Prometheus 6

Compared with the previous White House, this frat house metaphor is stretching it pretty far. 

Maybe this was originally a column about Bush that they didn't dare print at the time. (Bush, unlike Obama, would actually have banned the journalist.)

There's really only one question here. Is it a good thing that men (appointees, representatives, etc.) have access to the President that women don't have?

If it isn't a good thing, then something has to be done about the game. All the other stuff doesn't matter.

Oh. And this coming from a lifelong baller who really enjoys having a baller in the white house.

And sometimes a basketball game between guys is just a basketball game between guys. Much ado about nothing.

If it isn't a good thing, then something has to be done about the game.

I just don't see much business being conducted around "give and go's" and "pick and rolls." Maybe if they hire refs and call shooting fouls, the players might have time to talk policy but...

If it isn't a good thing

...it does not automatically become a bad thing. Is it a bad thing that the men in the White House doesn't have the access Mrs. Obama has?

If everyone has the access they need to do their job, it's all good as far as I'm concerned.

I just don't see much business being conducted around "give and go's" and "pick and rolls."

kspence has a point. Access is access and face time is face time. Being able to spend a social half hour to an hour with the President builds trust for other things even if they don't talk much business. That said, 30 seconds to comment on a national issue while catching your breath is 30 seconds other people don't get. It also allows "in-jokes" back at work that non-players (male as well as female but that's a different issue) just can't participate in unless they were there. I think I recall from the campaign that Samantha Power could keep up on the court, but can Valerie Jarrett?

Sorry guys but I ain't buying. Our presidents basically live in a military fort and are surrounded 24/7 by other folks. There is very little real privacy afforded them. Bill Clinton was right when he referred to the White House as the "crown jewel of the federal prison system." If Obama or some other president wants to shoot hoops for an hour or so with a bunch of guys I think it is okay. I'm just trying to be realistic here, not sympathetic to Obama's plight. He did, after all, ask for the job.  Sometimes a basketball game is just a basketball game. If you're close enough to work in the White House, then you are presumably smart enough to figure out how to get your 30 seconds if you need it. If not, not.

Sometimes a basketball game is just a basketball game.

I think so too. I can't tell the difference from here, though, so it's worth pondering & checking on even if it eventually turns out to be a non-issue. I know from experience that face time matters in the workaday world. As none of these people (e.g. Jarrett) are political amateurs, the ones who get appropriate face time both on and off the court seem to be clear winners. But we may only discover in retrospect whether this influenced the big decisions. I think it is incumbent on Obama to be cognizant of such concerns while still getting some true recreation time to suit himself.

BTW a symptom that keeps this kind of discussion viable is Obama bringing in Lawrence Summers as a top adviser. I think Summers got about half a bad rap at Harvard, but he still sticks in the craw of some. Obama must know this.

I think Summers got about half a bad rap at Harvard, but he still sticks in the craw of some. Obama must know this.

Well, as an alumnus of that particular institution I think Summers got exactly what he deserved. I could care less about the alleged particulars of his conversation with Cornell West, for example, but Summers should have had sense enough to know that how he went about addressing his concerns was not how things are done at Harvard if you are the president of the university. You just can't go around pissing off groups of people there and hope to survive as the school's leader in this day and age.

As for Obama hiring Summers, well, he can hire who he wants and the next time around I can vote for who I want as well.

I'm trying to see where the fire is beyond all this smoke.  Seriously, where is the serious allegation of Obama showing favoritism towards his male B-ball staffers?  Without one or two or so, it's easy to see how this is little more than bullshit (and from a Clinton supporter, no doubt).  And it's funny how golf is mentioned.  Are we to assume that Obama or any former president golfed (not to mention hunted) with uni-sex staff groupings?  GTFOoH!

Appropriately categorized:  ON BULLSHIT!

Back to the Clinton team...  It's like they're drowning victims hooked on nicotine.  Their nerves are shot and no matter how wet the match, they're going to keep on trying to find one that will light...

How many co-ed basketball games do you know of? when my former boyfriends would say, ' I'm going to play ball', I'll be honest..if I rolled up later to watch them, I never expected to see any WOMEN on the court. some played in leagues...never saw them play against women...this is a bullshyt article.

Just as importantly, how many women on the White House staff play basketball? And yeah, I really want those pictures of Valerie Jarrett in a cut off t-shirt and gym shorts setting a pick...

