"I Think It's Patently Obvious That the President is Focused on the Economy"

If it's so patently obvious, then why did Jake Tapper bother asking the question?

TAPPER: In recent weeks, Republicans have been attacking President Obama for, in their view, seeming to be out of touch over the economic woes of Americans, whether it's a Mitt Romney issue -- issuing a -- videos featuring unemployed Americans saying they're not speed bumps. Senator Mitch McConnell on the floor of the Senate yesterday suggested that President Obama was joking about the stimulus not working and that jobs and competitive council event in North Carolina, when he talked about "shovel-ready" is not as "shovel-ready" as they'd anticipated. Do you guys have any response? Does the White House have any response to this charge?

CARNEY: I think it's patently obvious that the president is focused on the economy, that he takes enormously seriously the hardship that Americans continue to endure as we emerge from the worst recession most of us have ever seen in our lifetimes.

He -- one of the reasons why he asked his office to cull 10 letters a day for him from the 40,000 that are received by this White House addressed to him every day is because he wanted to, in their own words, read about the travails that some Americans are going through and especially if you've met -- you know, when he's initiated this practice back in the early part of his administration when we were in an economic free fall.

Right. Obama actually reads 10 letters a day from struggling Americans. You buyin' that?

I'm not. Carney might as well just tell us Obama reads all 40,000 letters. It's all bullcrap. We're talking about the same guy who's about to head out for round number 73 this weekend. Obama has now spent the equivalent of nine work weeks out on the course during his time in office.

Yeah, he's focused like a laser. On the economy. Or something.


Video here.

Good News: Exhausted Obama Now Planning Irish Golf Trip

Of course before our bedraggled leader leaves for Ireland in May he needs to work on his game. That'll begin this weekend in Rio. In the meantime, he can fine tune his game before heading to Ireland.

President Barack Obama chose St. Patrick's Day to announce that he's adding Ireland to the itinerary for his trip to Europe in May.

Obama made the announcement as he welcomed new Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny to the White House for an annual ceremony of Irish-American solidarity.

He joked that Vice President Joe Biden was "envious because he wants to go first."

Obama and Biden, both in green ties, spoke about the strong bonds between the two countries.

Foremost among his packed agenda:

Kenny invited Obama to play golf with him in Ireland. But the president sized Kenny up as a "pretty good golfer" and said he'd need to do some practicing before playing with him.

Random thought: For all his golf outings, has the media ever reported what Obama shoots?

Maybe the woefully underexposed Obama can be the next star of The Haney Project.

You would think there'd be someone who would suggest to him the nonstop talk about golf and basketball isn't helping his image.

Barack Obama's Unfinished Bracket

Predictably, this one also boils down to a battle between two #1 seeds.

Click the image to enlarge.



My money's on golf. Sixty-one rounds in just over two years in office will be too much for NCAA Bracket to overcome.



h/t: Bill Hobbs.

Cross-posted.

3,000 Dead Americans Just Another Day At The Office

That is unless it is your office that is object of affection of the terrorists. This shouldn't surprise anyone really coming from a man who has vilified everyone and everything at one time or another as being the next great evil but Islamic extremists. Big Banks, Wall St, Insurance companies, Tea Party supporters, Big Pharma and the list goes on and on. I guess he didn't shed too many tears over the 9/11 attack since the target was some of those very same evil Wall St type folks he holds in such contempt.

Woodward's book portrays Obama and the White House as barraged by warnings about the threat of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and confronted with the difficulty in preventing them. During an interview with Woodward in July, the president said, "We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever . . . we absorbed it and we are stronger."

More people died in the attacks on the World Trade Centers (2977) then died in the attack on Pearl Harbor (2388), A day which will live in infamy. One was an attack on a military target while the other was aimed directly at civilians.

His revelation comes across as callous, and like everything else this administration does it all boils down to numbers. You are just a number, whether it comes to how the health care takeover which will dole out it's services or the number of unemployed, which they seem to come up with a different euphemism to describe every time you turn around. Remember the flap over the removal of a cancer drug from an approved list because of the cost benefit analysis?

So we can "absorb a terrorist attack" huh? That sounds like the drunk in a bar challenging the big dude with a taunt of is that the best you can do. C'mon hit us again, we can take it. I want to be the big guy who turns around and with a stare that freezes the blood in your veins responds with a promise that you will no longer be eating your meals with that big mouth of yours but rather you will be sucking them through a straw.

In other words America, suck it up. Now watch this - "Fore"

It is true that Americans when we get knocked down, at least in the past anyway, didn't spend a lot of time crying in the dirt but rather we pick ourselves up and get back into the fight. Nowadays I am not so sure. The rise of the metrosexual and a culture which lionizes beta males while trying to drug and suppress any signs of macho out of our males just doesn't seem to me to be a lot to hang your hat on. It may explain the rise of women in Republican politics. Somebodies got to wear the pants and apparently it ain't the men anymore.

The only person in this country who is really happy that Obama is president is Jimmy Carter because he can now shed the moniker of worst president ever.

