Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman challenges Obama to let her play in his all-guys basketball games

Nancy Lieberman, a Basketball Hall of Fame member, is calling the president out.

Barack Obama, who's noted that he's surrounded by females with his wife, two daughters and mother-in-law living with him, loves his basketball with male pals.

The president has had some recent basketball games on the White House basketball court  -- guys only. Mainly congressional guys.

Last Sunday for the first time as president he allowed a female to join his regular golfing foursome.

And that fraternity-like atmosphere has caused some gender grumbling.

Now, in a "frank" open letter to the Democrat chief executive today on More.com, Lieberman challenges Obama to some hoops mano a mana, so to speak.

She says:

Some women are saying you need a time-out. Your men-only basketball games have been scrutinized — and criticized for consistently leaving women out.

Your defenders call that charge ridiculous, saying everyone knows that women can play golf with men, but not basketball...which of course only annoys women more.

Well, I have a solution. To score some real points with the public, stop arguing and just play ball — with the best. Shoot some hoops with yours truly.

Lieberman, an Olympic gold medalist at 18, WNBA veteran and ESPN analyst, even signed a short-term contract to play as a pro at age 50. 

Her good-natured but firm letter says she'd like to help him bring change to the country. "It's what I've done my whole life as a woman in sports," she writes.

"It's always good for sports when new barriers are broken," she adds.

And Lieberman promises:

If invited to play at the White House, I solemnly vow to protect, preserve and defend the basketball until my team wins.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Speaking of three-pointers: Full gender equity over here. Anyone can get good political stories by clicking here for Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us   @latimestot  And we are also now on Facebook over here.

Photos: Associated Press; ESPN.

A first! President Obama actually golfs with a woman!

Another crack in the gender glass ceiling. And just nine months into his first term.

Despite the H1N1 swine flu national emergency he declared Saturday, President Barack Obama went golfing Sunday. And for the first time in the White House, he took a female along on his golf outing. She's Melody Barnes, his chief domestic policy adviser.

Because of Obama's sensitivity to privacy and his athletic skills off the basketball floor (think bumbling bowling in Pennsylvania), there will be no video or photos of the coed sports outing on the course at Washington's Fort Belvoir this afternoon.

But the tireless Lynn Sweet, today's print pool reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times who knows the competitive president well from his Illinois days, confirmed the golfing firstness.

At first she was told by a White House aide that Barnes was not the first female to swing a golf club with the rookie president.

When Sweet asked for the names of the others, the aide corrected himself and confirmed Barnes was the first, though he said Obama had golfed with unidentified women during the campaign.

The sensitivity in the Democrat White House arises from growing grumbling about recent evening basketball contests there with congressmen that were literally with congressmen. No females allowed. And then there was the all-male beer summit.

Golfing like this has historically been a guy thing. In business too. The import of the absence of women is not so much the guys' worry that they'll get thumped by a woman in front of others (although come to think of it.....)

It's the bonding that goes on through the shared competition and stories, some of them suitable for mixed company. And the lead in familiarity that shared social experience gives guys when promotion times come around.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Associated Press (Barnes with Obama). Jewel Samad / AFP / Getty Images (Barnes enroute to the golf course).

Obama urged to issue black boxer Jack Johnson a posthumous pardon

Jack Johnson was the most famous African American of his day, the first black heavyweight boxing champion. In 1910, he gave a black community with little to cheer about a stunning lift by defeating white champion Jim Jeffries in Reno, a historical first that led to race riots by the white audience.

So lasting was Johnson's achievement that years later, in 1970, Howard Sackler made a movie -- "The Great White Hope" -- based on his play. Filmmaker Ken Burns was also drawn to the story, crafting a documentary called "Unforgivable Blackness."

In 1913, Johnson's relationship with a white woman led to his conviction for violating the Mann Act, which prohibited the transportation of women across state lines for "immoral" purposes. At a time when blacks in the South were lynched for even looking at a white woman, he served 10 months in jail.

Now, two Republican boxing enthusiasts -- Arizona Sen. John McCain and New York Rep. Peter King -- are waging a campaign to get President Obama to pardon the boxer posthumously.

