NFL.com reports:
In agreeing Wednesday to reschedule his planned address to a joint session of Congress, President Obama might have placated House Speaker John Boehner at the expense of the nation's football fans.
Boehner, R-Ohio, balked at the president's original request to appear before Congress to discuss the nation's chronic unemployment problem on Wednesday, Sept. 7. That's the same day as a Republican presidential debate in Simi Valley, Calif.
Obama agreed to move his speech to Thursday, Sept. 8, which happens to coincide with the opening game of the NFL regular season, a prime time contest between the New Orleans Saints and the defending Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers from Lambeau Field.
FWIW, I think:
- There are no coincidences in DC. Obama timed the speech to step on the GOP debate. He also wanted the Congress--especially the House GOP--as living props for what is really going to be a campaign speech. He's lucky they're even going to let him speak.
- Boehner won. Again. Where's Obama's spine?
- As a TV viewer, I'd prefer that he preempt the GOP debate than football.
- It's a sad state of affairs when the fourth and final game of football's preseason is likely to make more compelling television than a POTUS debate.
- I don't dislike any of the GOP contenders as much as I dislike the Dallas Cowboys, but it's close in some cases. As between Obama and the Cowboys, it's a coin flip.
- Neither Super Bowl champs nor Presidents should come from Texas.
- If asked to choose between Barak Obama, Jerry Jones, Al Davis, and Danny Snyder as leader of the free world, I'd be hard pressed to choose the lesser of the evils on offer.
- I always thought it said something about Obama as a person that he prefers basketball to football.
- Since I pick second in a 10 team PPR league this weekend, it would be helpful if Obama gave us an update on Adrian Foster's job status in his speech.
- Obama says that he will “lay out a series of bipartisan proposals that the Congress can take immediately to continue to rebuild the American economy by strengthening small businesses, helping Americans get back to work, and putting more money in the paychecks of the Middle Class and working Americans, while still reducing our deficit and getting our fiscal house in order." After which, he and Congress will leap tall buildings in a single bound and run faster than a speeding bullet. How about a program of NOT doing stuff. Like not raising taxes, not flushing money down a stimulus rat hole, and not imposing new regulations that cost business money and create uncertainty? And if you must do something, how about repealing all the new laws and regulations Obama's created that cost business money and create uncertainty?
