Cooper's eye on the left: Capitalist Or Communist ... Whatever

Cuban President Raul Castro, right, and U.S. President Barack Obama react at a baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and Cuba's national team in Havana, Cuba, last week.
Cuban President Raul Castro, right, and U.S. President Barack Obama react at a baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and Cuba's national team in Havana, Cuba, last week.

Whatever works?

Voters who worried that President Barack Obama was more a socialist than a capitalist got a little evidence on their side last week when the president, answering a young community organizer in Buenos Aires, Argentina, about how to create social change, opined that the "sharp division" between "capitalist and communist or socialist" is beginning to blur.

"And, I mean, those are interesting intellectual arguments," he said, "but I think for your generation, you should be practical and just choose from what works. You don't have to worry about whether it neatly fits into socialist theory or capitalist theory - you should just decide what works."

What president before Obama would have dared equate capitalism with communism or socialism? It certainly gives pause to those who ponder in what direction he has taken the country in the last seven-plus years.

Aging leaders

If front-runners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the respective Republican Party and Democratic Party presidential nominees this fall, it will not just break but shatter the previous age record of presidential candidates.

Trump will be 70 by election day in November, and Clinton will be 69, making their average age 69.5. The previous highest average age of the nominees of the two major parties was 64.

Backers of the Republican businessman have said this year that age is less a factor than being an outsider, while U.S. Rep. Lacy Clay, D-Mo., said many Democrats are looking for "someone with experience" especially "in these times - economic woes, unrest around the world."

That may be Clay's take, but she forgot to mention all of the young people U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had garnered in his earnest-but-bound-to-fail effort against Clinton.

Karly Bowman, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said "having two candidates at this age in 1950 might have been significant" but isn't in 2016 with people living longer.

Trump, to date, has not exhibited any health problems, but he has questioned Clinton's health and "stamina."

"Hillary is a person who doesn't have the strength or the stamina, in my opinion, to be president," he told ABC's "This Week."

Lift high the cross

An atheist who sued the mayor of Corpus Christi, Texas, and two City Council members for attending groundbreaking ceremonies for what is being called "the tallest cross in the Western Hemisphere" has dropped his lawsuit.

Patrick Greene filed the suit after Mayor Nelda Martinez and Council members Lucy Rubio and Carolyn Vaughn attended the Sunday ceremony in January. He accused the three of violating the state constitutional prohibition of giving a preference to any particular religion by attending the event - signaling the erection of the 210-foot, privately financed cross - at Abundant Life Fellowship.

Martinez said building a cross overlooking Corpus Christi Bay had been a dream of her late father's.

"The name of our city is 'Body of Christ' and I will tell you, I will never forget that conversation I had with my father about his dream and his hope," she said, adding that "I will never regret being there for this wonderful moment."­­­­

Martinez said she would pray for Greene's wife, whose medical condition was the stated reason he dropped the suit. But she also said he should be on notice if he refiles, because she said she would "have no other option than to utilize the legal system to defend our taxpayers from such a baseless suit."

Baseball not his game

President Barack Obama spent part of last week celebrating new United States ties with the communist country of Cuba, but he did manage to avoid throwing out the first pitch while there when he attended an exhibition game between the Tampa Bay Devil Rays of the American League and the Cuban national team.

That, more than likely, saved him from embarrassment, a fact ESPN reporters were only too happy to kid him about at the game.

"I've seen you throw out the first pitch," one reporter said to Obama. "You didn't play much baseball, did you?"

The president demurred on his lack of baseball prowess but acknowledged first pitches are high pressure events.

"We do a lot of tough stuff as president," Obama said, "and by definition you don't end up being president if you don't handle stress well. Nothing is more stressful than throwing out a first pitch."

"I remember," the second ESPN reporter deadpanned.

Obama said he never "grounded" one of his first pitches but said he was saved from throwing it in the dirt because former St. Louis Cardinals star Albert Pujols "saved me. He got down real low 'cause that thing was headed for the dirt."

The president's second first pitch, in a different year, was more like a moonshot, arcing high and well wide of the plate.

The Washington Nationals, perhaps anticipating an errant attempt that day, didn't use a catcher to receive the toss but called on third baseman Ryan Zimmerman, who is used to diving to his right or left to snag baseballs.

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