Interesting-if-true fact from Patrick Gavin:  President Obama has already played as many rounds of golf after nine months in office as President George W. Bush did in eight years.

President Barack Obama has only been in office for just over nine months, but he’s already hit the links as much as President Bush did in over two years.

CBS’ Mark Knoller — an unofficial documentarian and statistician of all things White House-related — wrote on his Twitter feed that, “Today – Obama ties Pres. Bush in the number of rounds of golf played in office: 24. Took Bush 2 yrs & 10 months.”

Interesting but irrelevant.  It’s mildly amusing, I suppose, as a retort to the “Watch this drive!” nonsense and general kvetching about how much time Bush spent on leisure activities that he should have instead been devoting to Iraq/Afghanistan/Katrina.   But two sillies don’t make a smart.

The bottom line is that people need down time in order to be effective.  That’s doubly true of leaders.   While it’s possible to overdo it, I’m perfectly happy to have my presidents golfing, horseback riding, brush clearing, or whatever else it is that allows them to blow off steam and get their minds off the job for a couple hours.

I do, however, wish someone would take Obama shopping for some new pants.  First, the mom jeans and now pleated, baggy chinos?  C’mon!

Mark Liebowitz had a piece for NYT over the weekend titled “Man’s World at White House? No Harm, No Foul, Aides Say.” At first blush, it reads like some feminists are genuinely concerned about a male-dominated culture in the West Wing. After awhile, however, one begins to suspect it’s a PR exercise to make President Obama seem more manly.

President Obama and golf partners, including the White House assistant chef Sam Kass, right, during his vacation in August. Jewel Samad/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Does the White House feel like a frat house?

The suspicion flared in recent weeks — and not for the first time — after President Obama was criticized by women’s advocates and liberal bloggers for hosting a high-level basketball game with no female players.

The president, after all, is an unabashed First Guy’s Guy. Since being elected, he has demonstrated an encyclopedic knowledge of college hoops on ESPN, indulged a craving for weekend golf, expressed a preference for adopting a “big rambunctious dog” over a “girlie dog” and hoisted beer in a peacemaking effort.

He presides over a White House rife with fist-bumping young men who call each other “dude” and testosterone-brimming personalities like Rahm Emanuel, the often-profane chief of staff; Lawrence Summers, the brash economic adviser; and Robert Gibbs, the press secretary, who habitually speaks in sports metaphors.

The technical foul over the all-male game has become a nagging concern for a White House that has battled an impression dating to the presidential campaign that Mr. Obama’s closest advisers form a boys’ club and that he is too frequently in the company of only men — not just when playing sports, but also when making big decisions.

Uh huh.

“Women are Obama’s base, and they don’t seem to have enough people who look like the base inside of their own inner circle,” said Dee Dee Myers, a former press secretary in the Clinton administration whose sister, Betsy, served as the Obama campaign’s chief operating officer. Ms. Myers said women have high expectations of the president. “Obama has a personal style that appeals to women,” she said. “He is seen as a consensus builder; he is not a towel snapper and does not tell crude jokes.”

Ooh, so he’s not only a Guy’s Guy, but he’s mature and sensitive, too? Oh, my!

Mr. Obama, in an interview with NBC on Wednesday, called the beef over basketball “bunk,” saying that the players were largely picked from a regular Congressional game and that the list of invitees was reviewed by women on his staff. “I don’t think it sends any kind of message or signal whatsoever,” said the president, who often points out that he is surrounded by strong females at home (where he is the only non-canine male). He added, in the interview, that he had hired women into “some of the most important decision-making positions in this White House.”

OK. He loses a couple of Man Points here for 1) blaming the selection of his basketball team on female staffers and 2) having female staffers pick his basketball team.

Mr. Obama is hardly the first commander in chief whose penchant for sports and other guyish stuff (comic books, “Star Trek”) has become part of his presidential persona. The first President George Bush presented himself as a horseshoe-playing, pork-rind-eating Texan. He was followed by the Big Mac-gobbling, cigar-chomping Bill Clinton and the brush-clearing, bike-busting George W. Bush. It worked to good effect, said Mark McKinnon, a media adviser and mountain bike companion of the latter Mr. Bush.

