Liberals Should Stop Complaining About Obama's All-Male Basketball Games
By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
My colleague Bonnie Erbe went after President Obama earlier this week for his all-male basketball game, which led her to this conclusion about him:
Whether it was his treatment of Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail (as in his condescending remark that she was "likeable enough") or his clearly career-oriented mate who has been toned down and remorphed into a Stepford Wife, I just don't get the impression this man is comfortable with women. Nor do I believe he cares about them beyond needing women's votes. It's an act and a thoroughly see-through, amateur one at that.
Bonnie's derision was typical of many liberal writers this week, who were very upset at the president's exclusion of women from the pick-up hoops game he plays with staff and cabinet members. Guys have been doing this in Washington for years. Women haven't. There's a reason. In fact, in an effort at full disclosure, I should tell you that my husband played for years in a regular pick-up game at the indoor gym at the Supreme Court, cleverly called "the highest court in the land." As far as I could tell, it was a bunch of guys who spend too much time under fluorescent lights in the office trying to relive their glory days—and usually ending up on crutches. I was not jealous. Nor was he jealous of my ladies' nine-hole foursomes where the loser buys the chardonnay. He plays golf, but not like that. No interest in joining us.
There's a great piece in the Atlantic by Cristine Russell tying together the president's hoops game, the first Lady's hula-hooping, Gail Collins's new book, When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, the Shriver Report (which I wrote about a few days ago), the women who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine, and Joanne Lipman's essay in the New York Times last weekend. Both are great reads.
Kathleen Parker, whose writing I love, weighed in with a big yawn and then this gem, which sounds exactly like something my father said to me:
Not to suggest that men ever do or say anything right, but women peeved by the president's perceived masculine insularity might benefit from my father's advice when, as a young girl, I complained about life's unfairness. "Don't complain about the game," he said. "Learn the game and play it better." There's more than one way to score a point, in other words, and history has never suggested women are unclever.
According to Maureen Dowd's column, that's just what Melody Barnes, Obama's chief domestic policy adviser, did when she was asked to play golf with the president on Sunday. "I wanted women to still hold their heads up so I didn't want to shoot triple bogeys every hole ... It was all on the line on the 18th hole and I made a clutch putt and now I'm $10 richer." Isn't that the way to beat them at their own game?
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Tags: liberals | Barack Obama
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Pumas, go away
You lost...go. Thank you Mary Kate, this entire topic is so hilarious! Pumas yelling about a basketball game...please...go get some.
the liberal new toys made during the clinton such as the V22 and the F35 suck now the using old toys during the Nam period
Military plane, helicopter collide off California
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Delicious Digg Facebook Fark Newsvine Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Twitter Yahoo! Bookmarks .Print .. AP – Map locates San Clemente Island, Calif., where a search is being conducted after a Coast Guard plane …
. Play Video Video:USCG plane collides with chopper; 9 missing AP .
By THOMAS WATKINS, Associated Press Writer Thomas Watkins, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 12 mins ago
LOS ANGELES – The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy were searching early Friday for as many as nine people off the Southern California coast following a collision between a Coast Guard plane and a Marine Corps helicopter, officials said.
The crash was reported at 7:10 p.m. Thursday, about 50 miles off the San Diego County coast and 15 miles east of San Clemente Island, Coast Guard spokeswoman Petty Officer Allyson Conroy said.
A pilot reported seeing a fireball near where the aircraft collided, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said, and the Coast Guard informed the FAA that debris from a C-130 had been spotted. Seven people were on board the plane, a C-130, and two people were aboard the helicopter, he said.
Cpl Michael Stevens, a spokesman for the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, said the AH-1W Super Cobra helicopter was on a training mission when it went down. The Cobra and its crew are part of Marine Aircraft Group 39, based at Camp Pendleton, and the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, which is headquartered at Miramar, Stevens said.
The missing Coast Guard plane and its crew are from Coast Guard Air Station Sacramento, said Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Jetta Disco. Crews from the Sacramento Coast Guard station fly search-and-rescue, law enforcement and logistics missions, Disco said.
The Coast Guard planned to search through the night, having sent three cutters and diverting an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter to the area to search for survivors. The Navy, meanwhile, sent four vessels and multiple helicopters.
"The search condition are ideal for tonight," Lt. Josh Nelson of the Coast Guard told XETV in San Diego. "We've got a clear sky, the winds are calm, the seas are calm, and we have a lot of assets out there."
San Clemente Island is the southernmost of the eight Channel Islands located 68 nautical miles west of San Diego. The Navy has owned and trained at San Clemente Island since 1934, according to the island's Web site. Naval Air Station, North Island is responsible for the island's administration.
Earlier this week, it was an AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter that collided with a UH-1 helicopter over southern Afghanistan, killing four American troops and wounding two more, a Marine spokesman said.
There's more than one way to score a point,
absolutely right Obama should have women cheerleading
only ,
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