Let's just say, for example, you are obsessed with politics. And let's also say, for the sake of argument — especially as we approach Super Bowl XLIV — you are obsessed with football.

Don Steinberg seems to have a way to entertain both obsessions.

A story in the Jan. 18 issue of The New Yorker by Nick Paumgarten caught my eye. He writes about Steinberg, a freelance sportswriter in Philadelphia, who has decided to create a "showdown in which each President goes up against his corresponding Super Bowl, in a SupraSuper battle for national supremacy or, at least, as a stimulus for oddball water-cooler conversation":

(It can get a little old talking about just football, or just Presidents, or just dinosaurs versus robots.) He called his tournament the America Bowl, the idea being that, as he put it last week, "the Presidency and the Super Bowl are the two things that you grow up learning are the pinnacle of American achievement." His teen-age son designed a logo, a generic football helmet going forehead to forehead at midfield with George Washington's ponytailed twenty-five-cent profile: concussion imminent. On December 27th, forty-two days before the actual big game, Steinberg started chronicling his hypothetical big games, one per day, on his Web site, Americabowl.net. "Which have been better?" he wrote. "Our Super Bowl games? Or our Presidents? Finally we can find out!"

For example, check out Game 16. Joe Montana may have led the 49ers to an exciting 26-21 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals. But, as Steinberg points out, "he didn't free the slaves." And while San Francisco's 20-0 halftime lead was the largest halftime shutout lead in Super Bowl history, "it didn't deliver The Gettysburg Address."

Thus, the victory in this case goes to the 16th President. (Oh, that was Lincoln.)

And I think we can all agree that Super Bowl IX may not have been the game's finest: Minnesota QB Fran Tarkenton threw three interceptions, and at halftime the score was (ugh) Steelers 2, Vikings 0. But, notes Steinberg, "at least they played the whole thing." The 9th President was William Henry Harrison, who lasted all of 32 days in office.

Victory, in this case, goes to the Super Bowl.

You get the picture. It's a lot of fun.

On Feb. 7 comes Super Bowl 44. Barack Obama is President # 44. That's one game that can't be scored just yet.