A Fool For Sister Sarah

WITH A SCANT FIVE WEEKS remaining until the election, the time has evidently come for the right wing to lose what's left of its collective mind. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the editorial pages of one of America's leading humor publications, The New York Post.

Vying for the title of most unhinged political column of 2008, last Saturday's edition featured an outlandish Ralph Peters defense of the Republican vice presidential candidate, Our Sister Sarah Palin's Anti-Elitist Charm, whose purpose apparently was to elevate her to something resembling sainthood. Like some avenging knight, and armed with a quiver full of hackneyed half-truths, sweeping generalizations and outright falsehoods, an aggrieved Peters sets out to defend Palin from the hordes of ungrateful citizens who dare to commit the unpardonable sin of questioning the candidate's credentials for the high office she aspires to.

"I KNOW Sarah Palin, and so does my wife. Neither of us ever actually met the governor of Alaska, but we grew up with her -- in the small-town America despised by the leftwing elite.

One gal-pal classmate of my wife's has even traveled from New York's Finger Lakes to Alaska to hunt moose with her husband. (Got one, too.) And no, Ms. Streisand, she isn't a redneck missing half her teeth - she's a lawyer.

The sneering elites and their mediacrat fellow travelers just don't get it: How on earth could anyone vote for someone who didn't attend an Ivy League school? And having more than 1.7 children marks any woman as a rube. (If Palin had any taste, her teenage daughter would've had a quiet abortion in a discreet facility.)

And what kind of retro-Barbie would stay happily married to her high-school sweetheart? Ugh. She even kills animals and eats them. (The meat and fish served in the upscale bistros patronized by Obama supporters appears by magic - it didn't really come from living things.)"

It's glaringly obvious from the beginning of this affront to fact-based reality that when it comes to writing about the so-called culture wars, Peters' moronically simplistic take makes blowhard Bill O'Reilly's bloviating seem positively nuanced in comparison.

"Palin has that hick accent, too. And that busy-mom beehive 'do. Double ugh! Bet she hasn't even read Ian McEwan's latest novel and can't explain Frank Gehry's vision for a new architecture. She and her blue-collar (triple ugh!) husband don't even own a McMansion, let alone an inherited family compound on the Cape.

And she wants to be vice president. The opinion-maker elites see Sarah Palin clearly every time they look up from another sneering article in The New Yorker: She's a country-bumpkin chumpette from a hick state with low latte availability. She's not one of them and never will be. That's the real disqualifier in this race."

This selective championing of the common man has been a hallmark of the New York Post since it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch, himself a typical commoner in every way and in no way part of the media elite despite owning something like half the newspapers published in the Western Hemisphere. The right wing and their cheerleaders in this election cannot hope to win by running on the issues, so you get this shameless brand of Bizarro World class warfare, which can only work on a populace as ill-informed and dense as the average Post reader.

"Now let me tell you what those postmodern bigots with their multiple vacation homes and their disappointing trust-fund kids don't see: Sarah Palin's one of us. She actually represents the American people."

Hey Peters, have the guts to come right out and say it: she looks like one of us too, not like that skinny colored fellow with the funny name. Just how the hell is it anything less than blatant racism to suggest that she represents the American people more than Barack Obama does?

"When The New York Times, CNN, the NBC basket of basket cases and all the barking blog dogs insult Palin, they're insulting us. When they smear her, they're smearing every American who actually works for a living, who doesn't expect a handout, who doesn't have a full-time accountant to parse the family taxes, who believes in the Pledge of Allegiance and who thinks a church is more than just a tedious stop on daughter Emily's 100K wedding day."

So much lunacy crammed into just one short paragraph that it stands as a model of cheapshot liberal bashing: the anti-welfare insinuation, the phony populism, the obligatory outrage at the blogosphere, the appropriation of flag and God for one side of the political spectrum.

"Go ahead, faux feminists and Hollywood deep thinkers: Snicker at Sarah America's degree from the University of Idaho, but remember that most Americans didn't attend Harvard or Princeton as a legacy after daddy donated enough to buy his kid's way in.

Go ahead, campaign strategists: Mock Americans who go to church and actually pray. But you might want to run the Census numbers first.