"It is our hope that you will be eager to agree to right this wrong and erase an act of racism that sent an American citizen to prison," the two Republicans said in the letter sent Friday. The charges, they added, were clearly intended "to keep him away from the boxing ring, where he continued to defeat his white opponents."

During the summer both the House and Senate passed resolutions unanimously urging Obama to grant a pardon. As McCain put it at the time, "Rectifying this injustice is long overdue. [The resolution recognizes] the unjustness of what transpired, and sheds light on the achievements of an athlete who was forced into the shadows of bigotry and prejudice."

President George W. Bush failed to act on appeals during his presidency to pardon the heavyweight champ.

No word from the White House yet about what Obama will do, but as the first African American president -- a child of a white mother and a black father -- it's hard to imagine he would resist history's call. Or Congress' for that matter.

[For the record: A previous version of this post incorrectly reported that writer Howard Sackler based his movie “The Great White Hope” on “his story.” Actually, “The Great White Hope” was originally a Pulitzer Prize-winning play.]

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Associated Press file photo

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Obama loses gamble -- Chicago out of Olympics contention

In a stunner, the International Olympic Committee dropped Chicago from contention for the 2016 Summer Games in the first round of voting today. Tokyo was eliminated in the second round.

No word yet from the White House, where President Obama risked political capital to make a last-minute appeal to the committee.

Left in the running: Rio, which boasted it would be the first city from South America to host the Games, and Madrid, home to the former president of the IOC.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Michelle Obama goes for the gold in Copenhagen, wearing golden clothes

It was fitting symbolism for a first lady pitching her hometown as the site of the 2016 Olympics.

As the Ticket reported earlier, First Lady Michelle Obama delivered a from-the-heart pitch for Chicago to the International Olympic Committee, talking about the influence of sports on a little girl growing up on Chicago's South Side, watching the Games with her father in "a neighborhood of working families -- families with modest homes and strong values."

You can read remarks of both President Obama and the first lady below. (UPDATE: Other bloggers have now noted that Mrs. Obama would have been 20 years old when the events occurred that she describes watching from her father's lap.)

But first, take a look at her outfits.

Above, she talks with Prince Albert of Monaco at a reception following the opening ceremony of the 121st IOC session at the Copenhagen Opera House, where competing nations took a break to enjoy a night at the ballet. Wearing a gold dress with fitted bodice and full pleated skirt, adorned at the neck with a trio of brooches, the first lady won plaudits from the Mrs. O website that chronicles her clothes: "head to toe fabulous."

Obama on Chicago's Olympics bid: 'The most American of American cities'

After an all-night flight from Washington, President Barack Obama made a rhetorical pitch for the International Olympics Committee to award the 2016 Summer Games to his adopted hometown of Peoria.

No, it was Chicago.

And he called the Windy City "the most American of American cities." So much for that recent love affair with Pittsburgh.

The president was introduced by his wife Michelle, who also made a plea for the Games to come to her hometown, in fact, to her neighborhood, invoking detailed personal memories of her late father. The text of her remarks is here. Both transcripts were provided by the White House.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Remarks of President Obama to the International Olympics Committee

President Rogge, ladies and gentlemen of the International Olympic Committee:

I come here today as a passionate supporter of the Olympic and Paralympic Games; as a strong believer in the movement they represent; and a proud Chicagoan. But above all, I come as a faithful representative of the American people, and we look forward to welcoming the world to the shores of Lake Michigan and the heartland of our nation in 2016.

To host athletes and visitors from every corner of the globe is a high honor and a great responsibility. And America is ready and eager to assume that sacred trust. We are a nation that has always....

What Michelle Obama told the International Olympic Committee about her Chicago (and father)

Remarks by First Lady Michelle Obama to the International Olympics Committee

MRS. OBAMA: President Rogge, ladies and gentlemen, Mesdames et Messieurs of the International Olympic Committee: I am honored to be here.

I was born and raised on Chicago's South Side, not far from where the Games would open and close. Ours was a neighborhood of working families -- families with modest homes and strong values.

Sports were what brought our community together. They strengthen our ties to one another. 

Growing up, when I played games with the kids in my neighborhood, we picked sides based not on who you were, but what you could bring to the game. Sports taught me self-confidence, teamwork, and how to compete as an equal.

