Just one, mind you. But he took some flak several years ago for bringing up the topic of illicit athletic drugs in the State of the Union address. The idea, I guess, was that this wasn't an affair of state with sufficient gravity to warrant space in that forum. But he (or whoever inserted it in the speech in front of his barely comprehending eyes) had the right idea.
I'm not much of a sports person. I never watch them on TV, and as a participant I'm pretty much limited to puffing around the park so I can snarf down a really great meal from time to time without worrying too much about it. When I was a kid, on the other hand, it was a different story.
I devoured sports stories wherever I could find them. Were the athletes in these stories idealized? Sure. But I still learned something from them about what it means to go beyond one's comfort zone, no matter what the area of endeavor. I learned something about what the human being can be when purified by a focus on one single thing.
And I'm angry indeed that the chance I had to learn from sports is being taken away from kids today.
I would agree that the win-at-all-costs ethos of modern conservatism lies somewhere at the root of what's been happening. But I hope that Gee Dubyah, and his Democratic successors, see fit to use the power of the presidency to combat the scourge of sports doping.