The black guy's playing golf basketball again

How are things on the White House beat there, Washington Times?

He’s the world’s most powerful armchair quarterback, and President Obama hasn’t shied away from weighing in on the link between concussions and football, the furor over the Washington Redskins‘ name and other high-profile sports controversies of the day.

You can see why it took a while to get the tone of the hed just right. Clearly not the deck from the 1A centerpiece:

Obama takes Bush lead on controversy and runs with it

The HTML kind of fades out with "When it comes to sports controversies, Obama is eager." And the Web version went back and forth from morning to evening too:

Which I guess finally sums it up: The Kenyan still wants to imitate Bush, and he's not just eager to jump in, he's a mean drunk about it. Right, White House beat?

For Mr. Obama, a self-described sports junkie who golfs regularly and plays basketball occasionally, the athletics realm clearly is comfortable territory, even when he is asked about sensitive, sometimes racially charged topics.

Hold that thought, golfwise, but don't forget to keep an eye on the passive verb.

... In wading into the wide world of sports controversies, Mr. Obama is to some degree following the blueprint laid out by his predecessor, President George W. Bush, who addressed steroid use in baseball during his 2004 State of the Union address.

In the process, analysts say, Mr. Bush was able to connect with the American people on a cultural issue they care about, projecting a sense of authority and an understanding of what is happening outside of Washington politics.

For Mr. Obama, the benefits can be similar, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston who has written extensively on presidential leadership.

But he still lacks that personal touch, right?

... An interest in sports can be a double-edged sword for a president. Mr. Obama has taken grief for the frequency of his golf outings and was criticized in March for finding time to fill out his March Madness bracket on television at the height of the crisis in Ukraine.

OK, golf. Wonder if the passive voice is about to come back?

Like Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama also has weighed in on the steroid issue. At a news conference in February 2009, just a month after taking office, Mr. Obama — a die-hard Chicago White Sox fan — said “an entire era” of baseball has been tarnished by widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs.

But the president weighed in only after being asked about the issue, a pattern that has held true in recent months.

In October, he was asked about the Redskins name controversy in an interview with The Associated Press.

“I’d think about changing it,” the president said.

On April 27, he was asked about Mr. Sterling’s inflammatory comments during a news conference while abroad in Malaysia and seized the opportunity to condemn the Clippers owner.

“When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don’t really have to do anything. You just let them talk,” Mr. Obama said.

Which is harder than it should be to square with "eager to jump into controversies," isn't it? Especially if you're still trying to form a mental picture of a bar-stool blowhard saying "Well, thanks for asking, Jim. I've been giving that a lot of thought lately."

Our friends over to Language Log have mined a comment trail from the LVRJ about the recent unpleasantness there, and in the spirit of advancing the research agenda suggested there, consider the comments on the Times story as a good reason not to tell the glass offices that the story knocks a hole in the centerpiece, because when you say "golf" and "Chicago" and "blowhard" in the same package, you've said it all:

Obama is quick to agitate - not so quick to be an executive.

To be fair, he has never been an executive before and was never qualified to lead in any way.
We were far better off before 0bama slithered into DC

The boy never will be anything other than a low rent street hustler.

He learned all he could from Frank Marshall Davis about selling drugs from a hot dog cart, and has been in the gutter his entire life. Some of it is because he never learned to be an American. Most of it is his ability to be a crook in every way

Pretend hustler--he lived with white families, went to expensive private schools and universities, and "chose" to be black. Whadda crock. I hope his poo sticks to the Dems. for a couple generations.

Yes, he only wants to stir the pot and make more controversy and argument. As to his playing football, where is that in his books? He played basketball, but "street" style so he wasn't accepted on teams. Fat chance. He has as much street in him as a table leg. He invents his life whole cloth. But his rotten memory of geography prob. reinforces the idea he once had a concussion or two or three because it is easier to explain away the 57 states, Savannah on the Gulf Coast, and Hawaii in Asia than pure stoopidity and gross ignorance.

The Obama legacy will be a that he lied constantly and gave us record number of homeless children. His lawlessness will be historic on many levels and that progressivism wil mean one who lies and demonizes any and all who have a differant view or opinion. Many who have supported him will carry a sense of self-loathing they wont be able to put their finger on. Leading to angry reflexive responses on how his devastating policies almost destroyed the middle class. We are starting. to see these responses already in both academia and political discourse

Barry likes to yuk it up in his ample spare time. What a card. Be nice to Barry boys, and let him try to shoot some baskets now. How's that VA going there Barry, been working hard on that one lately?

As I understand it, it's being reported that the journalist that exposed Bergdahls traitorous acts and desertion was killed in a "car accident" ......Michael Hastings to be exact...... It's Just a little too convenient for the Obama administration to be rid of another whistleblower. A lot of those kinds of "accidents" since obama took office.

ANYTHING to avoid talking about Obamacare, IRS, NSA, VA, Benghazi, Fast and Furious, Russia, Bergdahl, etc. I actually prefer Barry stick to meaningless issues, he does less damage that way.

Oh look at the Photo Op with the few Caucasians in the background to make it look like he's not Divisive.

I'll be interested to see what might come out of a representative sampling method, but purposive fishing has an appeal of its own.