Sometimes, being a sportswriter is no fun at all. The assignments, especially in this blog-tastic digital age, occasionally barely pass the jock-strap smell test.

So… you try to make the best of it. Here for example is LAT sportswriter Chuck Schilken dutifully catching up to a weekend meeting of reality TV show minds Dennis Rodman, Kendall Jenner and Kylie Jenner at the Brea Mall:

Maybe the so-called basketball diplomat was seeking their advice on how to handle the sticky Kim Jong-un/Kenneth Bae situation…

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After careful consideration I’ve decided not to visit the White House today for political reasons LOL JK I’m not an idiot!Free trip? I’m in!

— Dustin Penner (@Dustinpenner25) March 26, 2013

As you probably know, one of the perks of winning a championship within your respective sport is the opportunity to meet the President at the White House.

But in recent years, more and more athletes have skipped out on the opportunity, including former Boston Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas in 2012.

Thomas made it clear that his politics didn’t match up with President Barack Obama, releasing a statement saying he felt the federal government has grown out of control and was threatening the rights of the American people.

Los Angeles Kings forward Dustin Penner managed to take a jab at Thomas on Twitter prior to the team meeting President Obama at the White House on Tuesday. Based on some of the tweets from the official Los Angeles Kings account, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Penner has a sense of humor when it comes to this topic.

Also taking part in the festivities at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue were the Los Angeles Galaxy, who returned for a second straight year after winning the 2012 MLS Cup.

Not a bad day for Southern California teams in the District.

[H/T Larry Brown Sports]

There was probably no stranger election panelist intro on Tuesday than the one given by Ora TV’s Larry King for comedian Jon Lovitz. The rejuvenated talk show host explained that he had just watched, the night before, a crazy Kevin Costner-Elvis movie, 3000 Miles to Graceland, that features his guest getting killed.

Lovitz started out by revisiting, in very articulate fashion, the reasons for his recent (and now-infamous) “anti-Obama” rant about one-percenters supposedly not paying their fair share of taxes. The actor emphasized that in addition to a 35% federal tax rate, he is subject to a lowered but still-there capital gains tax on any stock-market reinvestment earnings.

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Michael Schneider of TV Guide Magazine spotted these Mitt Romney masks at a Los Angeles-area Target store. They are labeled, “Mr. President,” which strikes us as a bit premature, as the presidential election hasn’t happened yet.

As Schneider points out, “Regardless of who wins the upcoming election, as of October 31, 2012, Barack Obama is Mr. President. And he does not look like this.”

Further research reveals that Target is also selling “Mr. President” masks that look like Obama, for a politically balanced, if not factually accurate, Halloween section. Neither makes for a particularly creative costume, though. We suggest “binders full of women” or “Obamacare death panels.”

Were these guys watching the same debate?

In the wake of last night’s binder full of shaky Romney moments, the editorial board of U-T San Diego has managed to put some inordinately bright spin on their preferred candidate’s Hofstra town hall performance. To the paper’s credit, the article leads with mentions that President Obama was “much better,” displaying more energy and a real sense of personal engagement. But the piece then goes on to over-emphasize the Romney highlights:

When the president made a statement that carried with it the implication that his policies had led to the U.S. oil and natural gas boom, Romney exposed the phoniness of that by pointing out the boom was on private lands.

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Only four photographers can claim to have snapped pictures from the sidelines of each and every one of the NFL’s 46 Super Bowls. Among that select group is John Biever (pictured), presented last night at the Beverly Hilton with the Lucie Foundation’s award for Achievement in Sports:

He started photography working with his father, Vernon, who was the long time Green Bay Packer sideline photographer… Biever vividly remembers shooting the 1967 NFL Championship game in Green Bay, the infamous ‘Ice Bowl’, played in -15 degree temperatures. A picture he took at that game, of Packer QB Bart Starr scoring the winning touchdown with less than 30 seconds to play, has been called one of the iconic photographs of NFL history. He was 16 at the time.

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We should all be so lucky as to have had, at age 18, a calling card as impressive as this. Meet Joe Luginbill, CEO of Luginbill Omnimedia.

The Eau Claire, WI native officially unveiled his new enterprise today to expand upon a range of media tentacles crowned by weekly YouTube cooking show Joe’s Kitchen . Luginbill Omnimedia is described as “a diversified media and merchandising company… organized into four business segments: publishing; Internet; broadcasting media platforms; and merchandising product lines.”

Luginbill tells FishbowlLA that he last came to LA to meet with the folks at LAtalkradio.com. Every Monday at 4:30 p.m., the Web outlet broadcasts a call-in radio version of Joe’s Kitchen.

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Before joining theblaze.com as Middle East correspondent, Sharona Schwartz was a coverage editor for CNN’s Washington, D.C. bureau and a scriptwriter for Wolf Blitzer. With credentials like those, it’s no wonder her post today about a certain Obama recording is so solidly put together.

Schwartz starts off by culling renewed questioning, in the wake of the Mitt Romney/Mother Jones bombshell, of the LA Times’ refusal to release a recording of some controversial 2003 remarks made by Senator Barack Obama at a dinner honoring departing Chicago Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. She then shares the response theblaze.com received from Nancy Sullivan, vp of communications for the LA Times:

In April 2008, the Los Angeles Times reported first, and in explicit detail about the dinner event and the tape of it. More than six months later, just days before the November 2008 election, the McCain campaign demanded the public release of the tape. As we stated then, the Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided for review by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not publish the tape itself. The Times keeps its promises to sources and nothing has changed in that regard.

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Over the weekend, the right-leaning U-T San Diego cast a resounding vote against President Obama.  According to the paper’s editorial board, the 44th Commander-in-Chief is the biggest presidential bust to ever occupy the White House:

Editor’s note: It’s a presidential election year, so we thought we’d weigh in with our list of the five worst presidents. We start with, yes, the current incumbent.

What’s remarkable about the piece is that without a word of introduction other than the above preface, there is paragraph after paragraph of Obama-promised-this-but-then-delivered-that. Just under a dozen such paragraphs in all. The article ends with a ridicule of Obama’s positive self-assessment during a recent CBS News interview.

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This morning, President Obama got the news via FOX and CNN that the Supreme Court had struck down the individual mandate in his health care legislation. According to ABC News, the president remained calm, but gave White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler a hug when she alerted him just a couple minutes later that the networks had it all wrong.

It was an embarrassing gaffe for CNN and FOX News. The erroneous reporting has been widely reported on by other media outlets, and mocked by journalism professionals. Associated Press editor David Scott felt the need to issue a memo to reporters ordering them to “Please, immediately, stop taunting on social networks about CNN and others’ SCOTUS ruling mistake and the AP getting it right. That’s not the impression we want to reflect as an organization.”

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