Obama intends to play some pickup basketball.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who enjoys shooting hoops with family and friends, will take on a couple of tougher — and much taller –opponents Sunday: the Phoenix Suns’ Grant Hill and the Houston Rockets’ Shane Battier.

The game of presidential pickup will be held at Fort McNair in southwest Washington before an audience of “wounded warriors” and participants in the White House mentoring program, the White House press office said.

Hill told the Washington Post he was in town to play, along with a handful of other pros, including Battier.

First Shooter Obama, at 6’2”, will find some tough competition on the court: Hill and Battier, both forwards, are each 6’ 8”.

It’s been a bachelor sporting weekend for Obama, whose wife , Michelle, and younger daughter, Sasha, are in Spain and whose older daughter, Malia, is away at camp. On Saturday he played golf at Andrews Air Force Base.

Is this a bad joke?  Let’s contrast one administration official with another.  One might agree or disagree with the decisions made by Secretary Gates, but he cares about the men under his charge (from February 2008).

At the Marine Corps Association’s annual dinner in July, Gates cried while eulogizing Capt. Douglas Zembiec, a marine known as “the lion of Fallujah,” who had recently died in battle. By that time, Gates was writing personal notes at the bottom of every condolence letter sent to families of troops killed in battle. “I want the recipient of that note to know that the secretary of defense actually saw that letter, signed that letter, thought about that letter,” he told me on the plane ride back from Fort Hood. “It forces me to pay attention to every single one of the young people killed — how they died, where their hometown is, what other members of their unit were killed. I’ve kept count — 796 Americans have been killed in Iraq on my watch.” (This was as of Nov. 27.)

He takes his job seriously, and in fact doesn’t even really like the job due to the burden of it all.  It could be that Obama doesn’t like his job either, but for different reasons than he takes it so seriously.  I’m not even sure I know the two NBA players, but professional basketball has become a thuggish sport, and I don’t watch it.

Instead of spending time at Walter Reed or Bethesda Naval Hospital watching wounded warriors in rehabilitation, praying for them in their rooms out of sight of the cameras, urging them on, and ensuring that they get the best care possible, he is sporting it up in front of them.  Get it?  He expects them to watch him as he plays a game of fantasy ball with his heroes.

What an egomaniac.