Aside from perhaps the brush-clearing, is there any reason to believe any of this is affect? There’s every reason to believe Bush 41 likes horseshoes and pork rinds and Clinton liked hamburgers and cigars. And all these men were demonstrably avid sportsmen in their day.

As to the merits of the culture clash issue, these passages put it in perspective:

In interviews, five women who work in the White House or advised officials there described the culture with more of a collective eye-roll than any real sense of grievance or discomfort. One junior aide, who like the other women spoke on the condition of anonymity because of concerns about appearing publicly critical, said that the “sports-fan thing at the White House” could become “annoying” and that her relative indifference to athletics could be mildly alienating. And while this is not uncommon in any workplace, sports bonding can afford a point of entree with the boss.

[...]

Recreation is only one source of affinity within a White House culture, people there say. Obama veterans describe a camaraderie forged over a grueling campaign and a merciless nine months at the White House. It is not about gender, they say, but shared experience. “Many of us have known each other for a long time, and we have brother-and-sister kind of relationships,” said Jen Psaki, the deputy press secretary, who works in an office with seven other spokesmen under 35, all “brothers” from the campaign.

[...]

Ms. Dunn said that she recently hosted a baby shower for an administration official and that no men from the office were invited. She is comfortable with that — just as she is fine with never playing basketball with the president. “That is just part of the culture here that I am excluded from,” she said. “And I don’t care.”

Quite right. Women are in very powerful roles in this administration, as they have been in the last several administrations. That’s the direction our culture has taken over the last three decades or so. But it doesn’t mean that men and women aren’t going to still tend to have different interests.

Just once, I’d like to see Obama break out of campaign mode and give an honest answer to silly questions like this. He’s a very good basketball player, especially for a middle aged Harvard Law graduate with a busy schedule. Unless he’s going to invite elite level women’s players (i.e., people good enough for the Olympics or the WNBA) they’re not going to be very good competition. For that matter, aside from pre-pubescent children, who ever heard of co-ed basketball teams?

No worries, though, Obama invited Melody Barnes, his chief domestic policy advisor, to play golf with him Sunday.  Which, naturally, was widely reported.

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying.  But she makes a good point here about the fact that those who enable cheating never seem to get much attention:

Everybody notices the crooked defiant coach, the hapless sputtering president, the anonymous guys on the academic support staff who sit next to the players as they take the online quizzes and tell them what the answers are — but the professors who make the courses… who police the department for evidence of academic integrity…

These guys are the brains behind the operation! Lose the whore in Human Development and the stooge in Sociology, and game’s off, people. And yet “the public face,” as the New York Times puts it, of SUNY’s scandal is Sally Dear, a mere adjunct in Chair Leo Wilton’s department.

UD understands that you need whores up and down the line to produce outcomes like Binghamton’s and Auburn’s. Without “see no evil apologists” like Donna Shalala (who may be about to hire the most disgraced medical school professor in the country to run her school’s psychiatry department), the University of Miami couldn’t field what was recently the most violent team in university football; without national embarrassment T.K. Wetherell running it, Florida State couldn’t produce the biggest sports cheating scandal in the country, etc. But why overlook the tenured department chairs who use their curricular and hiring powers to turn large academic units into national laughingstocks?

Indeed, you’d think professors and department heads would get in especial trouble given that their mission is theoretically unclouded, whereas college presidents and athletic directors have terrific pressure to win at all costs.

Of course, if the system won’t even punish serial cheaters like John Calipari — who get caught cheating, leave their programs in shambles, and then move on unscathed to do the same elsewhere for more money — then it seems silly to bother with the small fish.

Joseph Ashby argues that something fishy is being ignored in the matter of Rush Limbaugh’s failed bid to buy the Rams.

NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith served as counsel to Attorney General Eric Holder and was a member of Barack Obama’s transition team.

[...]

