Rick Sutcliffe drunken prophecy realized: George Clooney meets with Obama

Big news out of Washington, D.C., on Thursday: George Clooney met with Barack Obama and lobbied him regarding the continuing human rights crisis in South Sudan.

Update: Clooney has been arrested outside of the Sudanese embassy during a protest.

Yeah, whatever. An audibly sloshed Rick Sutcliffe was all over this story in 2006 — before South Sudan was even a gleam in the eye of the Nubian people, and while Obama still worked in the U.S. Senate. This also was before The Stew, but you remember!

It's hard to believe that nearly six years have passed since Sutcliffe — apparently hopped up on hops — wandered into the home announcers booth during a San Diego Padres TV broadcast and started slurring his words about "Clooney being up there with the Congress ... trying to get everybody to go over there ... and solve that thing."

"There," of course, is Africa, where Sutcliffe's daughter was heading in '06 after graduating from Harvard law school. ... Excuse me, medical school. "That thing," of course, was genocide in Darfur — which relates to what's going on today in South Sudan.

Below, check out video of Sutcliffe's unexpected current events lesson from '06, and be sure to read along with Gaslamp Ball's indispensable transcript. Announcers Matt Vasgersian — "George CLOONEY?!" — and Mark "Mud" Grant were bemusedly horrified:

"You seeing that, Mud?" That's an all-timer right there. But if that's how America is to learn about what happens beyond her borders, so be it. And now, Sutcliffe's drunken prophecy has come to pass, as Clooney and Obama — occupying the Oval Office instead of a Senate seat from Illinois — have exchanged intelligence data on Africa. I'm not sure when Clooney became an undercover agent, like Elvis Presley wanted to be under the Richard Nixon administration, but if it means more classic moments courtesy of an inebriated Rick Sutcliffe, let's get George started with the Taliban tomorrow.

Epilogue: Matt Vasgersian got out of San Diego and works for MLB Network.

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