{"id":7840,"date":"2010-01-15T08:44:15","date_gmt":"2010-01-15T13:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=7840"},"modified":"2010-01-15T08:44:15","modified_gmt":"2010-01-15T13:44:15","slug":"prioritization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=7840","title":{"rendered":"Prioritization"},"content":{"rendered":"

Forget the Palestinians and the Israelis; the White House is embroiled in the biggest no-win diplomatic war of all.<\/p>\n

It’s W trying to deftly navigate the whitewater<\/a>…<\/p>\n

The White House on Thursday quickly took away the possibility of Boise State University’s football team joining the national champions Alabama at an honorary Rose Garden ceremony.<\/p>\n

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) — a well known opponent of college football’s Bowl Championship Series (BCS) — sent a letter to President Barack Obama requesting that the undefeated Boise State Broncons join the undefeated University of Alabama Crimson Tide at the ceremony.<\/p>\n

But a White House spokesman indicated to The Hill that Boise’s presence at the ceremony is unlikely, but did not rule it out completely.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The reason?\u00a0 Well, kudos to the President:<\/p>\n

“The president has previously articulated his displeasure with the BCS system, but he\u2019s focused on more important things right now,” White House spokesman Adam Abrams said in an e-mail.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, this doesn’t mean there’s not some interest in the recreational equivalent of nation-building:<\/p>\n

Obama has criticized the BCS and backed a playoff system in past media appearances but today’s indication shows that he is not quite willing to make a large-scale statement on the issue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the other hand, it might be a better use of half <\/em>of the President’s time:<\/p>\n

The president is simultaneously trying to shepherd healthcare reform legislation through Congress before his State of the Union address in a few weeks and help coordinate U.S. disaster relief efforts in Haiti after a massive earthquake struck there this week.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But at the end of the day – if someone gets a “stimulus”, everyone wants a “stimulus”:<\/p>\n

The anti-BCS political action committee PlayoffPAC criticized the president for missing an opportunity to “make a statement” against the BCS without spending taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n

“No one’s saying this is a top-tier issue on the President’s agenda, but college football’s off-the-field impact on schools isn’t trivial either,” PlayoffPAC official Matt Sanderson said in an e-mail. “He promised a year ago to ‘throw his weight around,’ but now it looks as if he may pass-up a golden opportunity to make a statement without spending one extra taxpayer minute or dollar. An overwhelming majority of college football fans will be disappointed if the President doesn’t make good on his word.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let me make this clear:\u00a0 WE are at war with people who want to kill us.\u00a0 We are in a recession that looks like it’s going to be a lot more intractable than even the Jeremiahs have been saying.\u00a0 So what in the flaming fine feathered flying flapping fowl is the Federal government <\/em>doing wasting any <\/em>time on this kind of crap?<\/p>\n

If one taxpayer dollar is wasted on this utter non-issue, it should be an excuse for taxpayers around the nation to storm capitals with torches and pitchforks and chase people from office with coats of tar and feathers.<\/p>\n

That <\/em>will be a playoff we can use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forget the Palestinians and the Israelis; the White House is embroiled in the biggest no-win diplomatic war of all. It’s W trying to deftly navigate the whitewater… The White House on Thursday quickly took away the possibility of Boise State University’s football team joining the national champions Alabama at an honorary Rose Garden ceremony. Sen. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-president-obama","category-the-rare-sports-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7840"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7842,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7840\/revisions\/7842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}