My earliest memory of The One was this 2006 Monday Night Football spot:
Here we had the freshman senator from Illinois angling for 2008 by aligning his own life with a Chicago Bears team that finished the season by handing Peyton Manning his only Super Bowl. Maybe things would have been different if Rex Grossman had had David Plouffe calling his plays?
I get it: The president is a sports fan. Obama loves Sports Center. He plays pick-up basketball. He coaches his daughter’s team.
But please, please don't ask POTUS to land Tim Tebow a contract.
The White House recently removed a petition for Obama to force the Jacksonville Jaguars to sign Tim Tebow. Which makes sense. The president has other things to worry about, like economic stagnation and the nuclear Nork bro-king who, amazingly, is less mature than I am.
The Tebow petition is just the latest example of the American disconnect from reality. It echoes Bill Simmons’s career-spanning crusade to get Obama to add a "Sports Czar" to his cabinet. Simmons has been lobbying for the position since he first dropped a "Fired Up" into a column in 2008.
Here's Simmons after a replacement official ruled that a Green Bay interception was actually a Seattle touchdown:
Still, wouldn't a Sports Czar have come in handy these past few weeks? On Tuesday afternoon, he or she could have appeared on various shows and said things like, "I talked to the President — he's as upset as anyone" and "I tried to warn everyone that we were headed for a disaster; nobody would listen!" At least we would have felt like someone was trying. The general lawlessness of sports right now — between the secondary-ticket market craziness, the NHL lockout, the NFL's ref crisis, the lack of regulation in boxing, the lack of Wi-Fi in football stadiums, the concussion crisis and everything else — almost demands a Sports Czar, right? This isn't a full-time job? Couldn't we elect this person every three or four years? How would they make sports worse? Well, unless Gary Bettman got the job.
However, when Simmons outright slobbered over the president about the sports czar gig, POTUS said there are more pressing matters.
Imagine that: Obama actually restraining himself from expanding government. But only where Americans seem to want more of it. Funny how that works out.