Selene Posted August 24, 2014 Share Posted August 24, 2014 The Golf Address AUG. 23, 2014Maureen Dowd FORE! Score? And seven trillion rounds ago, our forecaddies brought forth on this continent a new playground, conceived by Robert Trent Jones, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal when it comes to spending as much time on the links as possible — even when it seems totally inappropriate, like moments after making a solemn statement condemning the grisly murder of a 40-year-old American journalist beheaded by ISIL.I know reporters didn’t get a chance to ask questions, but I had to bounce. I had a 1 p.m. tee time at Vineyard Golf Club with Alonzo Mourning and a part-owner of the Boston Celtics. Hillary and I agreed when we partied withVernon Jordan up here, hanging out with celebrities and rich folks is fun. Now we are engaged in a great civil divide in Ferguson, which does not even have a golf course, and that’s why I had a “logistical” issue with going there. We are testing whether that community, or any community so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure when the nation’s leader wants nothing more than to sink a birdie putt. We are met on a great field of that battle, not Augusta, not Pebble Beach, not Bethpage Black, not Burning Tree, but Farm Neck Golf Club in Martha’s Vineyard, which we can’t get enough of — me, Alonzo, Ray Allen and Marvin Nicholson, my trip director and favorite golfing partner who has played 134 rounds and counting with me. We have to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for my presidency, if I keep swinging from behind.Yet it is altogether fitting and proper that I should get to play as much golf as I want, despite all the lame jokes about how golf is turning into “a real handicap” for my presidency and how I have to “stay the course” with ISIL. I’ve heard all the carping that I should be in the Situation Room droning and plinking the bad folks. I know some people think I should go to Ferguson. Don’t they understand that I’ve delegated the Martin Luther King Jr. thing to Eric Holder? Plus, Valerie Jarrett and Al Sharpton have it under control. I know it doesn’t look good to have pictures of me grinning in a golf cart juxtaposed with ones of James Foley’s parents crying, and a distraught David Cameron rushing back from his vacation after only one day, and the Pentagon news conference with Chuck Hagel and General Dempsey on the failed mission to rescue the hostages in Syria. We’re stuck in the rough, going to war all over again in Iraq and maybe striking Syria, too. Every time Chuck says ISIL is “beyond anything we’ve ever seen,” I sprout seven more gray hairs. But my cool golf caps cover them. If only I could just play through the rest of my presidency. ISIL brutally killing hostages because we won’t pay ransoms, rumbles of coups with our puppets in Iraq and Afghanistan, the racial caldron in Ferguson, the Ebola outbreak, the Putin freakout — there’s enough awful stuff going on to give anyone the yips. So how can you blame me for wanting to unwind on the course or for five hours at dinner with my former assistant chef? He’s a great organic cook, and he’s got a gluten-free backyard putting green. But, in a larger sense, we can dedicate, we can consecrate, we can hallow this ground where I can get away from my wife, my mother-in-law, Uncle Joe, Congress and all the other hazards in my life. The brave foursomes, living and dead, who struggled here in the sand, in the trees, in the water, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or subtract a few strokes to improve our score. Bill Clinton was Mr. Mulligan, and he is twice at popular as I am. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we shot here, or why I haven’t invited a bunch of tiresome congressmen to tee it up. I’m trying to relax, guys. So I’d much rather stay in the bunker with my usual bros. Why don’t you play 18 with Mitch McConnell? And John Boehner is a lot better than me, so I don’t want to play with him. It is for us, the duffers, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who played here have thus far so nobly advanced to get young folks to stop spurning a game they find slow and boring. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us of getting rid of our slice on the public’s dime — that from this honored green we take increased devotion to that cause for which Bobby Jones, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy gave their last full measure of devotion — and divots. We here highly resolve that these golfing greats shall not have competed in vain, especially poor Tiger, and that this nation, under par, shall have a new birth of freedom to play the game that I have become unnaturally obsessedwith, and that golf of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. So help me Golf.Absolutely one of the finest pieces of political satire that exists in this "biased" media.A... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted August 24, 2014 Share Posted August 24, 2014 Adam,Even Glenn Beck called this brilliant (saying he never would have thought he would say that about anything Dowd wrote).I talked about this to Kat and she popped out with:Who is John Golf?Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted August 24, 2014 Author Share Posted August 24, 2014 Adam,Even Glenn Beck called this brilliant (saying he never would have thought he would say that about anything Dowd wrote).I talked about this to Kat and she popped out with:Who is John Golf? MichaelExcellent!Part of the beauty of a play on words or a pun is the quickness that someone makes the connection,Thanks to both of you for the birthday wishes, I was at the Yankee game with a good friend,By the way that is another connection to people that NBI and Objectivists just did not have a clue about.It also eliminated places where "moral," "ethical," economic and political lessons about our ideas could have taken root.A... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikee Posted August 24, 2014 Share Posted August 24, 2014 Golf damned he is... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted August 24, 2014 Author Share Posted August 24, 2014 Wait a minute, isn't golf predominantly a game played on land that is anti-global environment by "fat, rich, white, corporate one percenters [1 %]?Hmm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikee Posted August 24, 2014 Share Posted August 24, 2014 You're saying Obama is a golf damned hypocrite? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted August 24, 2014 Author Share Posted August 24, 2014 You're saying Obama is a golf damned hypocrite?Yep and he does it with no balls at all!Although he does get off on having those slaves minimum wage workers carry his clubs.Hey, come on he has the world at peace, the seas have receded, we have full employment, there is no racial tension and we all have affordable health care with our same physicianCut the guy some slack.Or, are you one of those racist, gun toten, right wing extremists?A... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikee Posted August 24, 2014 Share Posted August 24, 2014 Nah. Just teed off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jules Troy Posted August 24, 2014 Share Posted August 24, 2014 And to all the crazy people that chase the little white ball around 150 acres of land "Golfukyurselves"! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted August 24, 2014 Share Posted August 24, 2014 I'm happy so long as he doesn't start another Golf War.Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jules Troy Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 Bwuahaha! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted August 25, 2014 Author Share Posted August 25, 2014 As Mark Twain explained, and O'bama proves, golf is a great walk ruined.A... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moralist Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 Golf bless America... from tee to shining tee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted August 25, 2014 Author Share Posted August 25, 2014 Golf bless America... from tee to shining tee.Teeing off from thee East watch out for those five water hazards on the right.As always Canada is out of bounds with lose of one stroke and being disarmed for the rest of the course.Mother of a sand hazard before the Rockies also.A... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted August 25, 2014 Author Share Posted August 25, 2014 Watch out for the asshole on the 19th hole ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrell Hougen Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 This is a great thread. You should have posted in under humor.At any rate, I know this is not new and I've probably posted it before, but I can't resist: Darrell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jules Troy Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 Hahaha? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 This is a great thread. You should have posted in under humor.Darrell,Done.Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted August 26, 2014 Author Share Posted August 26, 2014 This is a great thread. You should have posted in under humor.Darrell,Done.MichaelAnd Michael typed the code and transmigrated the thread... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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