Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader continues to lament the puff pieces on President Obama that seem to pop up every few days. The latest… This one from the WaPo on Obama’s golf game. The opening of the piece:

Although far better known as a hoops man, President Obama seems to be morphing into a golf nut these days. He’s hit the course five times since late April — rushing out to the links on Sunday afternoon just 90 minutes after returning to the White House from his overseas trip. The wife and kids were still back in Paris; no time like the present to get in nine holes.

And so Obama joins a long, storied and sometimes comic tradition: He is the 15th of the past 18 presidents to play golf.

What’s the deal? Why golf?

The attraction would seem simple. It’s a great escape; the game demands such attention that nothing else matters. It’s time spent with friends, an unhurried afternoon in loose clothing (shorts seem to be Obama’s preference). Yet nothing is without deeper meaning where the presidency is concerned. The golfer in chief’s approach to the game is subject to analysis in psychological and political contexts.

To some, Obama’s frequent outings reflect a cool self-confidence. “Given all the things that are going on in the world and with the economy,” says sports psychologist Bob Rotella, “you’d think he wouldn’t be caught anywhere near the golf course . . . To some degree it says: ‘I’m not going to worry about what people say about me. I’m going to do my job, and I’m going to play, too.’ ”

Ugh. It just gets worse from there…

One wonders for how much longer the press corps can just write another “Oh. My. Gawd. The President is just soooooo dreamy!” piece…

Your Maximum Leader thinks he wants to vomit now…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader finds himself with a lot to blog about but little time or inclination to blog. As the school year is ending for his offspring (and wife - a teacher) there is a lot of stuff going on. Additionally, he has been rather emotional about the condition of his best buddy Kevin’s mom. Kevin’s family is just like my own and all that has happened since April has been difficult.

If you want great content day after day, check out our friend Fear and Loathing in Georgetown. FLG has the goods and is much more interesting than anything that I’ve been producing recently.

Of course you should also check out Robbo (and Robbo and LMC), Skippy, Ellison, Sir Basil, all those at Patum Peperium, Eric, Joan, R.S. McCain (I should note that Stacy McCain does appear to be the hardest working man in the blog business. As he himself notes, you can’t out-work the son of an Alabama dirt farmer. I sure couldn’t), the great V-man and of course Dead Sexy Sadie (aka Agent Bedhead).

Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure what will be in store in this spot…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has done something he doesn’t do very often. He’s gone to the movies. He went and saw “Star Trek” a few weeks ago. He saw “The Hangover” on Friday night.

Your Maximum Leader is something of a Trekkie. So he approached the “reboot” of the franchise with a little trepidation. All in all the film was very good and quite entertaining. He is a bit put off with the destruction of Vulcan (and the death of Amanda - Spock’s mother, played by one of your Maximum Leader’s favorites Winonna Ryder). He also wonders if Star Trek will ever be able to tell a decent story without some sort of time/space continuum story-line. This film did a great job of it, but it is a tired formula.

Oh yeah… And the actress who plays Uhura is HAWT! Grrr baby! Very Grrr!

Last Friday night your Maximum Leader went out and saw “The Hangover.”

Three days later he still has a small sore spot in his side from laughing so hard. It is a great fun film. All in all your Maximum Leader will agree with Ted at Pajiba’s review. The points of disagreement with Ted are these: 1) the short transitions that he mentions were necessary to catch your breath if you were watching in a crowded cinema; 2) your Maximum Leader doesn’t see how Heather Graham’s role could have been improved by a more talented comedic actress. It was a bit part.

Two thumbs up for both films… Catch ‘em if you can.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees on the Entertainment wire that actor David Carradine was found dead in his hotel room in Bangkok today. Apparently Carradine hanged himself. One wonders why… Your Maximum Leader wonders if news of some auto-erotic asphixiation thingie will come out in the news soon. Like that guy from INXS…

Your Maximum Leader was a fan of “Kung Fu” and the “Kill Bill” movies. Although Carradine was older, it seems sad that he should go out this way.

RIP

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader did a very bad thing yesterday. While talking baseball with a friend he was asked if Randy Johnson would gain his 300th win yesterday versus the Washington Nationals. Your Maximum Leader said that he felt Johnson would become a 300 game winner yesterday. The friend believed that the Nats would hold off the Giants, or at least force a no-decision for Johnson (as the Nats often play you close then lose when they go to the bullpen). We went back and forth on this for a little while.

