“I’m a big football fan, but I have to tell you if I had a son, I’d have to think long and hard before I let him play football."

-- Barack Obama to The New Republic, Jan. 27

First: I'm not a supporter of this President.

I didn't vote for him in 2008 and didn't vote for him last November. This isn't necessarily an anti-Democrat angle, either, I've actually never voted for a Democrat or Republican in a presidential election -- my first vote was in 1996 and it was for Ross Perot, and in the years since I've voted for Ralph Nader twice and a pair of Libertarian candidates. Put it another way: If I'm voting for you, it ensures a swift and brutal defeat.

If everyone chipped in and let me borrow the entire Internet there wouldn't be enough space to outline the differences I share with the president on a million issues, mostly of the economic variety. 

But on the issue of sons (and daughters, Mr. President, girls play football, too -- as we all gasp at a lapse in political correctness from the PC Commander in Chief) playing football, I stand with Barack Obama. In fact, I'll go a step past thinking long and hard about it.

Harrison Seamus Minihane is 9 months old and there is zero chance he will ever play a down of organized football as long as he lives under my roof. Basketball, baseball, golf, tennis, figure skating, synchronized swimming, anything that doesn't carry with it a real risk of long-term brain injury is swell. But there will be no football, not Pop Warner, not high school. Not happening, the reward simply doesn't match the risk.

I'm just not interested in greatly increasing the possibility of chronic traumatic encephalopathy for my son, a debilitating brain disease that has been diagnosed in hundreds of football players, most recently Junior Seau. Some symptoms of CTE include memory loss, paranoia and severe depression in middle age. 

You've seen or read the stories of these retired (and active) NFL players battling this stuff, but it's also the college guys who never made it and, yes, some high school players as well. According to a Time magazine study, high school football players alone suffer 43,000 to 67,000 concussions per year (though it is believed the true number is significantly higher, as more than half of the concussed athletes fail to report symptoms.)

And that's why I'll be handing Harrison a 6-iron or extolling the virtues of a perfectly executed serve and volley. I understand there will always be the crowd that suggests I'm being soft, not a real man, or that my son will lack some layer of toughness. And it could be that they are exactly right, but you know what? I can live with that a hell of lot easier than I could the sight of my son being taken off a football field after suffering a concussion.

Now, as you'd imagine, President Obama is taking some heat for weighing in on this topic (about what you'd imagine, but I thought Tony Boselli's tweeted response was the best: Interesting, I do have boys and I am thinking long & hard about them getting near politics. No problem them playing football). And I've been plenty critical of Obama in the past for jumping in on sports-related issues, he's a "sports fan" because it tests well in market research, his knowledge is knuckle-deep at best (and here's just a little proof).  

But I don't think Obama's attention toward the fiscal crisis or gun control or Syria or his relationship with John Boehner was diverted in any fashion by a 192-word answer to a question during a 40-minute interview with The New Republic. That's nonsense, just as it was nonsense to claim George W. Bush wasn't giving Iraq proper attention when he answered a question about Barry Bonds chasing Hank Aaron's record. This is a just a chance for the right take an easy shot at the president, which again is precisely what the left would do in the same spot if a member of the GOP were in the White House and dared to spend 86 seconds on a topic somewhat off script. That's how it works and it's never going to change.

Now here's where it's perfectly fair to find fault with Obama and the author of this column -- if we are so offended by football, find it so barbaric, why do we watch at all? I'll plead guilty to fraud on that one, if I'm going to stand on this pulpit and talk about the dangers to the health of players, I shouldn't be watching week after week after week. But I do and I will continue, because my enjoyment watching the NFL is greater than my concern for the long-term health of the players on the field. There's no way around it. And Obama -- who has used Monday Night Football as a platform several times in his political career -- is no different. 

There will be a photo op of the president watching the game with his family on Sunday, and the winning team will go to the White House (and God forbid someone decides to exercise his right not to join his teammates) and Obama will hold up the jersey and pretend to have more knowledge of that team than he actually possesses and all will be forgiven. When he's joking with Ray Lewis (ugh, and you might've thought Bill Clinton or Dick Cheney in the White House was a disgrace) or Frank Gore I promise there won't be a lot of CTE talk.

But what we've learned over the last few years about the long-term effects on the brains of football players is terrifying at best (discovery that has been led by the folks at Boston University.) And we are really just in the infancy of the process, what are we going to know in 10 years, 15 years? 

This isn't a plea to ban or dramatically alter football, it really isn't. Everyone now goes in with their eyes wide open. If a parent wants their son or daughter to play football, that's of course his or her prerogative. I'm not in the business of attempting to get in the middle of every decision you make in your life, evidently that's why we have the federal government. 

A federal government currently led by one of the worst sports fans in America, a man with whom I disagree on just about everything.

But this time, Barack Obama got it right.