I guess certain Northwest stories never make it further east than Couer D’Alene. For example, wouldn’t it be something if a Big 10 school hired Cindy McCain’s brother to coach basketball? It would, right?

How ’bout if a Pac 10 university hired Michelle Obama’s brother? Because that one really happened. Though I still don’t think that former Brown head coach Craig Robinson’s new gig in Corvallis will swing Hillary the Eugene vote.

Oregonian wiseguy Ryan White notes that Robinson went on the air with right-wing “talk-radio Muppet” (White’s description) Victoria Taft. Naturally, she asked the coach about Obama’s “crazy church,” as well as Robinson’s fellow University of Chicago grad Jay Berwanger Rick Wojcik Milton Friedman.

… do you ever tell your brother in law about government getting out of our business and out of our lives?

CR: No, I don’t.

(Awkward laughter from Taft.)

VT: Would you call yourself a Milton Friedman acolyte, or would you say that your, uh, a bit more liberal.

CR: I’m a little bit more liberal than Milton Friedman.

VT: (laughs) Well I appreciate that.

And then she asks about recruiting, which is too bad, because I really wanted to know where Oregon State’s new basketball coach stands on the estate tax.

In the middle of March Madness, Portland State players Scott Morrison and Jeremiah Dominguez also proved to be a virtual non-story. Even this place somehow failed to run this picture.

Morrison has said he’s innocent, which, legally, he is. And I guess it’s safe to say he wasn’t too worked up about John Canzano calling him an on-court wimp. In fact, that’s part of his defense:

“Anybody who knows me knows I would never hit anybody. That’s always been a knock on me that I’m not aggressive enough on the court, not to mention how passive I am off the court.”