(Writer’s Note: For the purposes of this column, the current First Lady will be referred to as Dr. Jill Biden. Republicans, you’ve been warned.)
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FORT WORTH, Texas — Dr. Jill Biden is so smitten with the wholesomeness of the Iowa women’s basketball team that she wants to invite them to the White House.
An odd development considering that her husband is a winner and now Dr. Jill Biden wants to invite a loser to their home. We know someone who wouldn’t invite a loser to his house, even though “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” is technically a loser himself.
Fun-with-facts aside, Dr. Jill Biden can’t do this.
On Monday, the day after Iowa was crushed by LSU in the national title game at the American Airlines Center, word spread that Dr. Jill Biden wants Caitlin Clark to visit her and President Joe Biden at their house. She wants both LSU and Iowa there. At the same time.
All this reported invite does is reinforce the perception that Democrats want to reward losing, to give everyone a trophy, and that they all secretly are socialists who yearn for long bread lines. To the loser go the spoils.
This is really just a sweet gesture. It’s a sweet gesture that should never have been uttered outside but that of a few people.
After “reading the room,” her press secretary, Venessa Valdivia, issued this statement via Twitter, “Her comments in Colorado were intended to applaud the historic game and all women athletes. She looks forward to celebrating the LSU Tigers on their championship win at the White House.”
The potential visual of Iowa’s Caitlin Clark standing next to LSU’s Angel Reese and both flashing a “You can’t see me” gesture in the Oval Office is tempting. That would be good for the women’s game.
Regardless of WWE theatrics, a chief of staff, a director of communications, a White House janitor, someone should have immediately screamed, “No! No! No! No! No! No! Noooooooooo!” until Dr. Jill Biden got the point.
Dr. Jill Biden attended the title game, and she was impressed with Iowa. Anyone who watched Clark would be impressed.
So, rather than invite just the winner she reportedly wanted to invite the loser, too. Much to the delight of all of the producers of conservative news talk shows, and websites. Dr. Jill Biden should demand at least $500,000 for handing Fox News days worth of “newstainment” programming content.
You can’t do this.
It would be stupid and offensive to suggest that Dr. Jill Biden’s affection for the Iowa women’s basketball team is based on race. The Iowa team is mostly white, whereas most of the players from LSU are Black.
Say whatever you want about President Biden, or First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, but they live equal-opportunity; he was the Vice President for our nation’s first Black President for a reason.
This isn’t about race.
One of the perks to winning a national title is scoring an invite to the White House, a tradition that unofficially began after the end of the Civil War when President Andrew Johnson invited a baseball team from Brooklyn.
You know who didn’t receive an invite to the White House? The 1919 Chicago Black Sox.
You know who didn’t receive an invite to the White House? The 1989 Denver Broncos, after they lost to the San Francisco 49ers, 55-10, in the Super Bowl.
Why didn’t Dr. Jill Biden invite the 2022 TCU football team to the White House? The Horned Frogs were the cutest, most adorable story of the fall. They weren’t invited to the White House because they lost 65-7 in the national title game against Georgia.
A sports team receiving an invite to the White House is one of those photo ops that make sense only because it’s tradition.
Wouldn’t our President’s time be better served doing something other than honoring the Boston Bruins, Houston Astros or any team whose goal is profit? Why not invite the executive teams, from Apple, Wells Fargo and Wal-Mart every spring?
A championship team taking a photo with the POTUS is tradition, so it stays. And receiving an invite to the White House should always be a big deal, regardless of who sits in the Oval Office.
Dr. Jill Biden’s potential invite is just a cute gesture. Also, Dr. Jill Biden’s potential invite is misguided, and needless.
LSU earned its invitation to the White House, and the next time the Tigers see the Hawkeyes it should be on the court, not in White House rose garden.