Despite the fact that Smith’s opposition was based on Limbaugh’s political commentary, the report failed to mention that Smith’s political connections (including those to whom he donated thousands of dollars) have a vested interest in Limbaugh’s discrediting.

[...]

Smith’s gross conflict of interest and apparent political targeting of Obama’s top foe is a huge story. Unfortunately the media appears too blinded by their prejudice of Limbaugh to report on it.

To summarize, we know that a former Obama official and political ally–who was chosen by the NFLPA specifically for his political clout and connections to the highest rungs of power in government–directly attacked Limbaugh for the radio-talker’s political commentary.

Historically politicians have been prone to vindictive and petty behavior, but never in American history has someone had so much power to pummel his political opponents as President Obama. With control over banks, insurance companies, car companies, media (sports media included) and unions (like the NFL players union), Obama tentacles seem to penetrate into nearly every corner of the nation.

Glenn Reynolds, from whom I got the link, doesn’t directly comment but does pass on this from a reader email: “BTW this is a big, big deal, and something Nixon ( or maybe Gene Talmadge or George Wallace in his heyday.) would have done. The difference is the press wouldn’t have played along then. Not because it was wrong. The press could care less about that ( Go look up Walter Duranty), but because Nixon wasn’t a Democrat. It’s all about power with the press…their power. You get in between them and it, heaven help you.”

Now, unlike Glenn, I am not a lawyer (or, as they say on the Internets, “IANAL”).  But I fail to see a problem here.

For the sake of argument, let’s concoct an outlandish conspiracy totally unsupported by facts:

Attorney General Holder personally called Smith and says:  “Hey, Rush Limbaugh has placed a bid to become a minority owner of the Rams.  He’s been a real thorn in our sides.  Do whatever you can to screw him over and paint him as a racist.  I’ll send over some fake quotes that I saw on Wikipedia which will help!’

Smith:  “Yes, sir, boss!   I’ll also call up Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.  They’ll help for free, since Limbaugh makes fun of them all the time.”

At this point, the story unfolds as we’ve seen it.

(Again, this is a completely made-up scenario.  It strikes me as far more plausible that Smith and Holder — both African American liberal Democrats — came to dislike Limbaugh independently and needed no coordination whatsoever. Ockham’s Razor and all that.)

Would any laws have been broken?  Would Smith or Holder be in violation of any professional codes?  Would Smith be in any violation of his fidiciary duties as NFLPA head? None that I can see.  Limbaugh’s a controversial figure believed by a not inconsiderable number of people to be racist.   It’s quite likely, then, that some number of NFLPA members were antsy about Limbaugh as an owner.

Further, Smith is an attorney.  Like many in his profession, he’s had numerous clients.  Does having had a client in the past that might have some tangential interest in a matter being worked on for a current client usually require some sort of formal disclosure?   I’m unaware of such a requirement but, again, IANAL.

Glenn Reynolds links some poor sap who is angry at the NFL because Rush Limbaugh has been dumped from the group bidding for the Rams and is going to start a one-man boycott under the banner “Punt the NFL.”

I have cancelled my DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket package (including the Supercast). I will not watch ONE MINUTE of NFL games or coverage this season—including the Super Bowl.

I guess I’m going to have to go for it on 4th down.  (Or is “Teflon” punting on 2nd down, given that we’re only 5 games into the season?)

In addition to not being overly outraged at Limbaugh’s fate (see the above link),

• I think boycotts are stupid.

• I’ve been watching football for more than three decades now, predating my ever having heard of Rush Limbaugh.

• Limbaugh didn’t own an NFL franchise when I signed up for Sunday Ticket again this year, so why should I be upset with the status quo ante?

• Sunday Ticket is non-refundable.  The NFL doesn’t care a lick whether you actually watch the games.  This is precisely as effective as burning a Dixie Chicks CD you bought last year.

• While the owners were unlikely to approve the bid with Limbaugh in the ownership group, the NFL technically didn’t ban Rush — the senior members of his bidding coalition did.

• See bullet one.

