First, I don't see why the Portland Trail Blazers should get to pick Oden just because they were one of the worst teams last year, and then they won a lottery among the worst teams. If being bad is the reason to be able to pick a franchise player -- i.e., if that's the premise of policy -- then a team's badness should be averaged over time and the lottery ought to be eliminated. In other words, the team with the worst total record over the five previous years ought to get the top pick, but no such team can have the top pick two years in a row.

Second, the Washington Post is dragging its readers through the "War and Peace" version of the Vice President's obvious mastery of the federal bureaucracy and the White House's processes.

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