Today roughly marks the one-year anniversary of the unquestioned pinnacle of Barack Obama’s presidency – the bracket he filled out for last year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Mired in the muck of a massively unsatisfying and restive term as the leader of the free world, President Obama now must re-calibrate his approach and perhaps use the basketball acumen of his inner circle to a decided political advantage.
Faced with understandably stiff opposition for virtually every single thing he has done or said in the last ten months or so, Obama probably pines for the halcyon days only a year ago when he was simply reviled for his racial makeup, his father’s religion and the lack of underdogs in his projected Sweet 16. Come to think of it, one of the first signs of trouble was when Obama bowed down when greeting the Tar Heels coach during their White House championship fete.
It is a shopworn anecdote in political journalism that Obama plays basketball, but the way roundball dominates Washington right now is truly unprecedented. Basketball is the key to understanding how President Obama got to the critical point he now occupies, and recent foreign-policy missteps have their roots in basketball-based decision making. For instance, Obama’s reticence to meet with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Dalai Lama both stem from their admittedly terrible dribbling skills.
Lobbyists and politicians used to making deals during relaxing golfing junkets at tropical resorts are now squeezing into some hightops and practicing their low-post moves in dingy gyms across the country. Insurance companies have undoubtedly been saddled with a huge uptick in the number of knee and hip surgeries for plodding ex-golfers pushing their bodies past the breaking point playing pickup basketball, paradoxically exacerbating the health care conundrum they seek to exploit with basketball-based access to political power.
Much has been written about the ballers closest to Obama and their now-legendary pickup games at the nexus of political power in America, but virtually nothing has been written about the real story behind how Obama dropped the ball on health care. Nancy Pelosi, aching for a chance to shine as Speaker of the House, challenged Obama to a game of one on one for the right to spearhead health care legislation.
Obama laughed off the challenge, but Pelosi was deadly serious about the game — going so far as to break the clavicle of an aide for receiving a text message during one of Nancy’s free throws. Wearing a $4,000 dress and 3-inch heels, Pelosi fouled and scrapped her way to a tie with the President at game point. After unleashing a sick, Tim Hardaway-level crossover and almost breaking Obama’s ankles, Nasty Nancy rose up and splashed a wet jumper from fifteen feet to win the game.
Pelosi glared down at the fallen President with a slightly more deranged stare than usual and walked off the court without saying a word, inextricably linking the fortunes of two pioneering politicians with a single inspired performance. With the way the voting public currently feels about Pelosi and Obama, though, the best political move for both of them may be to quietly ship Pelosi off to political trouble zones China and Israel with a basketball and direct orders to ball out and make it rain for America.
Tommy Maple is an international relations graduate student. His columns appear on Thursdays.