And go right ahead: Dismiss all of us who remember how, on the first day of deer season, our high school classrooms were half empty (not a problem at Andover or Exeter)."

And they say the Internet is full of grudge-harboring, conspiracy-minded kooks. This last sentiment about hunting season is my favorite. I mean, you're writing for the New York Post here, not the Butte Creek Gazzette, so whose high school classrooms are you talking about here? And more importantly, who were those commie wimps who thought learning was a better way to spend a school day than slaughtering defenseless animals? I hope you reported their names to the proper authorities, Peters. The only thing kids at my public school knew about hunting we learned from the "duck season/rabbit season" episode of Bugs Bunny.

"That rube accent of Palin's? It's a howler. But she sounds a lot more like the rest of us than a Harvard man or a Smithie ever will. Why does Sarah Palin energize all of us who don't belong to the gilded leftwing circle? Because she's us. We sat beside her in class. We hung out afterschool (might've even shared a backseat combat zone on prom night). And now she lives next door, raising her kids."

More loaded code words here by Peters ("sounds a lot more like the rest of us, she's us," etc.). I have no idea what a Smithie is and I'm quite sure I've never run into one. And get real here, Peters, the "gilded leftwing circle" is a total fantasy of yours. If the left is so well off, then wouldn't they be more likely to vote Republican, to be calling for even more tax cuts for the super-wealthy? And why are progressives the only ones calling for a minimum wage increase to help the poorest of the working poor out? Just wondering how that squares with charges of elitism, especially when it's the Bible that seems to put a focus on Christians caring for the sick, poor and hungry? I guess only if they happen to live in that shining small town on a hill that hypocrites like Ronald Reagan made a career out of mythologizing.

"For the first time since Ronald Reagan, our last great president, we, the people, see a chance that one of us might have a voice in governing our country. Speaking of Reagan (Eureka College, Illinois), every chief executive we've had since the Gipper snapped his final salute as president has had the imprimatur of an Ivy League university. And we've gone from bad to worse:

* George Herbert Walker Bush: Yale.

* William Jefferson Clinton: Georgetown, Oxford, Yale Law.

* George W. Bush: Yale and Harvard Business School.

The first lacked the sense to finish the job in Desert Storm; the second lacked the guts to go after al Qaeda when it was just a startup - and the third, well, let's just say he disappointed our low expectations."

Ralph, that's an awful big city sounding word (imprimatur) you used there, almost Ivy League itself in its pretension. See how it works: only others' education is a form of elitism, only wealth in the hands of people who don't support McCain or agree with Peters is to be mocked. Peters has no problem with economic elitism, great wealth concentrated in the hands of the super-rich, because only the political right's experience is authentic, only their side has arrived at its positions and viewpoints genuinely. Unlike those liberal progressives, who hate small towns, Wal-Mart and decency.

It doesn't matter that your father was a factory worker and your mother a secretary: if you vote a certain way, you're a part of the sneering, flag-disdaining elite, and as such you're part of the problem. Worse still, you're one of them, not one of us. Got it? Good. Feel yourself getting stupider as you read the New York Post, well, that's the point. Insulting the intelligence and dumbing things down to this depth is no accidental premise in their case.

Peters himself graduated from Penn State University and then a series of military colleges, where he must have majored in low level propaganda. More like low class judging by the following low blow:

"Now we have the Ivy League elite's "he's not only like us but he's a minority and we're so wonderful to support him" candidate, Sen. Barack Obama (Columbia and Harvard Law). Our country can't afford another one of these clowns. Harvard isn't the answer - Harvard's the problem.

So here's the message Palin is sending on behalf of the rest of us (the down-market masses Dems love at election time and ignore once the voting's done): The rule of the snobs is over. It's time to give one of us a chance to lead. Sen. John McCain's one of us, too. He raised hell at Annapolis (quadruple ugh: military!), and he'll raise the right kind of hell in Washington."

Uh, raising hell by voting 9 times out of 10 with the party in power during the Bush years? Yeah, McCain being one of the Keating Five was a real howler! That influence-peddling scandal cost the taxpayers billions of dollars, and that bailout, like this latest one, was a direct result of excess deregulation forced through Congress by the ungilded, ungreedy right wing.

"McCain's so dumb he really loves his country. Sarah Palin's dumb that way, too. How terribly unfashionable."