Missouri native Rush Limbaugh has been dropped from membership in a group seeking to buy the St. Louis Rams and keep them in the city.  This speeds up the inevitable conclusion fo the NFL’s owners refusing to let the controversial pundit join their ranks.

Limbaugh was to be a limited partner in a group headed by St. Louis Blues chairman Dave Checketts. Checketts said in a statement Wednesday that Limbaugh’s participation had become a complication in the group’s efforts and the bid will move forward without him.

Checketts told the Associated Press he will have no further comment on the bid process.

Three-quarters of the league’s 32 owners would have had to approve any sale to Limbaugh and his group. Earlier this week, Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay predicted that Limbaugh’s potential bid would be met by significant opposition. Several players have also voiced their displeasure with Limbaugh’s potential ownership position, and NFL Players Association head DeMaurice Smith, who is black, urged players to speak out against Limbaugh’s bid.

A Limbaugh spokesman told ESPN that Limbaugh would have no comment on Wednesday. Earlier, on his syndicated radio show, Limbaugh was defiant, holding on to hope that he still could be part of the ownership group that buys the Rams. “This is not about the NFL, it’s not about the St. Louis Rams, it’s not about me,” Limbaugh said. “This is about the ongoing effort by the left in this country, wherever you find them, in the media, the Democrat Party, or wherever, to destroy conservatism, to prevent the mainstreaming of anyone who is prominent as a conservative. “Therefore, this is about the future of the United States of America and what kind of country we’re going to have.”

I’m sympathetic to Limbaugh here, in that he’s been smeared by made-up quotes and vilified for making perfectly reasonable and legitimate political arguments in a provocative manner.  Conservatives are frequently branded as “racists” and “sexists” and “homophobes” as a tool of stifling debate. While I long ago got tired of his shtick, I still think he’s a decent guy who’s made a lot of enemies with his act.  Given that he’s been doing three hours of live radio five days a week just about every day for nearly twenty years, he’s bound to have said quite a few stupid things.

Further, there’s an argument to be made that he’d be good for the NFL.  He’s a true fan of the game and loves his boyhood home, so he’d bring a lot of passion to his minority stake in the Rams.  And this bid is the best chance to keep the team in the city.   He could be an NFL version of Mark Cuban, which the No Fun League could use.

Among those making pretty powerful arguments against Limbaugh’s bid, ironically, is Mark Cuban.

The problem with Rush is that its his job to take on all of life’s partisan issues and problems.  Not only is it his job to take on these issues and problems, its key to his success that he be very opinionated about whichever issues he feels are important to him and/or will cause his very large audience to tune in.  Given that we will never know what the “next big issue ” in this world that Rush will be discussing on his show is,  its impossible for the NFL to even try to predict or gauge the impact on the NFL’s business if something controversial, or even worse yet, something nationally polarizing happens. There is an unquantifiable risk that comes with the size of Rush’s audience.  The wrong thing said on the show, even if its not spoken by Rush himself,  about a sensitive national or world issue could turn into a Black Swan event for the NFL.

Thats a huge risk that is not commensurate with the value a minority investment in a franchise brings.

This isnt about Free Speech. Its about the NFL protecting their business.  There is no reason to put it at risk.  If Rush were to retire from his show, or become a local DJ in Sacramento, or just about anything else he may want as a vocation, then I dont think they would have any problem with him being an investor in a team.

And, frankly, in the Age of YouTube, even a local shock jock would have the same issue.

Steven Taylor points out that the NFL is institutionally conservative on such matters:

First, the NFL is extremely image conscious and Rush makes a living going out of his way to say things that make somewhere between 30%-60% of the population mad on a daily basis (depending on what he is talking about).  As such, it is hardly a shock that some NFL owners are a bit skittish about welcoming him into their ranks.

The second business point I would make is that this is a case of pure capitalism at work:  private owners making decisions concerning with whom they are willing to do business.  Conservatives really have no ideological grounds to object if the NFL owners have found Limbaugh too controversial for their business tastes.   Heck, if Major League Baseball thinks Mark Cuban is too controversial, it is hardly a shock that there was pushback on Limbaugh from the NFL.

