He couldn’t even negotiate a simple golf wager without giving away the store. (Photo: http://www.telegraph.co.uk)

At a fundraising event on Monday for people who have not yet tired of hearing our president engage in snide ad hominem attacks on those with whom he disagrees, Barack Obama, who has played golf 248 times since taking office, told the audience that Derek Jeter, with the help of Las Vegas Sun newspaper owner Brian Greenspun, swindled him on the golf course back in November. Here’s how the president described the con:

And it was clearly a setup, because as we got — I knew Derek, but I hadn’t played golf with him before, and as we got up to the practice range, he was shanking balls everywhere.  And I said, well, do you play golf, Derek?  He said, I just started two weeks ago.  (Laughter.)  And Brian said, yeah, I’ll be his partner — because Brian is a better golfer than me.  And we gave Derek Jeter like 30 strokes.  And then on the first tee suddenly the ball just went straight and down the middle of the fairway, and we had to take a picture of me handing Derek Jeter money at the end of it. 

Neither side of this transaction (nor its outcome) surprises us at Bud Fox News. Let’s take Jeter first. Despite a carefully cultivated and protected image, the former overrated Yankee shortstop has about as much shame as Kim Kardashian, to wit: In cooperation with Steiner Sports, he will sell you a single game-used sock for $409.99 (game-used boxer shorts and discarded deodorant stick are probably up next). This is a man who was paid $269 million in salary by the Yankees over the course of his career (and earned at least another $100 million in endorsements). So Jeter clearly isn’t in the sock-selling business for the money, but he’s doing it anyway, maybe because he’s an egomaniac and so disdainful of his fans that he thinks he’s doing them a favor by offering them a single dirty sock (not even a lousy pair) for almost half a grand. My God, after Roger Maris hit HR #61, he told fan Sal Durante, who caught the ball, to keep it and try to make some money off it. It is believed that on that record-breaking day Maris threw his used game socks in the washer, where they (and Jeter’s) belonged. In similar fashion, because he’s an egomaniac and probably disdainful of the president, Jeter is perfectly capable of playing the golf grifter to Obama’s dupe.

And now on to the president. We know he is a deplorable negotiator because he’s championing a pact with Iran that, as the Associated Press reported on August 19, will allow that country to use its own inspectors to investigate the Parchin nuclear site, a location that it has been accused of using to develop nuclear arms. This concession is beyond moronic; it’s either suicidal or traitorous, take your pick. Allowing Jeter to play with a whopping 30 handicap with money on the line back in November now looks like a warm-up for Obama’s Iranian deal. A randomly selected Little Leaguer would have immediately known that there was no way Jeter could be that bad. Consider:

1. Jeter is probably a first-ballot Hall of Famer who can easily hit a ball that’s moving 90 miles per hour, let alone one that’s sitting quietly propped up on a tee.
2. He is retired, has plenty of time on his hands, and has lived in Florida, the state with the most golf courses in the country, for about two decades.

The president himself is no stranger to egomania- this is a man who once said, “It is very rare that I come to an event where I’m like the fifth or sixth most interesting person.” So he either 1) thought so highly of his own golf game that he was willing to give a former professional baseball player a huge advantage or 2) was dumb enough to buy Jeter’s trickery.

If you ask the Taliban, who swapped Bowe Bergdahl for five terrorists being held at Guantanamo Bay, they’d probably tell you it’s reason #2.