Air Obamas, 4.6 Billion Years in the Making, Finally Arrive on Wednesday

Air Obamas drop on Wednesday at 10 a.m. Everybody get in line now.

“Kobe has long looked up to the commander-in-chief, and not just because of his hoops game,” Nike informs. “This unique collection symbolizes the President’s influence on Kobe with colors inspired by his Honolulu high school.”

Nike bathes the shoes, Doc Martins from Mars with high high-tops and space-alien colors, in black, metallic silver, blue lagoon, and volt (a highfalutin way of saying lime). A patch on the tongue features a mash-up of the presidential seal with Nike imagery encircled by a Latin phrase that translates: “History is life’s teacher.”

Kobe Bryant and Nike actually call the shoes the “Kobe X Elite Commander.” Sun Tzu, whose descendants possibly played a more direct role in the creation of the footwear, observed, “A good commander is benevolent and unconcerned with fame.” A guy who references himself 28 times in a 12-minute speech ostensibly about college kids getting murdered, like one who makes it illegal to deface pictures of him or erects massive statuary celebrating himself, seems more a demander of attention than a commander of it. History is life’s teacher.

The president commanded Kobe Bryant’s attention, and the rest of the world’s, when he analogized that ISIS is to al Qaeda what hard-court wannabes are to the Black Mamba. “If a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” the president said in 2012. Like Kobe these last few seasons, the comment did not age well.

Kobe returned the favor by promoting the president’s health-care law and claiming that Obama could play on the Los Angeles Lakers. “Yes, he could, actually,” Bryant told Dan Patrick. “That’s not a diss at the current roster that we have, but more of a sign of respect of the skill that the president possesses.”

Kobe’s compliments come half in jest. His serious sneaker venture evokes professional hockey players allowing Vladimir Putin to score seven goals on his birthday earlier this week. The president merely wins induction into the Hall of Okay. Sidney Moncrief didn’t get his own shoe but Barack Obama does?

Author Tucker Max, who played with the president during the 1990s at the University of Chicago, describes the professor-turned-president as a “solid player” but one easily handled by an athlete who understood the game. “I saw so many people pick him first,” Max explained, “and then get burned because he didn’t play up to that pick.”

Kobe hopes the presidential sneakers live up to the number next to the dollar sign. The $225 price-tag makes these shoes absolutely to die for among American urban youth. And their Indonesian counterparts who live on $3.70 a day manufacturing Nike sneakers can easily afford them should they opt to forgo food, rent, transportation, and all other luxuries over the next two months for these fashion necessities.

Phil Knight. Barack Obama. Two of the age’s greatest salesmen come together at last to bind the corporate behemoth and the government giant. Just do it. Yes we can.

History is life’s teacher.

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