Dowd

Much like many local football fans, the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd is quite take by ‘Skins phenom quarterback Robert Griffin III. She’s so impressed by his personality and on-field performance, in fact, that she penned a column yesterday on how President Obama could learn a little something from RGIII:

While Obama has developed an unnerving and enervating pattern of going into a prewin slump — as in New Hampshire and Texas in the 2008 primaries or the first debate with Mitt Romney — RGIII never allows his batteries to run down while he’s playing. His parents were Army sergeants — he was born in Okinawa, Japan, and his father served in Iraq — who imbued their son with the ethos of hard work and discipline. The only time Griffin drooped was when he got a concussion in the game against Atlanta.

While Obama prefers to preen as the man alone in the arena — keeping other pols at a distance on stage, parsimoniously handing out thanks and failing to mention his party or top surrogate Bill Clinton in his last victory speech — RGIII never passes up a chance to share credit.

While Obama — who has had a failure to communicate — finds media a bother, Griffin has an easy charm with the press. He never shows aggrievement.

While Obama gets tangled up in his head — trying to decide if he’s too noble to play politics or if spending some evenings schmoozing with pols and flattering them to further his agenda will leave him too depleted — RGIII keeps the joy, intensity and bonhomie in his game.

Dowd concludes: “Let’s hope that as Barry watches Robert, he’ll learn that stunning opponents with big plays, and then building on that excitement, can energize his teammates, scare his opponents and lead to big wins.”

Obviously, Dowd’s metaphor somewhat suffers from the fact that Griffin is a football player and Obama is running the country, not to mention the fact that you could certainly compare Obama’s signature legislative victory—health care reform—to a hell of a football win.