49ers Sack Bushite — Pro Football Club Rejects ‘President Rice’

LEWISVILLE, Texas How will the 2008 general election turn out? Will the Republicans prevent the Democrats from gaining up to 30 or more seats in the 435-seat House of Representatives? Will the Democrats gain over 61 seats in the 100-seat Senate, enough to block Republican influence? Will Lt. Col. Rick Noriega beat Sen. John Cornyn? Will Sen. Barack Obama defeat Sen. John McCain?

The Lone Star Iconoclast honestly has no idea since its deadline was last Thursday. In fact, it’s quite possible that over the weekend, President Bush could have ordered martial law, shut down the elections, and ignited mass hysteria across the nation. And if you’re reading this, we editors haven’t been thrown into the pit… yet.

But one thing was clear the week before Super Tuesday: Condoleezza Rice ain’t gonna be the president of the San Francisco 49ers pro-football franchise anytime soon.

“We have our office structure in place,” team spokesman Aaron Salkin told The San Diego Mercury News. “We don’t respond to rumors.”

The story of Rice’s possible recruitment originally broke on the NFL Network’s “GameDay Morning.” NFL reporter Adam Schefter quoted an unidentified high-ranking 49ers representative, saying that his franchise would consider hiring the soon-to-be former Secretary of State to head its organization come January 2009.

“If she’s interested in talking to us, I’m interested in talking to her,” the mysterious rep reportedly quoted on the network owned by the National Football League.

Schefter also reported that Rice had confided in friends that she was interested in becoming president of a pro-football team. Giving more weight to the rumor mill, the report noted that Rice graduated from Stanford University in San Francisco where she served as provost from 1993 to 1999; she is buddy-buddy with Gene Washington, a 49ers player and NFL Director of Operations; and she had hinted that she would rather be an NFL commissioner rather than a U.S. President.

Heck, for a time, the Niners employed President Bush’s former press secretary Ari Fleischer to coach its players on the finer points of dodging the media, according to The Mercury News. So Rice is basically in there like swimwear, right?

Maybe. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack performed what amounted to a Statue of Liberty play with the rumor at the start of his press briefing last Tuesday morning.

“You know, of course, once she’s in private life, I have no idea what sort of interest there may be in terms of the NFL and NFL teams, but at this point, there hasn’t been any contact between her and the 49ers,” he said.

Hear that? No contact. But who knows? Once she is done helping Bush ignite new wars in Syria and Pakistan, she might have it in her to run a multi-million dollar pro-sports franchise.

Take it from Ryan Hogan of The Bleacher Report:

“Secretary Rice has dealt with the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-il, and Bashar al-Assad. Has dealing with those world leaders prepared her for crazy tyrants like Al Davis and Jerry Jones?

“Secretary Rice has made the rounds on the Sunday morning talk shows and answered tough questions about foreign policy. Has that prepared her for going on Sunday morning pregame shows and answering stupid questions from Terry Bradshaw, Howie