State Department revs up NASCAR Diplomacy
Foggy Bottom, rev your engines.
The U.S. State Department, for the first time ever, is turning to NASCAR to help get America’s message across.
The department said 11 young motor enthusiasts from Bahrain and Qatar will participate in the inaugural “motorsports exchange” this month, including a visit to the NASCAR Hall of Fame in North Carolina and a stop in Miami for races at the Homestead-Miami speedway.
The young delegates from the Gulf, who are all involved in auto racing as drivers, mechanics or car or track performance technicians, will receive briefings on “NASCAR research and development, track safety, crew diversity and community and family involvement,” the department said in a press note.
The initiative is part of the State Department’s “SportsUnited” program, which aims to show how success in athletics can translate into success in other aspects of life.
Along with sending U.S. sports stars overseas, SportsUnited brings foreign delegations ranging from Nepalese basketball players to Russian swimmers to the United States.
What’s a friendly wager between friends, or senators?
While Washington deals with freezing temperatures this Sunday, Super Bowl XLIV will kick off in sunny Miami Gardens, Florida, as the New Orleans Saints take on the Indianapolis Colts. But the snow has not dampened football fans’ spirits, and even a few senators are betting on the outcome.
Senators Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Evan Bayh of Indiana announced a friendly wager on Friday, each betting that their team will bring home that coveted Vince Lombardi Trophy.
What’s at stake?
Well, a win for the Saints in their first ever Super Bowl appearance means Bayh will be bringing Landrieu and her constituents Indiana popcorn, a local favorite.
“I’m predicting that the Saints will pull out a 35-31 victory,” Landrieu said. “I’m not really sure what Indiana popcorn is, but I’ve never been more excited to eat it.”
But if the more seasoned Colts, who enter with a 2-1 Super Bowl record, rise to victory, Landrieu will be serving up red beans and rice to Bayh and his constituents.
“My only regret about this Super Bowl matchup is that Peyton Manning will have to disappoint Saints fans from his home state when he brings his second Lombardi Trophy back to Indiana,” Bayh said.
Duffer: An unskilled golfer, also called a hacker
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama can body-surf with the best of them.
But can he golf? Obama, who freely admits not being very good, sent great chunks of grass flying as he warmed up on the driving range at a private golf club on the Hawaiian island of Oahu before hitting the course on Christmas Eve. Several wincing observers also accused him of shanking, which golfers define as striking the ball badly by smacking it with the heel of the club. Later, as he practiced his putting, a little boy watching him from the clubhouse was heard defending him after he missed several attempts to sink the ball. “He’s just practicing,” the boy said. Onlookers debated whether the president-elect was being put off his stride by all the people watching him.
Mid-way through the game, Obama greeted a group of onlookers who asked him how the golf was going. “I’m terrible,” he replied to one person. “Got any tips?” he asked someone else.
It was Obama’s second golf excursion in four days since jetting into Oahu on Saturday for a two-week vacation with his family.
He was playing with aide Eugene Kang, close Chicago friend Eric Whitaker, who is spending Christmas with the Obamas, and one other friend.
For more Reuters political news, click here.
Reuters photo by Hugh Gentry (Obama warms up on the driving range at Mid Pacific Country Club, Hawaii, Dec. 24)
Bush looks forward to being a quiet sports spectator again
WASHINGTON – In between packing up to move back to Texas and trying to save the U.S. automotive industry, President George W. Bush squeezed in 40 minutes to talk extensively about one of his greatest loves — sports.
In an interview with a Washington Post sports writer, the former baseball team owner said the financial meltdown would likely cascade down to major league sports, noting that they tend to thrive on regular attendees.
“If you’re unable to get the American family to come to your park more than once a year, you’re going to have a difficult time when it comes to your attendance. Of course this will exacerbate the problem,” Bush said according to the Post.
He made it clear he would like to become a quiet spectator after being in the limelight for nearly eight years and had no intention of returning to the baseball world even as commissioner of Major League Baseball.
“I’m looking forward to getting off the stage,” Bush said. “I have done my duty to my country. I have given it my all. It’s now President-elect Obama’s time. I have had enough of the spotlight.”
He also told the newspaper that he believed more was being done now to rid the sports world of steroids, an issue he raised during his 2004 State of the Union address, but noted that it could get harder to detect them in the future. He admitted surprise when allegations surfaced that pitcher Roger Clemens had been linked to banned performance-enhancing drugs.
“It seems like they are making great strides. [But] are they going to invent detection devices to take care of the next round of exotics?” Bush said in the newspaper interview.
Oh come on. Your emotional diatribe against Bush is not based on one fact.
