NCAA March Madness, Obama's Priority Madness

While working out at the gym today I was able to watch what is going on in the world on the overhead TVs:

• Gas prices have come down slightly in the past week but are still about double what they were when President Obama took office.
• Israel is extensively bombing the Gaza Strip as the Palestinians in Gaza are extensively sending rockets into Israel.
• Leon Panetta, our Secretary of Defense, narrowly escaped assassination when visiting Afghanistan.
• Afghanistan authorities and citizens are still justifiably upset about the killings of civilians by an American soldier, especially since that soldier has been removed from the country, further eroding the two countries relationships.
• Peace talks with the Taliban, a potential avenue for peace and and exit out of Afghanistan, have broken down.
• 351,000 Americans filed for first time unemployment benefits again this week.
• Civilians in Syria continue to be slaughtered by government military forces.

In other news, not seen this morning on TV:

• Over 15 million Americans are still unemployed or underemployed.
• Iran continues its march to nuclear weapons.
• Food stamp recipients are at an all time high.
• Our public schools continue to under educate our kids.
• A new Congressional Budget Office report shows that the cost of implementing Obama Care may be twice as much as the administration originally sold the plan as; the new cost estimates are about $1.7 TRILLION vs. the original $900 billion estimate.
• We continue to not have a coherent national energy strategy, resulting in continued importation of energy sources from outside the country.
• We are still  losing the war on drugs, enriching an increasingly violent set of drug cartels in Mexico everyday.
• The national debt continues to climb towards $16 TRILLION, about a $140,000 liability for every American family.
• Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid continue their march towards insolvency.

Okay, things are not going well for the U.S., both in within country and outside the country. There is a lot of work to be done, work that has either been done poorly by the political class or not done at all. Very somber and depressing times.

And what then pops up on the TVs? On ESPN we see that President Obama is providing a detailed breakdown on how he thinks the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament will play out. He stands in front of a large easel with the 64 teams posted and proceeds to spend a rather considerate amount of time to go through all of the brackets and rounds as the camera rolls.

We find out how far Obama thinks favorite Kentucky University will go while the volatile situation in the Middle East continues to deteriorate. We find out what players Obama thinks will be impactful while the economy continues to falter. We find out what teams Obama thinks will make the Final Four while the major problems facing the country continue to go unaddressed.

And this will probably be not the end of it. If the President's behavior is similar to what he did last year, he will repeat the same process in the next few days for the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament. More time to prep, more time to set up the shoot, more time filming, more government resources used to set everything up, all while the above two lists of issues rage on.

Now, some people might think that I am being nit-picky. That the President has the same right to relax from his very tough job and do what works for him to recharge his batteries like any other American. And like many other Americans, he is following the two tournaments by putting together and following his picks. No problem, and no problem if he even wants to get into a White House pool like many other American organizations and friends do.

But that can all be done on his free time, behind the scenes. The country is suffering in so many and, in my opinion, this filming and airing of his opinion on two sporting events is not very Presidential. I find it pompous and condescending, and a distraction from the many major issues of the day. I would rather he spent this valuable time on the dozens of issues that should supersede the NCAA basketball tournaments.

Being President is certainly not an easy job. But no one forced Obama to run for President, he made that choice himself. If he would rather waste time and hot air on his basketball picks in our current environment, than he should not run for a second term and dedicate his time to his picks and other sporting endeavors.

We have reported many times in this blog that this President seems to have wasted more time with more athletic teams than any other President in my lifetime. Trading off a few athletic team photo ops to solve a problem or two would certainly have served his historic legacy a lot better.

In about eight weeks, no one is likely to remember, or care, how well his tournament picks did, regardless of how well he did. But in the years and decades to follow, they certainly would have remembered how he solved our drug addiction problem, fixed our schools, or put together a coherent energy program (as compared to what he has done in this area so far, e.g. Solyndra).

Imagine what the hypocritical main stream press and the Democrats would be saying if President Bush spent as much time with athletic team photo ops and picking and broadcasting his personal basketball picks and insights. They crucified Bush every time he went to his ranch in Texas, they would have been just as outraged if he did what Obama was doing at tournament time.

I find this annual waste of the President's time and government resources pompous, condescending, trivial, hypocritical, and totally worthless when it comes to being President of the United States, It is a disgraceful set of bad priorities in a nation that needs to gets its priorities straight if we are to ever fix anything that ails the country.

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http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of our times.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/