This is something I can support:
President Barack Obama on Tuesday selected Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney to be U.S. ambassador to Ireland, turning to a lifelong Republican who provided the Democrat critical campaign support during the White House race.
The 76-year-old Rooney endorsed Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton during Pennsylvania’s contentious Democratic primary; Clinton won the contest last April. Rooney later campaigned for him in Steelers country in western Pennsylvania, and Obama went on to win the state last November.
In the 1970s, Rooney helped found the American Ireland Fund, an organization that has raised millions for advocacy of peace and education in Ireland. His legacy is reflected in a Steelers-themed bar in a disused linen mill in one of the roughest parts of northwest Belfast.
I say this over and over again, but people never seem to understand just how much people around here love the Rooney family and love the Steelers.
JoyceH
Did you see the green fountain at the White House? It’s kind of surprising nobody had thought of it before now.
AhabTRuler
Fixeteth.
TenguPhule
Is this good news for us or Ireland?
AhabTRuler
Furthermore, I must say that I watch Football
because ofdespite the fans. And I am looking at you Pennsylvania!Xanthippas
Can we get an ambassadorship for Jerry Jones? To say…the International Space Station? The Moon?
Origuy
Céad mílle fáilte and Erin go Bragh! Congraduations to the new Ambassador.
For St. Patrick’s Day, I’m posting links to some of my favorite traditional Irish bands. You can only take so much of the Clancy Brothers.
Altan.
Solas.
And still going strong, The Chieftains, with Sinéad O’Connor.
Remember, friends don’t let friends drink green beer. Or Irish Car Bombs.
Adolphus
As a former serf to the Colts and the Irsay family, color me jealous.
NonyNony
@AhabTRuler:
Too true. If I let the behavior of the fans dictate the sports I watch and the teams I root for, the only sport I could watch would be golf. And even then I’d have to avoid any golf-related message boards online.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
Set aside how you feel about Dem vs. GOP, the Steelers, etc, whatever, also. It’s just nice to have an adult in the White House.
JenJen
I had the pleasure of meeting the elder Mr. Rooney once; he’s a very good and decent man.
Congratulations!! That’s a sweet appointment. :-)
jibeaux
I googled the green fountain and got an article with lots of comments about the waste of tax dollars.
My husband often says Republicans have no sense of scale, but people who cheerled the Iraq war grumbling about the cost of food coloring is a new one.
Punchy
Considering that your baseball team blows (and has blown for many, many years) and the hockey team is basically Malkin, Crosby, and Others, the Steelerz is all youse got.
And hills. So many fucking hills in that city.
Napoleon
So how long until someone says this breaks his promise to take politics out of the appointment of ambassadors, even though he is on record as explicitly saying some of his appointments of ambassadors would be political?
Adolphus
Oh #5 Xanthippas, I never thought of that. If we made whichever Darth Irsay is in charge of the Colts these days ambassador to Iraq, he would huff and puff about the Iraqis paying for luxury sky boxes for the generals and CEO’s of Defense contractors and paying for the soldier’s uniforms and control of the sale of the naming rights to the country, the country would say no, and he’d sneak the army out the country in Mayflower vans in the middle of the night. Just like that we’d be out of Iraq and our military franchise could find another country.
TenguPhule
The Next Step for Coleman: Bush vs Gore 2000 redux
Again, from the Politico so take it with a grain of salt.
But the GOP strategy for keeping Coleman alive: All the way to the Supreme Court Baby!
Nazgul35
I say he names Tunch as Ambassador to the Canary Islands…
smiley
@JenJen:
It’s also a traditional and common reward for important campaign supporters/fundraisers.
Comrade Stuck
Big Thumbs up for Mr Rooney and his family. As for the Steelers I say, GO BROWNS!
Matt
Obama has yet to host the World Champion Philadelphia Phillies at the White House. Obviously this is political retribution against Governor Rendell and Mayor Nutter for supporting Hillary in the primaries. Or something.
AhabTRuler
Yeah, but the owner can make a big difference. I mean, I am living in Dan Snyder-ville over here and it is excruciating. Does football’s answer to Napoleon (on crack) consult the op-ed writers from the Post and the Times (theirs, not our living joke) before making decisions?
I long for the days of Jack Kent Cooke.
JL
Nice selection!
JoyceH
@jibeaux:
That should probably go on a ‘you might be a Republican’ list, like so –
"If your first thought on seeing the green fountain at the White House was to wonder how much it cost the taxpayers for food coloring, you might be a Republican…"
TenguPhule
Why, don’t they have enough whales there already?
AhabTRuler
Oh, and my green contribution. Admittedly, its from the Confoederatio Helvetica, not Eire, but one can acquire the point.
canuckistani
I’ll be drowning the ancestral Troubles in Guinness tonight.
JoyceH
(BTW, can anyone tell me what I’m doing wrong with block quote? I put block quote and end block quote around the quoted remarks, but the second paragraph within the quotes wound up outside the block. This is the second time that’s happened, and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong…)
TR
OT, but CBS News’s Chip Reid is reviving his douchebag schtick in the White House Press Conference again. I guess Fox News is hiring.
Comrade Kevin
@Origuy:
Or eat "corned beef and cabbage".
TenguPhule
@JoyceH
It’s not you, the site is screwy with separate paragraph blockquoting.
TenguPhule
Corrected.
passerby
@TenguPhule:
Winner!
And yes, putting green in the WH fountain was a great call given how the US of A is so slap full of Irish this time of year. I’m sad for those who may have a problem with it, America could use a little fun.
