Bush runs White House with sports metaphors

Switch in power, not sports talk
In October, just before the congressional elections, Bush said Democrats were a tad arrogant in assessing their chances of winning control.

"They're dancing in the end zone," he said. "They just haven't scored the touchdown."

Then the Democrats won.

So the power dynamic changed, but not the sports talk.

How does the White House choose to challenge leaders in Congress? "Step up to the plate," Bush spokesman Tony Snow said.

What is the Democrats' motivation for investigating the firing of eight fired U.S. attorneys? "An opportunity to score political points," Bush claimed.

Will Bush now start vetoing more bills? "The ball really lies in the court of those in Congress," Snow said.

At heart, Bush is a baseball guy, a former co-owner of the Texas Rangers. He knows the rule when the ball and the runner reach first base at the same time: The tie goes to the runner.

Turns out, that is exactly how Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts explained a ruling that loosened campaign finance regulations.

"Where the First Amendment is implicated," Roberts wrote, "the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor."

Even the spy world can be explained by sports metaphors; CIA Director Michael Hayden uses them all the time.

Pressed to justify why so many senior intelligence jobs are filled by people with military backgrounds, Hayden used a phrase better associated with a general manager of a football team: "They were the best athletes available in the draft."

As for Bush, it is no surprise that sports metaphors come easily, said Ray, a retired professor from Western Michigan University.

"With his baseball background, and with the way presidents have honored sports champions, it's a natural," Ray said.

The underdog of politics
Indeed, if Bush is ever free to put life in the context of sports, it is when teams come by the White House. He loves relating an underdog story to his political career.

"They said you didn't have a chance," he told the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers in 2006. "I kind of know the feeling."

One bit of caution, however, applies to explaining sensitive matters in sports terms — don't shoot and miss.

Just ask former CIA Director George Tenet.

In the run-up to the war in Iraq, Tenet chose a common basketball phrase to describe the strength of the case against Saddam Hussein. Tenet now says he was talking broadly about the case that could be made against the dictator — not a faulty assurance that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Either way, his wording has come to haunt him.

It was not, as he infamously put it, a "slam dunk."

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