Simmons/Obama Podcast

What a coup for Simmons to get Obama on Podcast to discuss sports.

I enjoyed listening, but something stood out to me that I hadn't really noticed before: Obama's arrogance. Of course I've heard conservatives talk about it - but I dismissed it as political posturing. Obviously anyone who runs for President is going to be A LITTLE big arrogant and so what's the big deal. But listening to him talk about sports with Simmons, even Simmons noticed and teased him about it. Obama found it necessary to mention he had a podcast before podcasts were a big thing, he had to mention he knew about Jeremy Lin before Linsanity, he guaranteed the Bulls would win a championship while he was in office, he boasted of crossing over Chris Paul (yeah right), he boasted about winning a game of HORSE against some female college star, he kind of bragged about hanging out with a bunch of NBA players at Vince Carter's house, he boasted about never taking mulligans and counting his entire score in golf, he told a story about swishing a 3-pointer in Iraq when visiting the troops, he says he coached his girls basketball team (Really? I find this hard to believe). Anyone one of these things, taken alone, could be a good story and I understand he was purposefully being funny and "falsely" arrogant about some of them. But taken together, in such a short period of time, I was like "dude...you are protesting too much." Anyhow, I guess this is what happens when you need to constantly defend your record against attack all the time, you develop this false bravado, this wall, and do the self-mythologizing, but still, on a folksy podcast like Simmons (which I listen to all the time), if felt arrogant and like a dude I wouldn't really want to hang out with.