All of this does boil down, however, to the voting rules, as institutions do matter.  To wit:  for a purchase to be approved, 75% of the league’s owner have to agree on the sale.  There are 32 teams, meaning 24 had to say yes, but much more importantly, only 9 had to say no.   One of the simple facts that is often ignored by casual observers about super-majority rules is that they empower the minority substantially.

Add to that, by the way, that the League is about to enter into serious labor negotiations that are already extremely contentious.  No way are the owners, who need serious concessions from the players to realign the business model, going to antagonize the union — which is overwhelmingly comprised of African Americans — by accepting an owner that many players deem racist.  (Now, if Limbaugh were the majority bidder and offering to substantially overpay for the Rams, it might well be a different story.)   Fair?  No.  But not much about the business of professional sports is.

Now, as Doug Powers and others point out, the NFL has some shady characters in its midst already.  But there’s a much higher tolerance for thuggish behavior on the part of great athletes than for prospective owners. Rick Moran notes, too, that the NFL has always been way behind the other leagues in minority hiring. But that’s really all the more reason for owners to be cautious.

Sean Hackbarth argues that Limbaugh has done himself no favors, either.

Rush failed to treat his quest as a campaign with the end goal being a stake in an NFL team. He played the politics wrong and lost this chance to be an owner. With better preparation the conservative giant would have better anticipated the attacks against him and eased the worries of certain owners during the firestorm.

As soon as he had an inkling to want to own an NFL team Rush needed to start laying the groundwork to make sure there wouldn’t be nine opposing votes. He should have started a process years in advance to soothe owners’ fears that he wouldn’t be an annoyance as an owner. Owners are businessmen who love football, so they would prefer to focus on improving their teams and growing their fan bases instead of dealing with the distraction of the latest fake-controversy created by Rush’s opponents. Running a business is partially about managing risks. Controversy is a risk that can be avoided, so it’s not a surprise NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said what he said.

Finally, as Tom Maguire observes, “Rush, love him or hate him he has made fabulous living being controversial and (that awful word) divisive.  That has opened some doors to him and, unsurprisingly, closed others.  Quel surprise.”

Glenn Reynolds‘ post noting “The Wizard of Oz turns 70 years old” was the latest of what is becoming for me an all-too-frequent occurrence: reading a completely different context and being momentarily confused.   My immediate reaction was “There’s no way in hell Ozzie Smith is 70.”   (He turns 55 the day after Christmas, making him older than I’d have guessed.)

Of course, it’s the movie “The Wizard of Oz” that dates to 1939.

The combination of a busy day at the office and a slow news day on the domestic policy front have rather limited my blogging today.   Norman Geras knows the feeling:

If you’re a blogger and you’re honest, then you’ll admit to the fact that you’re often looking for connections. ‘Connections?’ you ask. Connections. On a day – like many days, after you’ve been going a while – when there ain’t no tempting subjects, you look about for, among other things, some unusual connection – from which you might get an idea, in which there is an interesting conceptual difficulty, to which an argument can be attached. Some connections, however, seem rather more unlikely than others, and I’m bound to say I wouldn’t have expected this one.

The link leads to a piece in The Australian about a study showing that pre-match sex improves athletic performance, a finding that both confounds traditional coaching wisdom and provokes adolescent reactions from many interviewed for the story.

Similarly,  Courtney Knapp points me to a Mirror report on a study finding that “eating a piece of cake makes you more productive.”

Hey, it’s science.

In addition to embarrassing themselves with a shoddy performance in their first real game at their new stadium, the Dallas Cowboys vastly oversold standing-room-only “Party Pass” tickets in order to set the NFL attendance record.

Arlington officials and the Dallas Cowboys are discussing the possibility of reducing the number of standing-room-only tickets by two-thirds after crowds became unruly Sunday night when they weren’t allowed into the stadium. Assistant Fire Chief Don Crowson said negotiations Monday would have the Cowboys limit sales to about 10,000 Party Passes at future games, though there could be a few exceptions.