"Death of one man is a tragedy. Death of a million is a statistic," - Joseph Stalin

Priorities: Obama Finally Interrupts His Golf Game Because Some Kid Got a Boo-Boo

It took three full days to get his TelePrompter ready to issue a statement on the would-be Christmas Day Panty Bomber. He probably racked up an easy 54 holes in that duration. Following that performance he quickly hit the links again only to be foiled by some crumb-cruncher taking a spill back at the luxurious estate he's staying at.

Marshall the Secret Service, put the press pool on standby. Now we've got a situation on our hands and not a moment to waste.

President Obama abruptly cut short a golf game and an ambulance sped toward his family's Hawaii vacation home after the child of a family friend suffered a minor injury.

White House aides said the quick departure from the golf course had nothing to do with national security or a threat to the president's safety.

CNN said the child of one of his golfing partners cut his chin and needed stitches.

The father was golfing with the president when it happened, and the President wanted to bring the father to the child.

He really cares. No doubt he can come out and deliver another speech on how he, as First Dad, just knew the pain and anguish the poor father was suffering through. I imagine if it were a threat to national security he'd have been kept abreast while continuing to finish his 18 holes.

Man's got his priorities in order.

Sorenstam Going Out On Top

An era is coming to an end in professional sports.

Annika Sorenstam ignored her notes and spoke from the heart. One of golf's greatest players was leaving the game, and she handled her retirement announcement the way she would a 10-foot birdie putt with the tournament on the line.

With command and composure.

Calling her decision one she'd "been thinking about for a while," Sorenstam said Tuesday she will retire after the season. The 37-year-old Swede ends an LPGA Tour career in which she has won 72 tournaments to date and delivered a defining moment when she teed it up against the men on the PGA Tour.

Annika Sorenstam has been one of the most dominant and classy professional athletes of the last two decades. While other professional athletes such as Brett Favre had great careers too, golf is a bit different. In almost all other professional sports, you have a team situation. So success or failure on the field is helped or hindered to a large extent by the quality of your teammates. In professional golf, you are on your own, so you have to beat the entire field to win. That means in her 72 career victories to date, Sorenstam beat out approximately 124 other women over multiple days to win. Lost in those statistics is that in many of those wins, Sorenstam was so far ahead on Sunday that her last round of the tournament was mainly a victory lap. The competition was quite often five or more strokes behind.

On top of being a great player, Sorenstam also understood and accepted her role as an ambassador for her sport and a role model. She kept the details of her failed first marriage to herself, and according to everything I've ever heard always carried herself as a lady in public. Never comfortable in front of the cameras, Sorenstam worked hard on her interview skills, willing did the TV interviews and the endless press conferences. Often she would apply makeup just after walking off the 18th tee just so she looked a little better to the public on camera.

What's more, Sorenstam never avoided the reporters after a poor round either, patiently standing there and recounting every clanked 7 iron and yanked putt of the round. In comparison, other sports icons like Tiger Woods have a history of getting lost on the way to the press tent after a bad day, but Sorenstam never took the easy way out. Arnold Palmer had a saying that if you go find the reporters after you shoot a 64, you better also go find them after you shoot a 76. Sorenstam lived up to that standard.

I wish Sorenstam well in her future plans of having a family and apparently being the head chef in a gourmet restaurant. If she brings the same class and dedication to those pursuits as she did to her sports career, I'm sure she will be very successful in both.

Good job, Annika, and thanks for being a classy role model for young women everywhere.

Golfers on Steroids?

Are pro golfers juicing up?

Player says he knows of at least one golfer who has used 'roids

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland -- Gary Player said Wednesday he knows of at least one golfer who has used steroids, and he urged golf organizations to move quickly toward a random drug-testing plan.

"We're dreaming if we think it's not going to come into golf," Player said.

Player estimated 10 players from tours around the world were taking some type of performance-enhancing drug. Asked how he knew golfers were taking steroids, he said a player told him in confidence.

I would fall over in a dead faint if pro golf was totally clean. And it looks like most of the tours seem to agree with me.

Last year, the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews and the USGA used random testing for the first time at the World Amateur Team Championship in South Africa. All 12 tests came back negative.

The LPGA Tour said it would start drug testing next year, while the European and PGA tours also are moving toward drug policies. PGA Tour Tim Finchem said in June that drug testing in sports has become a reality and golf organizations around the world should make sure they're on the same page.

As far as the LPGA goes, I woud start out with certain very muscular women in their 30's who happen to have very peculiar cases of acne and tendancy in recent years to be hurt a lot. Not sayn', just sayn'.

And what does Captain Shortgame (otherwise known as Phil Mickelson, last seen throwing up all over himself at the Scottish open) have to offer on the subject?

I don't think there's even a remote chance that will happen," he said of a golfer testing positive for steroids.

Right Phil, and nobody on the tour ever sets up to a shot in the rough with a wood, then switches to an iron after they got grass tapped down nicely behind the ball, either.

I wonder if Mickelson said that with a straight face.