As Mark Steyn noted, President Obama is getting out in front on the NCAA Men’s National Basketball Tournament.
Don’t get me wrong, I like putting together an NCAA basketball tournament bracket just as much as the next guy. And let’s acknowledge that NCAA hoops brackets and things like fantasy football pools can be productivity drains in many offices across the country. But the difference between President Obama and the rest of us is that we aren’t calling a meeting of the White House communications staff to rehearse our bracket unveils for a national TV audience while ducking national-security issues, budget negotiations, Social Security reform meetings … you get the idea. And certainly most of us are not picking our brackets with the help of the DNC and an eye toward swing-state votes in our bracket-buster picks.
This criticism of Obama for ignoring the heavy lifting that comes with the job of “Leader of the Free World” is well deserved, but it got me thinking. Maybe we’re approaching this issue of lackadaisical leadership the wrong way. To get Obama to focus on the tough stuff, perhaps we need to use the same approach for him that parents use to get their four-year-olds to take their medicine: a little sugar. Hence, the “Brackets of Leadership.”
Now, while I could easily slot issues like Japan, the budget, entitlement reform, and tax cuts in upper seeds, I think the president would find it much more rewarding — and perhaps more engaging — if he knew that this was more of a community-organized endeavor.
So down below, let’s use the comments section to build our “Bracket of Leadership” for our ever-distracted president. We’ll take your suggestions and unveil the brackets tomorrow. Don’t feel limited to national-security issues, mind you, though we all know there are plenty. And there is no rule that says that “Tax Cuts” can’t be seeded next to “Zero Out the Education Department” (though I’d hate to pick one over the other).
By Thursday, President Obama will already have spent 20 minutes unveiling his NCAA brackets on national television, so maybe he can take a few minutes before packing his bags to head off South America way to look over the needs of our nation. Then again, maybe inaction on his part is a better outcome for all of us.
Not ready for Prime Time Mr. Thompson may be unaware, but millions of americans can fill out their NCAA bracket, feed their kids, go to school or work, fight fires, manage companies, and even be President. Of course, since the GOP does not have any answers for any of the world's problems, they have to attack the President over even the silliest things such as this.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf the GOP was serious about our problems, why in earth are congressional Republicans having an emergency meeting over NPR?
As part of the "sugar" you should probably include things that he has shown an aptitude for ...
... bullying (school and political)
... telling the commoners how to live
... golf
... vacations
... giving (returning) gifts to (from)
... racism and how best to leverage it
... the value of transparency (legislation, grades, authorship(?), birth records(!))
Oh, see there ... now you've made me go too far!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMark Steyn - more proof that 'clever' is not the same thing as 'smart'.
Presidents don't pass budgets, Congress does, and the House goes first. Intervention in Libya would lead to MORE anti-American sentiment there and elsewhere. You folks are playing checkers while the president makes chess moves - this one is called zug zwang. Look it up.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMaybe the president being distracted by shinny objects is a good thing. For example, do we WANT him to focus on tax policy? He answer might be "all of it"
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo what fire has Obama fought? What companies has he managed? Feed his children? Didn't Michelle have a personal chef back in Chicago? So what answers do the Dems have except spend more money? So what problems have they solved? NPR? If they're so good they don't need tax dollars. It's not as if they don't already receive private, corporate sponsorship.
Yes, I remember the Dems and their media allies attacking George W Bush for working out at the White House, of course, he didn't fly in a personal trainer three times a week. It's called a work ethic and we've seen what that means to Dems in places like Madison, WI and the White House.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo, when did the observation that Obama hadn't been doing much public bloviating about a couple of issues turn into the inference that he actually wasn't working on them at all? Never mind that it's completely at odds with the old narrative, which had Obama working feverishly to transform America into a marxist dictatorship. Which, of course, is a hard thing to do when you're also lazy and disengaged!
All I can say is would that there were more politicians who were more interested in working on problems and less interested in posturing about them for public consumption.