Feng shui-wise it could represent a money element also, too.
MikeJ
Joyce, wrap each para in your blockquote with p and close p tags.
<blockquote><p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum ut lectus. Vivamus id nulla. Donec vitae ipsum. Donec varius. Praesent sem lectus,
</p>
<p>
pharetra vel, imperdiet nec, ultricies sed, arcu. Duis fringilla, nisl feugiat ultrices dictum, mauris erat gravida ligula, quis laoreet lectus lectus ac ante.
</p>
</blockquote>
Grrr. I went to the trouble of using html entities for lt and gt, and it still interpreted them instead of displaying.
smiley
@JoyceH: Try removing the space between paragraphs.
geg6
I’ll second that, John. And I can say from personal experience that they truly are exceptionally wonderful people. My sister works with Mrs. Rooney at RMU (Pat Rooney is adjunct faculty there) and it’s not just all they’ve done for the team and players or even for the city, which is more than most people will ever know. It’s that they truly act in a way that does not set them up as any different from anyone else, just lucky in the circumstances of their birth (or marriage). Mrs. Rooney never makes any sort of deal of who she or her husband are in the classroom or among colleagues, but has provided money for university programs in communication, Irish literature and history, and conflict resolution, a component of which was funding students from Republic of Ireland/Northern Ireland or Palestine/Israel to study there and work on fostering understanding among opposing groups. All with very little fanfare and with no recognition among the student body that it is an adjunct faculty member who is responsible for them.
And that is just one example of hundreds of similar actions taken by the Rooney family for the benefit of the people of Western PA.
People who aren’t from Pittsburgh would never understand the love and pride we feel regarding the Rooneys. We feel sorry for people who live in places where their sports teams are owned by people like Steinbrenner and Snyder. We have no doubt that, regardless of any mistakes they may have made with the team, they always have the best interests of this area and the people here. I can’t think of another metropolitan area that knows that about their leaders the way we here know that about the Rooneys.
Punchy
@JoyceH: It’s easy with Cole’s software. All you have to do is blockquote the whole thing, except that you havent, so you’ll need to replicate the process thrice, so that it shows up as desired in the preview, except that its not, which’ll require the additional step of adding ellipses around the aggregate text in a fashion congruent with acceptable HTML sexting requirements, followed by a bolding of the erroneous mistaken error first highlighted by the software’s ability to not-spellcheck but yet invent new reasons for sticking comments in jail until said Jail Warden John unlocks them 4.2 hours later, whereby they’re so damn old that no one sees them and they end up in Comment Hell, which is all fine and dandy cuz your blockquoting didn’t work anyway and you’d be embarrased if anyone saw what a mess they looked like to begin with.
passerby
@JoyceH:
[Testing 1,2,3.]
Joyce, you gotta remove the space between the paragraphs or else blockquote them separately. I’ve noticed others here place a period on the blank line to go around this issue.
Edit: forget about the period idea. (shrugs)
Ash Can
We do have an Irish president, after all. :)
PS: Imagine the stink the Republicans would raise if he took a page out of Richie Daley’s book and colored the Potomac green…
Ricky Bobby
Lifelong Seahawks fan here, and I would love to root for the Steelers and support the Rooney family, but that 2005 superbowl win was STOLEN by the refs and that unfortunately I can never forgive nor forget.
It’s not like the Seahawks get lots of chances to play in the superbowl or an adoring fan/pundit base to help you feel good about the fact that you are rooting for a hometown team that sucks. So sorry, but take your rings and your universal adoration and just leave us third world franchises to stew in our frustration.
/bitter
Montysano (All Hail Marx &amp; Lennon)
Testing to see if mikej’s blockquote solution, which uses p tags, works.
Update: hell no.
Dork
Hate to be That Guy, but how can you be a lifelong Seahax fan and get the wrong Superbowl date? It was 2007 that Pit played Seattle.
jg
@JoyceH:
IIRC we were told when the new site went up that we need to put ellipses between each paragraph we are quoting.
MikeJ
Monty, try with p tags and no blank line
Just Some Fuckhead
@Punchy: You make it seem so easy.
Josh Hueco
I will be celebrating my lack of Irish heritage tonight.
joe bob
I can’t believe he slighted the Clintons like this, just another slap in the face;)
DougJ
How does Steely McBeam fit into this?
liberal
@geg6:
Aren’t they essentially coupon clippers/rent collectors/parasites like most sports team owners?
Blue Raven
@Ash Can: Indeed we do.
Ricky Bobby
@ Dork
NO.
The Seahawks technically played in the 2006 superbowl, which was played in Feb. 2006, but the season worth of ball that led up to it (13-3 Chickens team that year) was played in 2005 which is why I tend to designate it as such.
Dork
@Ricky Bobby: My bad. bears/indy in 2007.
El Tiburon
You just had to bring up the Tittsburgh Egg Pealers.
What sheep did Terry Bradshaw impregnate lately?
Now the Dallas Cowboys, there’s a franchise…
passerby
Like this?
[Test]
JWW
John,
This seems as good a place any! You have dodged all the real issues in the current news cycle. You should be proud of standing on the fence line.
When are you going too respond with(your thong on in front of a mirror) anything that matters to America?
I see once again, your money comes from your readers, not from the truth.
Steeplejack
@JoyceH:
This is what works for me. And it has the added benefit of making the block-quoted material not show up in bold. (Replace the braces in the following with angle brackets in your actual post.)
You don’t have to leave any blank lines between your paragraphs. The {p} tag takes care of that.
Sasha
Obvious, really.