Writing about the suspension of Alex Rodriguez from baseball through the 2014 season, David Brooks, in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The A-Rod Problem" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/opinion/brooks-the-a-rod-problem.html?_r=0), describes . . . his own preoccupation with self when he first began writing his column a decade ago. Brooks tells us:
"So, especially in the first few months, I had a self-preoccupied question on my mind: How am I doing? There was no noncrazy-making answer to that question. I was always looking for some ultimate validation, which, of course, can never come. But, after a little while, I settled into a routine and my focus shifted from my own performance to the actual subjects I was writing about. This shift from performance to subject may not have made the columns any better, but it sure did improve my psychic equilibrium.
That period was a lesson in the perils of self-preoccupation."
Of course, no one is accusing Obama of taking performance enhancing drugs. If there was such a thing for leadership in presidents, I wish he would consider it.
Also, regarding performance enhancement, teleprompters have yet to be declared illegal.
But with the economy in shambles and a non-existent foreign policy (unless you want to call "leading from behind" a foreign policy), isn't it a pity that Obama can't be threatened with suspension during the 2014 season?
On the other hand, who would be pitching in his absence? Joe "Shotgun" Biden?
Maybe we're better off keeping Obama on the roster.