Didn't we just try the folksy, supposedly down to earth guy for two terms? How'd that work out? We're still paying the price for that and will be for generations. Eight misguided years we'll never get back, thousands and thousands of lives never to return to this mortal coil as a direct consequence of a war that never needed to happen.

You're right, Peters, it would be downright silly to search for solutions to our complex financial problems in our leading universities; better to look for some uncultured hayseed whose manly gut instinct would be free from the unpure taint of effete intellectualism. Ugh! Thinking bad, make head hurt.

But as far as dumb, no one is saying Palin's as ignorant as, say, George W. Bush. Left and right alike now agree that there's no there there. What is becoming clearer about Palin's mock candidacy is that it's one of the most egregious cases of resume padding in the history of the sport. For instance, the former beauty pagaent queen knows as much about foreign policy as Miss Teen South Carolina knows about world geography. If that be sneering, Peters, then by all means make the most of it.

Peters is a retired Lt. Colonel and fashions himself quite the military expert. In fact, you might say he puts the moron in the oxymoron "military intelligence." I know this may shock you, but according to Wikipedia "Peters was a strong supporter of the 2003 invasion and ongoing war in Iraq." By the looks of it, the man has never met a war he couldn't revel in from a distance. He's written novels with fascistic-sounding titles like "The Perfect Soldier" and "Twilight of the Heroes" as well as neoconning nonfiction books like "Never Quit the Fight" and "New Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy."

A front-page New York Post editorial in 2007 had Peters trumpeting his charge that anyone opposing the Iraq surge is guilty of treason. Peters really makes no secret of his vision of American supremacy in the Middle East, no matter the cost in American lives. Some might even call it a form of sneering when he blames "the Arab genius for screwing things up" for our trouble in Iraq and declares "it appears that the cynics were right: Arab societies can't support democracy as we know it."

See, Peters is a regular on Fox News, CNN and the like, even PBS, where he espouses racist, jingoistic garbage like this. But of course that in no way makes him a mediacrat or part of the media opinion-making class. How can he even write this stuff with a straight face? More to the point, the future world Peters envisions for the human race is one where, according to this deranged little Dr. Strangelove,

"There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing."

Ultimately, it's clear that Peters is an alarming exemplar of the warped war groupie so prevalent in the present Republican landscape. He undoubtedly sees Sister Sarah Palin as a kind of stalking horse his War Party can slap some lipstick on and then ride to unlimited defense budgets and an endgame of enduring and unending war, one where his dreamy Perfect Soldier can carry out all the glorious carnage in the name of Pax Americana. And while the bullets fly in faroff lands, the well-connected war profiteers back home are free to get rich off the fat government contracts awarded to firms like Halliburton, Blackwater and KBR. It's in this context that Democrats are portrayed as defeatist appeasers, while Republicans claim the high ground as heroic supporters of the troops. In 2008 America, unquestioning patriotism is the always the first refuge of red-baiting scoundrels like Peters.

Somehow, thinking about a depraved war pig like Ralph Peters brings to mind the closing stanza of another old protest song, one that has never been more relevant.

"And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead"

See also:

Still Horrible

Plenty Smart

Thinking makes it so

Post partisan

Rejecting Rudy...

..As You Should

Repugnant Convention

T - 20...

No Reason

Memory's Wrecking Ball

AND THEN THERE WERE THREE...as in just 3 games left at Yankee Stadium. After this series against the Birds of Baltimore, it's off to the wholly unnecessary new Stadium being built just a Ruthian blast away from the current cathedral of American sports, set to be demolished next spring after every last seat, section post and light fixture has been cataloged, indexed and sold off to the proverbial highest bidder.

Ironically, the Yankees are making a big show of warning fans attending this Sunday's game against helping themselves to any impromptu souvenirs on their way out. See, it's still big money, the memorabilia game, what with suckers still being born in this dying consumer republic at the alarming rate of one per minute. As proof, pairs of Shea Stadium seats were going for $869 -- get it: 1969 and 1986 were the Mets' two championships, so they made the price 8 + 69. Just what the hell you do with rusting stadium seats once you've overpaid for them and actually brought them home is another relevant question. Of course, telling you not to do something works very much like a call to arms for some New Yorkers -- or is it "New Yorkians" now as Brett Favre actually put it the other day? They should take away Favre's key to the city for that one.

