I don’t read the International Business Times but today I stumbled upon a sports column on their site that made the Wall Street Journal read like the ESPN Sports Almanac. After reading it, I reached in my drawer and threw a flag on the table. It reminded me of why ?news writers should stick to politics and stay out of sports unless your Keith Olbermann or steroids are involved. At the very least, never try to combine the two. I’m talking about sports and politics not steroids and Olbermann.
From what I can tell Palosh R. Gosh is either a respectable political columnist for the International Business Times or the heir to the declining OshKosh B’Gosh clothing apparel conglomerate. However, on the first day of the third month of the year 2011, he tried to venture into forbidden territory. I’ve seen columns about Obama that I vehemently oppose or that completely blur the line somewhere between reality and the world of Mr. T’s World of Warcraft Knight Elf Mohawk avatar but this one was just plain ignorance. Even if his column did have an inkling of truth to it, what point would it have really proved? That Obama isn’t part of the middle class and his love of sports is all part of his dastardly evil master plan to raise his own taxes?
His lead fails immediately when he tried to compare Obama to conservative columnist George Will. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ??
<—Yea this guy. He takes the scenic route to his central point before serving this gem:
In order to appeal to the ?common man? (and perhaps win as many Democratic votes as possible), he pretends to like sports to show how ?down to earth? and ?accessible? he is.
I am not buying it. Obama is an elitist who has not lived in the real world for at least 20 years and has never really worked at a real job in his life. Despite his modest background, he is just as elitist as the wealthy blue-blood Republicans that his Democratic supporters love to attack.
Then, Gosh wanders into his ramblings about Bush’s sincere love for baseball and Nixon’s sportswriting aspirations. Nixon covering sports for the Washington Post. I’m sure he wouldn’t have regretted working with journalists…..After all, they loved him during his presidency.
As a case in point, Obama recently gave an interview/podcast to Bill Simmons, the popular sports columnist and blogger at ESPN. They largely discussed sports including fellow Harvard alum Jeremy Lin, Michael Jordan, the Chicago Bulls, among other things.
Obama comes across as very stiff and insincere, and I believe this ?interview? was an election ploy, given that Simmons has a very wide readership, especially among young people (the same people who voted en masse for him in 2008).
I?m not saying Obama shouldn?t like sports and talk about them ? but he needs to recognize that his efforts to come across as a ?regular guy? are extremely laughable and ill-advised. He would be better off yachting off Cape Cod with the Kennedys.
I had to respond. Like Smokey the Bear said, “Remember kids only you can prevent stupid columns”.