I know the hatred of Bush is venomous in its spirit and those with liberal tendencies are the loudest screamers. However, he was elected to two terms and he has kept us safe since 9/11. For that I will be eternally grateful.
If you had been dealt the blows he was dealt with 9/11, Katrina, Thailand Tsunami, and the ongoing global war on terror, no one would have done better or worse.
Leave the guy alone, he truly has served our country well. History through the test of time will show that to be true. (All the emotional diatribes will not be clouding the picture like they are now…)
Barack Obama, pool shark??
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – We’ve seen him play basketball, he has been teased mercilessly about his dismal bowling skills and he even pretended to take part in a 400-meter hurdles race at a track meet last week. But pool?
Barack Obama loves it. And he decided to spend part of a 6-hour campaign stop in West Virginia — just one day before the primary election there — playing pool.
“The sign of a misspent youth,” Obama joked as he walked around and eyed the table in the smoky Schultzie’s Billiards in South Charleston.
“Obviously I wasn’t doing wholesome things like bowling,” Obama added to laughter, referring to a horrible showing in the bowling alley during a stop in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago.
The days of his youth came back quickly in the game against against Paul Scott, a local army veteran of the Iraq war. From the opening break, Obama sank several good shots — drawing some shouts of ‘whoa’ from the steadily growing crowd.
“Oh, it worked,” he said after he made one particularly tricky shot that sunk a ball into the opposite corner pocket. He also hammed it up for the crowd of photographers: contorting himself as he played with the idea of a behind-the-back shot.
The men played a gentleman’s game of pool, continuing on even though Obama sank the 8-ball early on. ”That’s what you’re supposed to do with a senator,” he said to his opponent as they kept playing.
ohh boo hoo.
I don’t want to hear I’m not racist.
Or I’m not feminist, or I’m not a womanizer, or I don’t think.
Check out the facts for a second. Everyone’s sooo compassionate towards Hillary Clinton. Remind me what happens when her pathological streak gets the best of her in the middle of a war? I can see Hillary now, having locked herself in the oval office crying and saying she doesn’t know what to do. Yes this is a hyperbole, but you can understand this. There are plenty of women who wouldn’t have this problem. Hillary just isn’t that woman.
Obama on the other hand, has sort of…gotten his ass on his shoulders for “beating the Shoe-in” as some of you put it. He’s the new guy, Let’s not forget he can get an old guy to run with him…sayyy John Edwards? or Kerry? or well anyone that might just back him enough to make it look like he knows what he’s talking about.
I don’t want another Kennedy with all the best intentions but dismissed early from office for all of the worst reasons. That’s where we’re at. Wartime, economic Trough, what’s to stop this from being 1963 allll over again, well plus nuclear warfare. The new generation of college students are a load of liberal humanitarians that have been wanting to fight global warming and hating the war since they were in the 5th grade. What happens when these kids get into the world. We will be to another decade of supreme change! Do we need another summer of ’69?
1960 here I come?
On field of dreams, Clinton mangles metaphor
SOUTH BEND, INDIANA – Sports are a natural metaphor for political campaigns — both have winners and losers, competing teams, and a final score.
In basketball-mad Indiana, Democrat Hillary Clinton held a rally on Indiana University’s basketball court in Bloomington on Friday, while rival Barack Obama played a three-on-three game with supporters later that night.
On Saturday, Clinton headed to South Bend, best known as home to Notre Dame‘s Fighting Irish football team. Former president Ronald Reagan, a Republican, laid claim to that franchise long ago, thanks to his portrayal of Irish football player George “the Gipper” Gipp in the 1940 film “Knute Rockne: All American.”
Clinton opted to hold a rally at the city’s minor-league baseball park, where she received a jersey of the home Silver Hawks, a Single A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
“We know you’re going to knock it out of the park,” former Gov. Joe Kernan told Clinton in his opening remarks.
When Clinton came to bat, here’s what she said:
“We’re going to hit some of those balls out this stadium and out of our country stadium because we’re going to go to bat and fix America together.”
If you want to know what’ll happen after an election, follow the money. Hillary’s (what little is left) comes from the fat cats; Obama’s comes from 1,500,000 little guys. Guess who’s going to serve whom after the election.
And by the way, why didn’t Hillary appear in the CA court as she was supposed to in the Paul vs Clinton case?
Bowling on the Clinton plane
Journalists and staffers “bowl” tennis balls down the aisle of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign plane as it takes off from Gary, Indiana, on Friday night.
obama cannot be CinC too much dishonesty.
Book:’Audacity of hope’ He will stand with these guys , who are equal to WWII Enemies (characterwise), should the political wind shift in an ugly direction.