Sports were a gift I shared with my dad -- especially the Olympic Games.

Some of my best memories are sitting on my dad's lap, cheering on Olga and Nadia, Carl Lewis, and ...

Michelle Obama: Copenhagen Olympic politics just like Iowa caucuses

In 2008, voters in the Iowa Caucus -- famous for their quirky picks -- gave a little-known Democrat named Barack Obama his first victory, propelling him toward the White House.

Now, First Lady Michelle Obama is in Copenhagen, stumping for Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. And last night, at a pep-rally dinner for 300 supporters of Chicago's bid, she likened the race in Denmark to that contest way back when in Iowa.

"As my husband would say, we are fired up and ready to go in here," she said, echoing the slogan that generated so much excitement on the campaign trail last year. Comparing the contest in Denmark to the one in Iowa, the first lady added, “Nobody makes the decision until they’re sitting there. So the next few days really provide us with a real opportunity to hold some hands, to have some conversations, to share our visions.”

President Obama joins his wife for the final pitch tomorrow -- even as Oprah Winfrey and other Chicago luminaries makes the rounds, lobbying the International Olympic Committee for votes.

The trip is not without political peril for the president.

At home, House Minority Leader John Boehner has criticized the trip, slamming Obama for "going ... off to Copenhagen when we've got serious issues here at home that need to be debated."

Abroad, if Chicago loses the bid, it would count as a defeat for Obama too. And Chicago's entry is by no means a sure bet.

With Rio de Janeira apparently the favorite, other countries with cities in the running are not sitting by idly. "President Obama is an extraordinary personality," said Spain's Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., son of the former IOC president, part of a delegation pushing for Madrid. "We will bring His Majesty the King of Spain, that's one, and Prime Minister Zapatero, that's two. So that's two against one."

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: First Lady Michelle Obama meets members of the international press corps in Copenhagen Wednesday. Credit: Getty Images

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Michelle Obama's Chicago Olympics pep rally

Are you ready? Well, you better be

The Big Gun has arrived.

Michelle Obama, the First Cheerleader in Chief, is in Copenhagen now working the International Olympic Committee to pick Chicago and her Southside neighborhood for the 2016 summer games.

Until recently, chiefs of state or their spouses did not normally lobby the IOC, which votes Friday among Rio de Janeiro, Madrid, Tokyo and the windy midwestern city named for a smelly Indian onion that has a stunning lakefront and ample parking on numerous freeways.

It's all very exciting if you're into political handshaking and planning what you'll be doing about seven years from now. Mrs. Obama has conferred with former British prime minister Tony Blair about how he successfully lobbied committee members for London and 2012 a while back. Russia's former KGB chief Vladimir Putin somehow succeeded in telling IOC members to pick Sochi for 2014.

Obama's husband will drop healthcare, war and  everything else Thursday to fly overnight to....

Obama jets to Copenhagen to sell Chicago Olympics

There's plenty to keep the president occupied at the White House.

Overnight, Iran tested middle-range missiles, raising the stakes of international crisis a few days before Tehran's first sit-down talks with U.S. officials. At home, the healthcare-reform initiative that the president has touted as the critical benchmark of his first year in office also faces a key week.

But the White House announced this morning that President Obama, who calls Chicago home, has decided to jet to Copenhagen overnight Thursday, arriving in time to deliver an in-person pitch Friday morning for the city's bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. He'll be back Friday night.

First Lady Michelle Obama had planned to head the U.S. delegation of sports and civic leaders, but with Chicago facing tough competition from Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo -- including in-person appeals from top political leaders -- sports commentators and city officials were lobbying the White House heavily to deploy the full, two-Obama charm offensive.

Earlier, when he thought the press of business would keep him at home, Obama cut a video message to the International Olympic Committee.

The high-level pitch is the first for an American president but not unprecedented for world leaders. In fact, it seems to be the new de facto requiring for a successful bid. British Prime Minister Tony Blair sealed the deal in landing the 2012 Olympics for London. Ditto Russian President Vladimir Putin in securing the 2014 Winter Games for Sochi.

-- Johanna Neuman

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