I can understand why Mr. Thompson is flummoxed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI see the idiots are stalking you too, Fred. They are everywhere these days, pretty sure they are college "students" and almost positive they don't have jobs. But they might be union workers, all the same.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMy suggestion is the glorius double whammy:
Drill for oil AND put in some pipelines, thereby tackling two birds with one stone, so to speak. I think this is it's own "sugar", myself, but for HIM, I would suggest coupling this step with an apprearance on any given television show. He loves that stuff! (It wouldn't let me use the word cr*p, how quaint!)
Economy
Golf
Afghanistan
Golf
Japan
Golf
Just start with golf against any issue and keep having golf win-out to the end.
It's him.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"By Thursday, President Obama will already have spent 20 minutes unveiling his NCAA brackets on national television...."
That's a pretty disheartening observation on the current state of national television.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCan we slot "Hope" and "Change" for the play-in game, with the winner to take on "5-dollar gas prices?"
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDrPalin: One of these days you will manage to figure out that having answers that differ from the Democrats is not logically equivalent to "have no answers".
Probably not, because on that day you will have to turn in your I heart Obama tee-shirt.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseUh, Dr. PIPresume?
If "millions of americans can" (your non-capitalization) "..even be president" then why do we need The Annointed One ?
And if he does have "answers for any of the world's problems" then why are those problems multiplying on his watch? Oh, and btw, we'd be happy if he'd actually have answers for America's problems. The world, let alone the universe, can fend for it/themselves.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@Interested Observer:
I started to think that during the early days of his presidency. However, I see that Obama is less Machivelli and more like Robert Redford in "The Candidate". I think it is time to pull out a good old description that liberals used on Reagan; Obama is an 'amiable dunce'. Except this time the description fits.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFighting children's obesity can come in at #16, and maybe be a part of the play-in games.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@Presume: The difference is what is taking up his public time - i.e., his priorities. If the firefighter is going over his brackets when the alarm sounds, he drops it immediately and focuses on the task at hand.
@Observer: Nowhere does Mr Thompson say that the President passes budgets, merely that he is involved with the budget. And, it actually is the Executive branch that proposes a budget for, well, the Executive branch.
@gbh: Well, he can mostly relax on the Marxism front, now that he began the nationalization of a huge chunk of the country's economy. So, time to hit the links!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMore suggestions for the brackets:
Rising Food Prices
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePlan Trip To Rio
Calm Exaggerated Fears For Nuclear Safety
Attend Fundraiser
Condemn Uncivility By Union Demonstrators
Plan Party To Watch Masters Golf Tournament
@"Interested Observer":
Zugawang isn't a move in chess; it's the circumstance where any move is detrimental. (Look it up.) Are you actually suggesting that total inaction on all fronts is the best state of being?
There's another chess-themed item: Initiative. When you sit back and allow things to play out without any effort to shape the game, you allow your opponent to seize the initiative and dictate the game. In foreign policy, that darned near never works.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRats. Lousy typos.
That's "zugzwang".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMaybe I'm just not remembering this, but even a Google search (president bush, NCAA brackets ~ External Link
)
... brings up no mention of the eight NCAA tourneys that Bush made brackets for. I think he might have been too busy to spend time making ESPN appearances (if they even would have had him!) because he was ... you know ... *running the country*.
Maybe it went unreported, and maybe because I'm not mad about March Madness and don't watch every bracket show on ESPN I missed it. But something tells me that when the grownups are in the White House, they don't make big public deals about their brackets.
Let's stack the bracket deck in our favor:
* Drilling for Oil in Alaska
* Get out of businesses' way so they can hire people
* Drilling for Oil in the Gulf
* Petition to fast-track Obamacare to SCOTUS
* Drilling for Oil in other places in the US
* Afghanistan
* Did we mention drilling, sir?
* Libya
* Drilling ... seriously.
* Fill in latest rioting Middle East country here
* We'd like to not have to pay $5 a gallon ... DRILL!
* Stop ticking off our allies
* golf
* basketball
* DRILL
Eventually, though, I'm sure it'll wind up being a championship bracket of golf and basketball. Crud.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse#1 seed - getting reelected in 2012
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