Amid growing concern about long-term brain injuries afflicting football players young and old, President Obama split the difference between his enthusiasm as the nation’s first sports fan and his responsibility as its highest-profile health advocate. In a recent interview with The New Republic, he went as far as saying, “If I had a son, I’d have to think long and hard before I let him play football.” That sentiment is understandable; millions of other parents are facing the same dilemma. Yet Obama let football leagues at all levels off the hook too easily, saying the sport will probably “change gradually” to “reduce some of the violence.”
The toll from football-related brain injuries is evident in the suicide of former Patriots linebacker Junior Seau, in the legions of players suffering from premature dementia, and in the more than 3,000 retired players who are accusing the National Football League of hiding information about the potential damage of concussions. There’s a reason the players’ union this week gave Harvard $100 million to study the health of retired players.
Comments
"Brain Injuries:Obama Punts the Football" Now isn't that a gratuitously critical headline. It doesn't even reflect content in the President's quotes in the editorial. Would you have Obama put his shoulder to the wheel for EVERY issue? That is a sure way to dilute his influence.
Gee spirnfan has an absolutely marvey suggestion . . . let's have a nationwide discussion of ways we can "dilute his (Obama's) influence. . . And put Deeval the Magnificent in the White House sooner rather than later. . .
The only possible reason that Barack Obama insists on nominating Chuck Hagel for the next Secretary of Defense (who in yesterday's Senate testimony shows that he wants to leave American and Israel DEFENSELSS) is that...Barack Obama has a brain injury. This would also explain why he is selling 20 fighter bombers to Mohammed Morsi's Egypt (OOPS the Globe FORGOT to report that one also).
And the Middle East is in major turmoil. Barack Obama and Hillary do nothing. The "Arab Spring" which the Globe heartily supported (OOPS, it's again "Groundhog Day" as in the movie where you are supposed to FORGET about the "Arab Spring" and how Obama started it)...What does the Globe report instead? FOOTBALL injuries...The editor hopes that its readers are Brain Dead.