Team officials said they sold 30,000 of the $29 tickets to Sunday’s game, which was the Cowboys’ first regular-season matchup at the new stadium in Arlington. Cowboys officials, however, said they were willing to talk with the city about changes but have not agreed to anything.

The attendance of 105,121 was a record for a regular-season NFL game.

As kickoff approached Sunday night, Cowboys and public safety officials decided to stop trying to control the flow of fans into the end zone decks when the crowds became angry. “We believe that it was a better decision to go ahead and let people in vs. confronting them in a situation out on the plaza based on the how the crowd dynamic was evolving,” Crowson said.

In what seemed both a shrewd business move and a sop to regular Joes priced out of  personal seat licenses available with a 30-year mortgage, owner Jerry Jones offered the “Party Pass” to allow fans to plunk down a relatively small amount to enjoy the atmosphere of the live game experience.  But, it seems, they didn’t read the fine print.  For their $29, they weren’t actually guaranteed a spot anywhere inside the stadium!  Instead, most had to stand outside and watch the game on television from various patios — where concessions are still stadium priced!  Some misunderstood entirely and drove home.

Not surprisingly, many showed up early to partake in tailgating activities before the night game.  Which meant they were feeling no pain by the time they were ready to file into the stadium to take their spot.  When they found out there was no spot, a near-riot situation broke out.

Oh, and it turns out, fans who paid hundreds of dollars for regular seats — in addition to the PSLs, of course — were not too happy to have to push their way  through a wall of drunken yahoos to get to those seats.  Or to have to confront them when they returned to said seats from bathroom and concession breaks to find their seats stolen.

One presumes this was a one-time deal, with Jones selling as many tickets as possible to the unveiling of his $1.2 billion stadium and break the crowd record.  But, yeeks, this isn’t the news he wanted coming out of the grand opener.

In an otherwise rather lackluster attempt at a “throwback” football column designed to offer a humorous take on the 50th anniversary of the American Football League, Gregg Easterbrook captures beautifully how much our choices have expanded:

In vacuum-tube news, have you heard the big story? ABC will televise the new upstart American Football League. With one NFL game on NBC each Sunday and another on CBS, if there’s also a game on ABC, that means three pro football games on TV in the same week! Add the one college game, and that’s four televised football games weekly. Plus, ABC says it’s going to bring two complete camera crews to each game, instead of the standard one fixed midfield camera. Good golly Miss Molly! Football on television has reached nirvana — it can’t get any better than this. If only my set’s rabbit ears would bring in CBS. But don’t get me started.

My parents were teens in 1959 but this remained the status quo well into my teens — if not beyond.  Sure, “Monday Night Football” debuted in 1972, expanding the number of available NFL games by one.  But that was it until fairly recently with the explosion of satellite television and various packages that allowed fans willing to pay for it access to any game they care to see.   I’ve had NFL Sunday Ticket, available only through DirecTV because of a monopoly licensing agreement, for years and never miss a Cowboys game now unless I’ve out of town. (I’ll DVR the games but they go stale pretty quickly even then.)

Even for those unable or unwilling to spring for premium packages beyond basic cable/satellite access, there are now a freakish number of college games available, including a Thursday night game and more Saturday games than you can shake a stick at.   The NFL usually has four games available during the day Sunday, a Sunday night game, and the Monday night game. There are also frequently games on Thursdays, too.

Bill Clinton is joining Gavin Newsom’s campaign for governor of California in what Michael Finnegan argues is payback for Jerry Brown’s snub way back in 1992.

Seventeen years after fellow Democrats Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown clashed in the 1992 race for the White House, the former president made clear today that bygones will not be bygones in the 2010 campaign for California governor: Clinton signed on today to support Brown rival Gavin Newsom in the Democratic primary next year. Newsom is the current mayor of San Francisco.

It is highly unusual – perhaps unprecedented, according to the mayor’s campaign – for a former president to take sides in a California gubernatorial primary. Sitting chief executives and former ones usually like to wait for the intraparty bleeding to stop before endorsing.

[...]

