Note to chief White Sox fan:”A lot of Yankee fans vote”
President Barack Obama was very much the suffering Chicago White Sox fan on Monday when the New York Yankees visited the White House to be honored for winning the World Series championship in 2009. That crown was the team’s 27th, by far the most in Major League Baseball.
The team that comes second, the St. Louis Cardinals, has only 10 titles. And Obama’s favorite White Sox have won only three times, most recently in 2005, and that was their first championship since 1917.
Obama was a gracious host to the New Yorkers. He praised their history and the character of the team’s players.
“Being successful in New York doesn’t come easy, and it’s not for everybody. It takes a certain kind of player to thrive in the pressure cooker of Yankee Stadium -– somebody who is poised and professional, and knows what it takes to wear the pinstripes. It takes somebody who appreciates how lucky he is, and who feels a responsibility for those who are less fortunate,” Obama said. He praised two of the players in particular, Mark Teixeira and Jorge Posada, for their charity work, and a third, Derek Jeter, who was named the U.S. sportsman of the year for 2009 by Sports Illustrated magazine. The team visited wounded U.S. troops at hospitals near Washington before coming to the White House.
“This is a team that goes down to spring training every year expecting to win it all — and more often than not, you guys get pretty close,” Obama said.
However, he added shortly afterward: ”That attitude, that success, has always made the Yankees easy to love — and, let’s face it, easy to hate as well,” Obama said at a packed ceremony in the White House East Room.
First draft: Spin after the news conference
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs made the rounds of the morning television talk shows today to reiterate what his boss said last night in his first presidential news conference: Congress must pass an economic stimulus package to help avoid dire consequences.
Gibbs said on NBC’s “Today Show” that Obama was willing to “do whatever it takes, with Democrats or Republicans to make sure that he gets something on his desk quickly that gets help to the hands of the American people.”
Obama continues his road show today, traveling to Florida where he is expected to focus heavily on the home foreclosure crisis that’s hit the United States — particularly hard in Ft. Myers, Florida .
While he travels the Senate is due to hold a final vote on the $838 billion stimulus bill around noon. If the bill passes, as expected, the House and the Senate will start negotiating a final compromise deal.
While Obama’s away his treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner will lay out the administration’s new plan to stabilize the financial sector.
Gibbs refused to give any details of the plan, deferring to Geithner who will speak at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT).
But many details of the plan have already leaked out. Sources have said Geithner will lay out a rescue plan that will rely on public and private funds to take $500 billion of bad assets off banks’ books. The plan would also expand a Federal Reserve program that aims to ease credit to consumers and small businesses to $1 trillion.