My own Stadium memories go back so far, they almost seem to be among my earliest memories period, all the more rich because they remain intertwined with recollections of my dad taking me to games. Funny the Yanks are closing out with Baltimore this weekend, because the first game I have concrete memories of is actually a doubleheader loss to those same Orioles. Back then, the late 1960s, Baltimore was a powerhouse and the Yankees, well, the Yankees were something less than that. The glory days were in the rear view mirror, with Mickey Mantle on his last legs literally as well as figuratively. The product taking the field every night was subpar to put it kindly, with decent players like Bobby Murcer and, my favorite, Roy White, surrounded by so-so players like Horace Clarke, Jerry Kenny and Gene Michael.

The Orioles, on the other hand, were fielding some of the greatest players not only of their era, but any period in baseball history. The pitching was so good, with Jim Palmer, Mike Cuellar and Dave McNally, that they would have four 20-game winners in one season. And with Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson and Boog Powell providing the power, there were a lot of nights like the one I suffered through that night: a discouraging 13-0 shutout loss in the opener, followed by another defeat in the nightcap.

Bat days at Yankee Stadium for this reason were something of a crapshoot. Like most young Yankee fans, you hoped you got a good bat -- in my case, one with a Bobby Murcer or Roy White signature, and not a Jake Gibbs or Tom Tresh model. Shea Stadium had to eliminate their own bat day giveaways at this time because of fan violence. When Yankee fans are the well behaved ones, you know you got a story.

They didn't call it the Bronx Zoo in those days for nothing. The half-filled stadium reflected the team's popularity in the City, as the rising Mets were beginning to capture New York at this time, with exciting young players like Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman and Cleon Jones, with the Mets turning from lovable losers to something like perennial contenders, and for that glorious year of 1969, even I got caught up a little in the fever, surreptitiously scrawling Tommie Agee in the palm of my glove in black marker after they won the World Series against the heavily favored Orioles.

Back at Yankee Stadium the next year, this time for Cap Day -- god how we lived for those giveaway days! -- I had one of the more traumatic experiences. After proudly wearing my new hat all day at the game -- that deep navy blue with, yes, the interlocking N/Y above the bill -- to my horror it was snatched off my head, never to be seen or worn again, as the heartless thief made his way down the exit ramp in a New York second. My mom made me write a letter to the team and, sure enough, a few weeks later a new cap came in the mail with a letter of apology from the team president of those pre-Steinbrenner New York Yankees, and I was a happy kid again.

For two years, 1974 and '75, the Yankees actually played their home games at Shea Stadium while Yankee Stadium was being refurbished. That's right, they shared a park with the Mets, so every day Shea had a baseball game featuring one of the New York teams. I haven't heard anyone talking about how some of the Yankees memories at least technically will also be lost when the wrecking ball is let loose on Shea.

The old Yankee Stadium, pre-renovation, had a feature that was eliminated in the new one: a kind of Yankee Hall of Fame that you could pass through on your way to Monument Park. It was really little more than some old uniforms in a glass case, but there was also a bank of phones where you could "talk to" Yankee greats. You picked up the receiver in, say, Mantle's booth and you heard a recorded message from Mickey. I never got tired of that.

One year, me and a friend went to a game along with my older brother and his friend Jimmy Kelly, who was known as a little crazy around the neighborhood. Now of course he's a New York City cop, so you see how things work out sometimes in the long run. Anyway, the Monuments were on the field in those days, just part of the cavernous centerfield, right in front of the 463-foot marker. I still find that hard to believe and yet I am sure that, yes, the players had to deal with all that while fielding a long blast to straightaway centerfield. I'm pretty sure I'm not embellishing this, but I can see how someone would be skeptical.

Anyway, you could also see the bullpen from Monument Park, and on this day reliever Lindy McDaniel was getting some work in. Lindy was one of the better players on the team in the early '70s, a trusty middle reliever and a reliable spot starter. So we started calling his name, once, twice, but no reaction, so finally, really loud, Jimmy yells: "Hey Lindy McDaniel you fucking faggot!" That got his attention, and sent us running back through the tunnel toward our seats. Ah, good times...