BWA H AH HA HA HA HA HA HA

the visual..the visual....

Rikyrah I've played in a number of co-ed games over the years, but desire isn't really the point. The point is access.

Let's go back twenty years. Black (male) professionals were told they had to learn how to play golf and tennis because deals were often cut on the golf course/tennis court. (White) women fought for inclusion in county clubs because they felt that the glass ceiling was reproduced by their lack of access.

One of my older cousins is a doctor. Been playing pickup ball for over 40 years. There are now traveling leagues for people 50 and over, 60 and over, 80 and over! When I heard this I thought that this was a very modern phenomenon...and that it was extremely progressive as far as those things go. I LIKE golf, but I no longer had to think about picking it up if I wanted to be connected in networks of privilege. I could play ball and get access to the same professional folk I could if I played golf.

This feeling was heightened when I heard about the Presidents game. I don't have the link but the Washington Post had a story about how all TYPES of folks were either trying to get their game BACK or were trying to LEARN the game so they could be invited to play with the President. Now why the hell would people try to learn a game they don't play anyway JUST to be around the President?

Is there anyone who doesn't have the access to do their job?

After that question is resolved, I'll be willing to discuss people's personal ambition.

The two are related. And given the history of institutions like this being used NOT just to withhold personal resources and stifle personal ambition but to withhold resources to aggregates, we should BEGIN with the assumption that these types of activities reproduce sexism/racism, and then wait for evidence otherwise. Just because we've got a black President all of a sudden doesn't mean we start off assuming good will--oh they're just playing ball, you know how men do, why would women want to play ball ANYWAY? (i mean WOMEN...you know, like valerie jarrett...)

In my previous life I was ignorant enough to think it was only about access in the workplace. All my bosses save one had an open door policy so it wasn't that. At the end of my first career, or rather "between careers" which turned out to be a little late, a white retiree flat out told me that how I suspected the system worked was indeed exactly how it worked, and I still have his e-mail. A minority-- specifically a black man-- needed to get his butt onto the golf course. Fair or not, you're judged by your work and by "the cut of your jib." including how you socialize with the people who hire, fire, and promote. One of my previous bosses was a runner and the two guys who ran with him were in more solid than his own chief exec. In retrospect, I was borderline athletic and I did get a couple of plums tossed my way.

This is a different issue for me now because I'm on my second career. There's still politics and (shudder) social capital in my corner of academia, but I have a different outlook from those who are just making ends meet with their teaching. Tell you what, though, I'm about to find out what matters thanks to the CA state budget. All other things being equal on paper, once the union contract is satisfied the administrators can do rock-paper-scissors to decide who teaches and how much. I still don't golf and I don't live on faculty row near the university bosses either. Do those weekend barbecues out there matter? We'll see.

In my previous life I was ignorant enough to think it was only about access in the workplace.

Did I limit my question to the workplace? No.

But I didn't want to over-parse your question, either. None of this, including (or especially) the original article, is about just being able to do your job.

Questions should be parsed as much as necessary, but no more. To make that possible in my case, let me explain that nowadays I'm trying to work the collective and the individual into my analyses at the same time because one must deal with them at the same time. Discussing the individual responses within the collective circumstance may make it more difficult to anticipate which way I'll take an argument because no one does that.

As to this particular discussion, I agree with the general principle Spence raised but in the specific case there's no 'there' there. Everyone in the White House is an insider and every one of them will leave with the reputation of being a wunderkind or an eminence grise. The article was the product of a slow news day

Everyone in the White House is an insider and every one of them will leave with the reputation of being a wunderkind or an eminence grise.

Speak.

Why is this even a story?

Slow news day.

I don't know why anyone who was remotely following last years primaries/election don't see this is a continuation of the "Obama is a sexist" meme and all the projected bs put out there by Clinton operatives who tried to do any and everything to paint Obama in a negative light, so much so that anything he did that wasn't 110% pure was presumed to be a glaring blemish and cause for concern...

I agree with the general principle Spence raised but in the specific case there's no 'there' there.

I'm saying if people believe there is a "there"... there, point out a specific instance, a specific policy decision where Obama favored his ball-buddies and/or credited them or entrusted them with an assignment female staffers either introduced or were better suited for.  It's just that simple.  Either there's fire somewhere or someone is just blowing what is now routine bs smoke.