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Sports Illustrated

Posted on 03/21/2003 3:20 PM CST by ruppertdog

I just received my March Madness SI in the mail. In the back is a book excerpt about presidents and golf. The chapter features Bill Clinton. I apologize for there being no link to the excerpt, I couldn't find it on the web.

It is one of the funniest things I have ever read in my life, and a nice turn from a magazine that routinely publishes left leaning policy articles that I am used to seeing in National Geographic. (Uninformed negative positions on oil drilling in Alaska and a sewer plant near a giant cave in Tennessee are recent examples that come to mind)

The article reinforces the "Clintoon" character that is our ex-president. He has created his own set of rules that turn golf into a shell game. The story talks about 50-foot gimme puts and the 3-4 "Billigans" Clinton hits after EVERY shot. He then mixes his first official ball up with one of the "Billigans" to improve his game. Clinton usually shoots in the low eighties on these outings, but in tournaments where he can't cheat he is lucky to break 95. The author shaves 15 strokes off of his round playing Clinton golf.

Clinton tells the other golfers that he considered playing and practicing to scratch and joining the Senior PGA, but he is too busy with public policy to do this. Sure, he could be a pro golfer! The most ridiculous part of the article is Clinton talking about his high school church basketball team. He claims to lead the team off of the bench to victory one time, scoring 16 points punctuated with a slam dunk. What a character! Our Senior PGA, Slam dunking ex- president.

Anyway, I highly recommend reading the article. It is very entertaining and I really laughed pretty hard at parts of it. How the hell this guy ever got to be President for eight years is beyond me!

Twelve years ago, when Peter Arnett was holed up in Baghdad for the first war on Iraq, Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) was widely condemned for calling Arnett an Iraqi "sympathizer" whose brother-in-law had been "active in the Viet Cong."

After Arnett's son wrote in the New York Times about the pain Simpson's "smear" had caused the Arnett family, Simpson apologized to the New Zealand-born journalist, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in Vietnam. "I greatly regret the hurt, pain and anguish I have caused," Simpson wrote to the Times.

But yesterday the 72-year-old retired senator was in no mood to apologize.

Rest of story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63007-2003Mar31.html