The late 1970s, of course, the Yankees started winning. Steinbrenner had taken over the team and was sparing no expense in upgrading the roster, dipping early and often into the free agent pool for top-notch talent like Catfish Hunter and later Reggie Jackson. It paid off to the tune of three straight World Series appearances from 1976-78, with championships the last two years against the L.A. Dodgers.

Summer of '78 found me working as a camp counselor at the Police Fresh Air Fund in upstate New York near Hunter Mountain, almost totally cut off from what was happening in New York for two months. Whenever I did manage to get hold of a paper, I saw the bad news getting progressively worse. Not only were the Yankees not going to defend their first World Series win in 15 years, they were so far behind the Red Sox that the AL East division itself was almost hopelessly out of reach. The lead ballooned to 14 games in July. Only a fool would think the season wasn't lost.

Then the Yankees reeled off a 35 of 49 stretch while Boston floundered at 25-24, pulling New York within a handful of games. Up next came the legendary 4-game series at Fenway early September, with the Yankees positively bludgeoning Boston by a composite 42-9 in what came to be known as the second "Boston Massacre." The next week Boston came to town for a 3-game series, and I was there for the finale, watching Yankee CF Paul Blair slap a bases-loaded single through a drawn-in infield for the 5-4 win in the bottom of the 9th, with a delirium ensuing that can only be termed seismic.

The Red Sox had given up their entire 14-game lead, and then some, only to show some guts of their own in coming back to tie for the division lead by season's end, prompting the historical one-game showdown at Fenway. I will never forget watching it along with Debbie Ellen Epstein, who happened to be the world's biggest Bucky Dent fan. And it was a good day to be a Bucky Dent fan on that day as he hit the go-ahead HR.

My only World Series moment comes from Game One, 1981, Yanks-Dodgers yet again in baseball's version of Groundhog Day. My friend Roger had waited on line for tickets the day before, not great seats, but then again we only paid $20 apiece! A younger, simpler time on pro sports. Singer Pearl Bailey blew the crowd away before a single pitch was thrown with a stirring version of the National Anthem, and then a Bob Watson 3-run bomb in the 1st inning had the Yanks well on their way to a 4-1 opening game victory. Yankees won the second game too, but then things spiraled out of control with the Series shifting out West.

See, we were up 2-0, and Roger also had tix for Game 6. But there wouldn't be a Game 6 unless the Dodgers could win a couple of games. So Roger did what I specifically asked him not to do: root for L.A. to win two games at Dodger Stadium and thus send it back to Yankee Stadium for at least one more game. Well, you know the baseball gods have a screwy sense of humor, and sure enough the jinx was enough to propel the Dodgers winning not just 2 but then all 3 games at home, and back in New York it was all over in 6 games. It was Dave Winfield's futility in this postseason that earned him the harsh sobriquet Mr. May. Who knew then it would be the last season that would end in the Series for another 15 years! Not me, not when a young lad name of Donald Arthur Mattingly showed up in the Bronx a few years later with a sweet swing and a commanding presence at 1st base.

But alas, the Winfield-Mattingly Era would also be bereft of postseason glory, always a sore spot for those of us who appreciated Donnie Baseball all those years. The early Joe Torre years seem like a blur now, almost running together in a haze of great playoff moments. The best games those years were the spontaneous ones we would attend, a select few of us at The Wall Street Transcript casually bolting from the office at noon of a workday, shooting uptown on the 6-train, arriving at our seats in time for 1:05 first pitch and ordering a well-deserved cold one after a long morning at work: the green, green grass of the field winking back at me reassuringly: relax... where else would you possibly rather be?

Those glory days it seemed like the year wasn't over until the parade was held downtown through the Canyon of Heroes. Now the Yankee team is forced into the uncomfortable role of postseason spectators. Both fans and players hope they don't have to get used to it when the new Stadium begins making its own history.

