Joe Barton's Twittering Staffer Dispenses Ironic Advice

During President Barack Obama's speech before Congress last night, various congresspersons were Twittering up a storm of observations. Glenn Thrush of Politico highlights this gem:

As Obama began speaking, the following posts popped onto Twitter account of Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton, who called Obama out for failing to include his party in stimulus talks during Monday's White House summit:

"Aggie basketball game is about to start on espn2 for those of you that aren't going to bother watching pelosi smirk for the next hour."

It was followed, 15 minutes later, by:

"Disregard that last Tweet from a staffer."

In the first place, there's something a little sad about relegating your Twitter responsibility to an easily disownable staffer. But as snarky television viewing advice goes, it could be a lot worse! As it turns out, the Texas A&M Aggies currently find themselves on the bubble of being invited to the NCAA Tournament, and were in need of a win last night against Big 12 rival Nebraska to stay on pace to repeat the 8-8 conference record that got them to the Big Dance last year. Of course, tip off last night came at about 9:30 p.m., Eastern time. And had you watched the game instead of Obama's speech, well, you would have witnessed the Aggies struggle through their first half, only to hit the intermission down by thirteen.

The second half, on the other hand, went a lot better for the Aggies, who slowly wore down the deficit behind a steely defense that allowed only seven points in the last sixteen minutes. The game ended in dramatic fashion, on A&M's Josh Carter's buzzer-beating three point shot securing the 57-55 win.

Naturally, things started getting good for Texas A&M around the time Bobby Jindal was shambling out for his rebuttal speech, so, here's to you if you were smart enough to follow Barton's advice!