Think the debt-ceiling fracas and ensuing credit-rating downgrade were bad? Try messing with America’s pastime. It appears, however, that the White House, NBC and the National Football League will work something out.
President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver a jobs speech to a joint session of Congress — and to the nation via live television on the major networks and cable news channels — on Thursday, Sept. 8, the same night the NFL kicks off the 2011 season on NBC with a game between defending Super Bowl champs the Green Bay Packers and their Lombardi Trophy-winning predecessors, the New Orleans Saints.
Per a long-standing custom between the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, Obama made a perfunctory request to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, asking that both chambers convene on Wednesday, Sept. 7 for the speech. But Boehner, in an apparent first, rebuffed the president’s request, evidently so the speech wouldn’t upstage a Republican presidential candidate debate scheduled for Wednesday. The White House agreed to move the speech to the following evening, to which Football Nation replied, “What the?”
Obama’s address is scheduled for 7 p.m. Central Standard Time; kick off at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisc., is set for 30 minutes later. Has a nationally televised presidential address to a joint session of Congress ever run less than a half hour? We can’t recall one. But a White House official tells Huffington Post today, “We won’t conflict with football.” And ProFootballTalk.com cites an NBC spokesman as saying “We’re aware of the situtation and are communicating with the NFL.”
It’s unclear what will happen, but clearly either Obama must step up to the podium earlier or the Packers-Saints have to kick off later, or both. Or else.
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JUNE 19 Former Saint Steve Gleason, who is paralyzed by ALS, released a statement Tuesday in response to the Atlanta radio station's skit making fun of him and the disease, this Picayune post reports. What did he say? He said he'd accepted the apology of the DJs who did it, notes that at least the incident has got people talking about ALS, and asks anyone who is burning to take action about it to do so -- by helping him fight ALS.
JUNE 19 Blogger Ian McGibboney takes a look at the Gleason incident in this post. He makes a good argument about the difference between having free speech and being free from consequences for your speech (which none of us is). He also admits that many of us got upset before we listened to the skit -- but lets us know that the reality is far worse than we can imagine. It was the incredibly bad judgment, even more than the actual speech, that probably got those DJs fired, he opines.
JUNE 19 Washington Post blogger Aaron Blake writes about Sen. Guillory's switch to the GOP in this post. He writes what most political watchers in Louisiana know: Guillory was a Republican before he decided to run for the senate seat in a mostly-D St. Landry district, and has switched back now that he plans to run for Lt. Gov. in a mostly-R state. But how come Blake missed Guillory's appearance on a TLC pageant show? Now that is a video we'd like to see. (Again).
JUNE 19 Here's another Washington Post blog post about a Louisiana politician, and it's just plain scathing. Ezra Klein says Jindal's Politico post was "insulting" to the intelligence of voters, and adds that Jindal is personifying the "stupid" he's railed against, by being an "elite" who convinces GOP activists of "things that aren't true." Me-ow.
JUNE 19 Here's Gov. Jindal's post in Politico, in which he asks the GOP to get over losing to Obama (again) and stop "the bedwetting." (Uh, what?) He gives his Republican buddies what is probably a nerd's idea of a coach's motivational talk, which starts with a list of accomplishments that they can't seem to exploit and ending with an absurd description of liberals that sounds like a character treatment for a Fox "News" movie scripted by Gordon Liddy. Sure, he's preaching to the choir, but even the choir's not this gullible.
JUNE 19 Lamar Parmentel read Gov. Jindal's post on Politico, but thinks it was so dumb it probably was published in the wrong paper. This post by Lamar on the Daily Kingfish opines that possibly Jindal's post was destined for the Onion -- because the governor couldn't possibly be serious here. If you listen closely, you can hear the staff of the Kingfish giggling.
JUNE 19 Blogger Robert Mann posts from Turkey, a country he has visited several times in the past few years. Mann gives an interesting overview of the current political and societal climate of the country, which -- if you're living under a rock and don't know -- is experiencing protests and turmoil these days. Mann promises to post as much as he can during his trip, which should be fascinating reading.
JUNE 19 Blogger CB Forgotston says the legislature is keeping the vicious cycle going with its funding of new buildings for the community college/technical college system. Universities across the state need maintenance and improvement on existing buildings, and the solution is to build new buildings at other schools? By the time the bonds are paid off, those buildings will be falling down, too, CB says.
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Of all the "noise" I have watched on this topic, yours is up there among the best!