FanHouse Barack Obama

Last week the New York Times reported that President Barack Obama was criticized by women's advocates and liberal bloggers for hosting male-only pick-up basketball games.

The Times continues:

A hateful message aimed at U.S. President Barack Obama, and involving a swastika, was carved in to a Boston-area golf course green early Monday morning. The Secret Service has already been called in to investigate.

At Lakeville Country Club in Lakeville, Mass., someone carved the message, "I (the Swastika symbol) Obama," into the 18th green. Course owner Gary Mosca talked to the Boston Herald about the incident:

"I said, 'This is sick,'" said Mosca, whose home is also located on the 18th hole. "They are going to do this stuff and cause a problem just to be anti-establishment or just to be tough guys. Their minds are probably demented enough to think of anything."

Florida hasn't hit the field to play LSU, but already the Tigers have Gator quarterback John Brantley's number. His cell phone number, in fact. Yes, those crazy Cajuns have struck again, discovering the phone number of projected Gators starting quarterback John Brantley and doing pesky things with it like you'd expect an amateur fan base to do.

This is sort of old hat for LSU, as its fans also figured out how to reach out and touch opponents such as Alabama quarterback John Parker Wilson and Georgia back Knowshon Moreno. They're rumored to have also discovered the numbers for several other Florida players and even coach Urban Meyer. At this rate they're probably not to far from reaching President Barack Obama with a different kind of 3 AM call if his health care push upsets them too much.

In the sporting parlance he knows so well, Barack Obama has accepted a road game in a hostile environment. You wouldn't think of Copenhagen as such, knowing the Danish city as a clean, environmentally friendly Eurohub filled with wellness spas, romantic nooks, beer-stained bodegas, peace on earth and a corny old song that goes, "wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen." But when Obama arrives Friday to sell his hometown, Chicago, as the 2016 Summer Olympics site, he'd better be bringing his brass knuckles.

Because Brazil wants his blood.

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Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal said last week that he needs as many as 40,000 new troops in Afghanistan if that increasingly deadly war -- of which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said further ramping up will face rebellion in the House -- can have a chance of being won.

The Obama administration's first major legislative effort, an attempt to reform and expand health care coverage, is in dire straits as the president's office has been forced to retreat on its desire for a public option for health care and is continuing to fail to get bipartisan support for what is left of its grand plan.

And it is expected that the next monthly unemployment report scheduled to be released at the end of this week will show our national jobless rate risen to a quarter-of-a-century high of 9.8 percent for September.

Health care battle aside, Barack Obama is the man with the golden tongue. So why isn't he using it to secure something every American can support?

It's the 2016 Olympics, which will be awarded in two weeks. Chicago's chances may well hinge on whether Obama shows up in Copenhagen to make the sales pitch.

He's paid plenty of lip service to the cause, including a pep rally Wednesday at the White House. As the Chicago 2016 delegation made its rounds, Mayor Richard Daley was asked whether Obama would be joining him.

"That's a tough question," he said.

Why?

ST. LOUIS -- They booed Barack Obama and cheered the two Bushes, which is everything you need to know about this city. They also trotted out every conceivable element of baseball-meets-Americana imagery, from syrupy music to Cardinals nostalgia to the very nice touch of All-Star players sharing hugs with heroes of community service. This was an obvious appeal to the country's collective heart, gathering the living ex-presidents to issue video reminders of the sport's importance.

And through it all Tuesday night, a recurring thought kept hammering my brain in Busch Stadium.

They were trying WAY ... TOO ... HARD.

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Anyone tired of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver in the broadcast booth got a bit of a reprieve tonight. President Barack Obama joined them in the booth in the top of the second inning to chat about his recent travels, the All-Star Game, and Washington D.C.'s most pressing current problem -- the Nationals.

Obama stopped by in his White Sox jacket, the same jacket he wore when he threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

It was a mildly curious decision because it's standard operating procedure to wear the home team's gear when throwing out the first pitch, but Obama, an avowed Sox fan, wanted to stay true to his hometown team.

"Everybody knows I'm a White Sox fan," Obama told Buck and McCarver, "and my wife thinks I look cute in this jacket, so for those two reasons, why not."

We know that President Barack Obama is passionate about his fantasy football team. He also campaigned on Monday Night Football about fixing the BCS. So maybe on Tuesday night, while he's sitting in the broadcast booth with Joe Buck and Tim McCarver for the 80th Major League Baseball All-Star Game, the sports savvy President can enact a law eliminating ties in the Midsummer Classic.

Yes, Obama, who will throw out the ceremonial first pitch at Busch Stadium to Albert Pujols, will head upstairs to spend an inning with Buck and McCarver at some point between the third and the fifth inning of the game. Live baseball doesn't lend well to teleprompters, so we'll see if President Obama stays on the color commentary side of the booth or tries his hand at a little play-by-play action.

Somebody call Tommy Lee Jones and tell him he can stop searching every warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in the Chicagoland area for missing White Sox pitcher Bartolo Colon has been found. Of course, had he started his search at a Waffle House it probably wouldn't have taken nearly as long to find him.

Colon is scheduled to start in Charlotte for the White Sox' Triple-A affiliate on Thursday but was nowhere to be found this week as the White Sox tried in vain to reach him. Where Colon was I'm not quite sure, but at least Ozzie Guillen was nice enough to explain why he was so hard to find for us.