Then it happened.

The “wanna lay a wager on that” was thrown down.

Your Maximum Leader, in a moment of pique, bet against his team. It was his standard bet, $1.

Every since your Maximum Leader has felt guilty. His guilt is now extended as the game was rained out last night and rescheduled for today.

This can only mean bad karma will come your Maximum Leader’s way.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that his beloved Washington Nationals are no longer dead last in TV viewing numbers… They have moved from 30th to 29th and doubled the number of viewers in their market.

Woo hoo bay-bee! Watch out we’re gunning for 28th!

If you recall last year your Maximum Leader was amazed that the Nats were only garnering about 6,000 viewers per game. Between your Maximum Leader’s family and Robbo’s family that accounted for a fair number of those 6,000 viewers. Now it looks like the Nats are getting about 12,000 viewers per game.

Of course, if you gave everyone watching on TV a free ticket to the game (and still kept the crowd in the stadium) the Nats ballpark would still not sell out.

That is not too encouraging.

What is encouraging is that everyone seems to like Rob Dibble. Your Maximum Leader certainly does like Dibs in the booth giving the color commentary on the games. He is great.

Your Maximum Leader will likely hit his first Nats game of the year later this month. After school is out his schedule is much more flexible…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader would like to thank “Passing Minion” for a comment and suggestion he/she left to a post last week.

In the post last week your Maximum Leader noted that he was listening to Ida Maria’s “I like you so much better when you’re naked.” Passing Minion wrote that if your Maximum Leader liked Ida Maria, he might like a band called “The Cocktail Slippers.”

Well… Your Maximum Leader must have a thing for Alternative Rocker Viking Chicks (both Ida Maria and the Cocktail Slippers are Norweigian). He is liking the Cocktail Slippers quite a bit. He bought three songs off iTunes and might go ahead and buy the whole “Saint Valentines Day Massacre” album.

Thanks for the tip.

BTW, your Maximum Leader was thinking that “Fez and the Smoking Jackets” would be a cool name for an Alt-rock band…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader had a nice weekend. He and Villainette #1 managed to sneak away to DC for a little bit and see the Abraham Lincoln exhibit at the American History Museum on Saturday. That was fun. He also managed to help Mrs Villain clean some of the gutters on the Villainschloss. (They had become filled with tree pollen.)

The whole Villainous family wished fare-thee-wells to his sainted in-laws as they are starting a vacation that will take them to Ecuador, Peru and the Galapagos Islands.

All in all it was a nice weekend.

Your Maximum Leader wonders what will happen this week…

GM is in bankruptcy court now. Your Maximum Leader is sure that the Obama Administration will again play fast and loose with contract law in the restructuring. Of all of the current administration’s policies and actions the handling of the automaker bankruptcies is the most distressing. They have no regard for the law or how the law has been applied for years. It is terribly distressing.

Your Maximum Leader caught some sort of blurb on tv this morning talking all about the Obama’s “date” to New York City over the weekend. Is this just another favorable press story about the Obamas? Is it really news worthy? Speaking of this… Did you read Robert Samuelson’s piece in the WaPo today? The Obama Infatuation. Samuelson writes:

The Obama infatuation is a great unreported story of our time. Has any recent president basked in so much favorable media coverage? Well, maybe John Kennedy for a moment, but no president since. On the whole, this is not healthy for America.

Our political system works best when a president faces checks on his power. But the main checks on Obama are modest. They come from congressional Democrats, who largely share his goals if not always his means. The leaderless and confused Republicans don’t provide effective opposition. And the press — on domestic, if not foreign, policy — has so far largely abdicated its role as skeptical observer.

Obama has inspired a collective fawning. What started in the campaign (the chief victim was Hillary Clinton, not John McCain) has continued, as a study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism shows. It concludes: “President Barack Obama has enjoyed substantially more positive media coverage than either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush during their first months in the White House.”

This comes as no big shocker to anyone of your Maximum Leader’s political persuasion. He does believe it is important to note this in that one suspects that the voices from the center and left will start to sound off against Obama more and more. One hopes that very soon someone of the left will start to open their eyes and look around and realize that they have to be more critical of him if they care at all about the ideals they purport to uphold.

Carry on.