UnNews:Obama's speech reassures Americans about NCAA brackets
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| Obama's speech reassures Americans about NCAA brackets | 
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25 March 2009
WASHINGTON, DC -- In a prime-time televised address Tuesday evening, U.S. President Barack Obama spoke directly to the American people to reassure them about the failed state of their NCAA basketball tournament brackets. "I know it's been a tough week. I know most people's brackets are busted," the President said in his classic soothing tone. Empathizing with the average citizen, he added, "I share your pain. In the first round alone, 13 of my 32 picks were dead wrong. But even when times look tough, you have to look ahead. By the time the second round was over, I had 14 of the sweet 16 teams correct."
The Hoops-Fan-In-Chief acknowledged the economic impact of people's NCAA picks. "Whether it's a $5 bet by the mill worker in Minnesota, or five thousand dollar buy-in by a Wall Street executive, all of America has a stake in these games," he said. Earlier in the day Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner revealed that Americans had spent nearly a hundred million dollars betting on the NCAA tournament. The losses are the highest since the Duke Blue Devils won the tournament in 2001 during the dot-com crash.
Obama detailed how it's the Midwest region that's most affected by the NCAA crisis. "So many people are upset," he said, "and understandably so, since the 10th through 13th seeds all unexpectedly made it through the first round." However, a huge government stimulus instituted late on Friday has since proved very helpful. In the East and South, the top-seeded teams all made it to the sweet sixteen, and the President assured everyone that the Final Four will contain "only the #1 seeded teams." Many Republicans are calling the President's predictions too optimistic, and conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh went as far as to say "I hope he fails" when talking about the chances of Obama's bracket predictions being successful. Then again, Limbaugh had Wake Forest winning it all. HA HA HA! They lost to Cleveland State in the first round!
The speech ended on a forward-looking note, with Obama saying this "March Madness" will soon be behind us, and April will bring us the much calmer sport of baseball. The President also vowed to "monitor the situation closely" and revealed he spent thousands of dollars upgrading TVs in the White House so that he can watch upcoming basketball games "in the highest definition possible." He has also appointed Lebron James to a new cabinet level position titled "Secretary of Dunking." He was quickly removed, however, under tax evasion.
Sources[edit]
- Barack Obama "Text of Obama's news conference". AP, March 24, 2009