Politics aside, our current president may be the most in-touch chief America has ever had in the White House, and never moreso than when he's talking college football. He loudly supports a playoff, pretty much every chance he gets. He follows recruiting. And even with an honorary degree in hand and fellow Punahou (Hawaii) graduate Manti Te'o en route to South Bend this fall, Obama wasn't above that most venerated of populist traditions during his weekend tour of the Hoosier State -- taking shots at Notre Dame football:

The Fighting Irish had records of 3-9 and 7-6 the past two seasons—the most losses at the school in a two-year period—and haven’t won a national championship since 1988.

"That’s an issue we may not resolve within my four years," Obama said.

"Eight," shouted someone from the audience.

"All right, well, maybe in eight we might get it done," Obama said.

I put my money on the economy, actually, but you can't say he's not a man of challenges.

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While we're on the subject of playful Irish hating, the same paper that first reported Obama's gentle dig Monday, the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, also went with this headline today: "Irish leave out losing seasons in bio of Weis." The paper goes on to explain that ND "omitted the losing seasons from Weis’ year-by-year biography" in the '09 spring prospectus, excluding the 3-9 collapse in 2007 and six seasons as an assistant with the New England Patriots and at South Carolina. This is already getting around.

Seven losing season in a 25-year career is not really anything to hide, and if you look at the publication in question, the "memory hole" angle falls apart: You can easily download the prospectus, or view a screenshot of the "Weis File" in question. In the same section -- on the very next page of the print edition -- you'll find a box labelled The Weis Years at Notre Dame," which includes year-by-year records and scores for all 50 games since Weis took over in 2005, warts and all. There are a lot of ways to insult the man, but nobody is obscuring his record. No, they're paying very close attention.