Tensions in the 1992 race for the Democratic presidential nomination peaked at a debate in Chicago, where Brown accused Clinton of “funneling money to his wife’s law firm for state business.” That set off Clinton. “I don’t care what you say about me, but you ought to be ashamed of yourself for jumping on my wife,” he snapped, shaking his finger at Brown. “You’re not worth being on the same platform as my wife.”

I’m reminded of this weekend’s hubbub around Michael Jordan’s decidedly ungracious Hall of Fame induction speech, which he used to vent every slight, real or imagined, he’d suffered since high school.   One would think winning would be vindication enough to salve those old wounds but, for Clinton and Jordan, it apparently isn’t.  Michael Wilbon has the best line on that one:

My reaction was to be surprised at the reaction of people who were so stunned. What did they think separated Jordan from merely great athletes? Almost certainly it was the controlled rage with which he played every single night of his life and probably 90 percent of the practices in which he participated. A less ruthless Jordan would have been, well, Clyde Drexler.

Now, Drexler was a great, great player.  But he’s not one of four or five people in the discussion for greatest baller of all time.  Jordan is — usually as the favorite.

I’ve never been more than a casual fan of basketball, and have followed great players rather than picking a team.  I gravitated towards Julius “Dr. J” Irving toward the end of his career, then Larry Bird, and then Jordan.  And, really, nobody since. (I appreciate LeBron James’ gifts but have less sports-watching time these days.)   Despite being clean cut, articulate, and funny, Jordan frequently displayed a jerkish quality, even — perhaps especially — to his teammates.

Conversely, I was never a fan of Bill Clinton’s, seeing in him a snake oil salesman quality long before the Monica Lewinsky scandal.  But one can’t be a political junkie and not admire his talents.  And, certainly, his up-from-nothing story, elected as the youngest governor in the country at 32 and president at 46,  is simply remarkable.

It’s possible that a less ruthless Clinton would have been, well, Jerry Brown.

When checking my Google calendar this morning, I noticed a tab at the top highlighting “New: Sports Calendars.”   Apparently, they actually rolled this out a couple weeks ago:

Now, when you look under “Other Calendars,” click “Add,” then “Browse Interesting Calendars” (or use this link to the Calendar directory), you’ll find calendars for hundreds of teams in dozens of sports leagues — everything from the National Football League to the Korean FA Cup.

When you subscribe to your favorite team’s calendar, you’ll see every game listed, updated in real time with the score as the game progresses.

You can also subscribe to a “Contacts’ Birthdays and Events” calendar, which will add all of your contacts’ birthdays to Google Calendar. Data is pulled from your Gmail contacts and your friends’ Google profiles.

This is pretty awesome. The last couple of years, I’ve manually entered in the schedules of the Dallas Cowboys and Alabama Crimson Tide so my wife can schedule our social calendar around them.   Obviously, though, it’s a lot easier to have this automated.   Not only is that a time-saver but sports schedules, especially college football, are often shifted substantially to accomodate television.

I shan’t be adding the birthday tool, however.  I get enough reminders of the birthdays of people I barely know through Facebook and the half dozen social media sites I signed up for, stopped using, but won’t leave me alone.

“I don’t think anyone on this team knows what ’schism’ is, let alone could use it in a sentence. I thought it was an STD when I first heard it and I was like ‘whoa, we preach abstinence in these parts.’” — Minnesota Vikings DE Jared Allen

Are you ready for some fantasy football?

Manzine’s first annual Fantasy Football Guide provides tips on preparing for and conducting the draft, managing your gameday rosters, successfully negotiating trades, and best positioning yourself to win your league championship.

And Brett Favre’s name isn’t mentioned. Not even once.

“Just because Usain Bolt sets a world record every time he runs doesn’t make the other runners slow.” - Mark Cuban, explaining why income disparity isn’t a problem.

While it’s a great line, it’s actually a poor illustration.  Races and records are zero sum games.  Bolt’s winning the Olympics and setting a new record deprives other runners of gold medals and records.

Conversely, Cuban’s earning a few billion dollars has essentially no impact on future enterpreneurs getting rich.