or maybe you haven’t noticed, is that for whatever reason, former Duke guard and Obama personal staffer Reggie Love can’t convince Barack to wear a pair of shorts on the court. I don’t get it. Here’s yet more photographic evidence of Obama’s absolute allergy to shorts:

That’s Obama and Love, and as you’ll see, Love looks ready for some pickup. He’s got his swag right. Even if those Nike runners look like they’d be really bad for ankle on the basketball court, still, he’s ready to go.

Obama at least appears athletic, but he also looks like he’s getting ready to go for a brisk morning walk with his dog. If he walked on to the basketball court looking like that, the people I play with would laugh. (This scenario assumes it’s not Barack Obama we’re laughing at; I don’t think the DePaul student center crowd would really go for ridicule, given the hypothetical. But you know what I mean.)

Maybe dude’s legs are just really skinny. Who knows?

As reported by Yannis Koutroupis at Hoopsworld.com:

Artest has done a great job of staying in touch with his fan base and the public, keeping them up-to-date with what happens in his life. One detail that he left out though was his run in with President Obama on the basketball court at the White House.

“I actually snuck in the White House one time,” joked Artest on 790 the Ticket in Miami. “I saw Barack Obama playing basketball. I snuck in the back, and he tried to go up for a lay-up and I blocked his shot and ran out. And, Secret Service was trying to catch me and they couldn’t catch me. I promise you, they couldn’t catch me. I blocked Obama’s shot; fullcourt block, get it outta here (laughs).”

When Artest isn’t making up stories about meeting our Commander-in-Chief he’s running up his cell phone bill by being the most reachable player in the league.

By Claude Johnson

ForeignPolicy.com suggests the funny rhetorical title question in an article earlier today about the G8 Summit in Italy:

Before the G-8 summit began, intrepid Guardian reporter John Hooper infiltrated the L’Aquila barracks hosting world leaders and discovered a makeshift basketball court constructed especially to make Barack Obama feel welcome.

As Hooper’s quick photo makes clear, it is little more than a portable hoop on some concrete, but given that L’Aquila is an earthquake zone and that there was doubt Italy would finish its preparations in time for the summit, host Silvio Berlusconi deserves some credit for trying.

Each G-8 leader was limited to an entourage of 25, but that should be more than enough to get some real games going during the breaks. If anyone actually plays, will the game help blow off steam or add to the drama?

Hat tip: The indispensible Baller-in-Chief

What’s funny is wondering at what height the Italians set the adjustable rim on the portable basket, which could indeed result in some dunking.

Would a 7-foot rim be low enough for the shortest G8ers, Nicolas Sarkozy (France), Silvio Berlusconi (Italy), Dmitry Medvedev (Russia), Taro Aso (Japan), and Angela Merkel (Germany)?  The others — Obama (U.S.A.), Stephen Harper (Canada), Gordon Brown (UK), Fedrik Reinfeldt (Sweden), and Jose Manuel Barroso (President of the European Commission) — seem to tower over the others.

What could be even funnier is if they had Berlusconi-style cheerleaders for such a game, or games, if they ever even take place.

(From The Daily Kos)

A Governor is not a Point Guard

I know it’s absurd to bring up Barack Obama in a diary about Sarah Palin, but just as a point of comparison, when Barack mentioned basketball during the campaign it usually was “I may be skinny, but I’ve got sharp elbows”. Translated that means I’m not afraid to go down low and mix it up with the big boys. It was him saying I can play the post, I can fill the role.

Lost in the loopiness of Friday’s press conference was the complete inaccuracy of her basketball analogy. A Governor is not Bob Cousy or Steve Nash, he is Wilt Chamberlin or Shaq. A Governor is the dominating presence in the middle, so powerful that the offense runs through him to accommodate his game. He doesn’t throw the alley oop, he’s the one who catches it and jams it through the hoop. He’s the one when the team misses the shot he gets the rebound and slams it through the hoop. He’s the one who gets the ball down low and powers his way under the basket and slams it through the hoop. It’s called signing bills and transforming ideas into laws.

And on the other end, when the other team is close to making the shot, he’s the last line of defense, the one who swats away the shot, vetoes their attempt to score. A good point guard is a legislator, perhaps a majority leader or whip, someone who is a facilitator, not a scorer. This isn’t difficult stuff, it’s a pretty simple and simplistic analogy.

So what does it say about Sarah Palin that she would get it so wrong? Some may say it shows a basic misunderstanding of what the job is all about. Certainly much of her actions as Governor have shown either lack of fully grasping the role or a severe disinterest in it. Some may say this is a reflection of her narcissism – I was a point guard therefore the Governor is a point guard. But I think the reality is a lot more shallow than that. We all know people like her. She’s stuck in High School. She still lives in her home town and even as Governor couldn’t bring herself to make the move to Capital. She married her high school sweetheart. And she still exhibits the pettiness and petulance of a high school girl who thinks she’s the be all and end all.

We all know people like her. They don’t make it in College, often drifting from school to school until returning to their home town to stay for good, sheltered in their past success, unable to move on. For Sarah, the Governor is a point guard because she’s incapable of the personal growth required to become something different, something bigger, something better.

I know it’s absurd to bring up Barack Obama in a diary about Sarah Palin, but just as a point of comparison, when Barack mentioned basketball during the campaign it usually was “I may be skinny, but I’ve got sharp elbows”. Translated that means I’m not afraid to go down low and mix it up with the big boys. It was him saying I can play the post, I can fill the role. Far different than the image of the point guard dribbling the ball through a full court press and then passing once she gets it over mid-court. Which brings me to the last point of her analogy in strict basketball terms: the full-court press.

That is a very effective defense…in High School. You occasionally see it in College. In the pros, it’s a sucker move. In this year’s championship, a key moment was when Phil Jackson decided to take the ball out at the far end of the court. Van Gundy fell for it, put a press on which just spread out the defense and allowed Derek Fisher to get off the open three to tie the game. It was the turning point of the series and the play that really showed the weakness in the Magic’s game – the coaching.

Van Gundy, like Sarah Palin, showed he wasn’t ready for the big time (though I would put him far above Palin in terms of preparedness). Sarah’s hoop game is still High School, just as Sarah herself is still stuck there, telling the increasingly fewer people of her past glories, big fish, small state. Did you know she was Miss Wasilla? She was. She still is.