Thank goodness the New York Times is covering the important issues in the 2008 presidential campaign -- like how Barack Obama plays basketball. As my friend Ben Fritz asked, is Jodi Kantor trying to become the next Maureen Dowd? Or is she just helping to generate material for Dowd's next column?
In any case, it's idiotic, as even Kantor is forced to admit in a nut graf that appeals explicitly to "armchair psychologists" (ie Dowd and other pundits who need new Obama material):
From John F. Kennedy's sailing to Bill Clinton's golf mulligans to John Kerry's windsurfing, sports has been used, correctly or incorrectly, as a personality decoder for presidents and presidential aspirants. So, armchair psychologists and fans of athletic metaphors, take note: Barack Obama is a wily player of pickup basketball, the version of the game with unspoken rules, no referee and lots of elbows. He has been playing since adolescence, on cracked-asphalt playgrounds and at exclusive health clubs, developing a quick offensive style, a left-handed jump shot and relationships that have extended into the political arena.
Sadly, the (misguided) effort to use sports to gain insight into politicians' psyches has a long history -- see in particular the 1999 Don Van Natta story in the New York Times on Bill Clinton taking mulligans at golf, which is probably the most absurd example (Times Select sub. req.):
Indeed, the President does it again and again and again. He grants himself bushels of mulligans -- off the tee, usually, but Presidential mulligans have also been witnessed while Mr. Clinton was ankle-deep in sand or lost in a thicket of evergreen trees. Mr. Clinton jokes that he gives ''Presidential pardons'' to his errant golf balls.
As this vacation season draws to a close, and Mr. Clinton pursues another interlude of golf and fund-raisers, the mulligan presents itself as the perfect metaphor for his Presidency. The voters have given the Comeback Kid more than one mulligan. Mr. Clinton was granted a second chance by the Senate in February after the House impeached him for his behavior in the Monica S. Lewinsky matter. And it can be assumed that Hillary Rodham Clinton has given Mr. Clinton a few mulligans too.
Most past Presidents were golf purists who wouldn't contemplate even asking for a mulligan (the term's derivation is obscure), let alone taking one. George Bush apparently never took a do-over. For him, it was more important to put the game out of its misery; he once bragged that he raced through 18 holes in 1 hour, 42 minutes.
John F. Kennedy, probably the best golfer to occupy the White House this century, did not need to take mulligans. Richard M. Nixon, on the other hand, was known to kick the ball out of the rough to give himself a better lie.
Golf was also a defining metaphor of Dwight D. Eisenhower's Presidency. Ike spent so much time puttering around the links that his diversion symbolized his entire era of placid postwar prosperity and conservatism.
Mr. Clinton's game symbolizes something else. In his new book, ''Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate'' (Simon & Schuster, 1999), Bob Woodward writes that Gerald Ford, an avid golfer, was disgusted after watching Mr. Clinton repeatedly take mulligans during a round in Colorado in 1993. After playing 18 holes with Mr. Ford and the golf great Jack Nicklaus, Mr. Clinton told reporters he had shot an 80.
This claim apparently infuriated Mr. Ford and Mr. Nicklaus. Mr. Woodward writes: ''Nicklaus leaned over to Ford and whispered in disgust, 'Eighty with 50 floating mulligans.'''
I don't disagree with your take on this story, but I can't help wondering how you could conclude (in my opinion, incorrectly) that a Republican reference to drug use could raise racial stereotypes but not make that same point when it comes to Senator Obama and the sport of basketball. If the New York Times runs a story saying that Obama is fond of watermelon, will your criticism be that fruit choice isn't insightful?
Posted by: Rob | June 01, 2007 at 11:38 AM