One-Eyed King

NOW, YOU MIGHT THINK someone would have better things to do with their time than defend the Dallas Cowboys' honor in what passes for the sporting press these days. Well, unfortunately, in my case you'd be dead wrong. Turning to Peter King's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column on SI.com, I should have known better than to expect a storyline involving something along the lines of the Cowboys winning the last MNF game played at Texas Stadium, the highest scoring game in the 98-game rivalry. Nah, that's too pedestrian an approach for the clever King; instead, he goes all Bizarro World and raves about how great the gritty Eagles looked while losing! It's a totally slanted article, but by now no one should be surprised by Peter King making excuses for Andy Reid. King starts with a pro-Philly agenda early and never lets up. Johnny Donovan, the excerpts please:

"The Eagles were tremendous last night. All that stood between them and beating the best team in football on the road was a botched Donovan McNabb-to-Brian Westbrook handoff with nine minutes left at the Dallas 33, trying to expand on a three-point lead. That's a once- or twice-a-year event, that kind of stupid play, and it shouldn't take away from what the Eagles showed the country in a scintillating football game."

Judging by this opening, if you weren't fortunate enough to have witnessed this absolutely thrilling football game, you might conclude the Cowboys were somehow handed the game by a gutsy but snake-bitten Eagles squad or, gasp, a blown official's call. Yes, there was a fumbled handoff on the Eagles' third-to-last drive of the game. But Philly got the ball back 2 more times! The drive after the fumble the Eagles were forced to punt, and the next time they had the ball, McNabb was sacked twice as the Eagles ran out of downs. So the Eagles had TWO MORE CHANCES to scintillate America some more by driving for a winning score. I guess they had demonstrated their "tremendousness" enough already by that point; by then there was no reason to show everything in the arsenal to the largest cable TV audience since they began tracking such things.

An impartial writer might balance out his piece by including some of the botched plays by the Cowboys in the first half that all but gift-wrapped not one but two Eagles touchdowns. I don't know how "once or twice a year" those plays were, but they were major factors in the Eagles comeback nonetheless. An ill-advised pass by Romo led to an Asante Samuel INT, his return gave Philly the ball at the Cowboys 33 yard line; the next play was a make-believe pass interference call on CB Anthony Henry that set Philly up at the Dallas 1. Brian Westbrook scored on the next play.

Then came the drop by Romo in his own end zone. That act of self-destruction was set up by another: a badly muffed kickoff return by Isaiah Stanback forced Dallas to start the drive on their own 5 yard line, a false start moved it back inside the 3, and then came Romo's fumble. That sequence gave Philly 14 points in 14 seconds -- suddenly turning a 14-6 deficit into a 21-14 lead -- which some might even call a once-in-a-generation happenstance.

Next, the deluded King lists three reasons why the Philadelphia Eagles just might prevail over the Cowboys and Giants after all in the tough NFC East division: 1, Philly can really play the run; 2, Donovan McNabb is back and better than ever; and 3, Brian Westbrook is Brian Westbrook. That's what I mean by having an agenda. Sure, all these things are true, and Philly will probably be in the division race all year, but was this the time and place to pontificate to his readers about it?

The Cowboys won 41-37 in thrilling fashion, and yet in King's column we find no mention of the electfrifying rookie Felix Jones, who set a Dallas franchise record for kickoff return yardage. No mention of Romo's performance, who by the way managed to outplay McNabb when it counted most -- 21-30 for 312, 3 TDs (123 QB rating) versus 25-37 and 281 and 1 TD (99 QB rating).

In the first half Eagles sold out to stop the run, pinching their LBs tight between the defensive ends. In the second half Marion Barber churned out enough first downs to seal the game, scored on a rushing TD, and also caught a 17-yard TD pass, but King never cares about numbers or facts when they don't work to prove a point he's intent on making:

"I don't care about Westbrook's stats; don't even tell me what they were. The great thing about this guy is he can get splattered like a squirrel in the road by a Hummer on one play, then he's back to make a play the next. What must he feel like the day after a game? Remember Larry Brown, the old Redskins running back? You couldn't believe the abuse Brown took on Sundays, and then he'd be back, fresh, the next week, running over somebody."

Just a pointless anecdote by Uncle Peter. Westbrook for the record was 18-58 rushing in the game, Barber 18-63. And this is the time he picks to make his stretch of a case that with "LaDainian Tomlinson getting nicked, Westbrook, right now, is the best all-around back in football for my money. He's what Tiki Barber was for the Giants for the last three years of his career -- an indefatigable runner and receiver you could build an offense around." Westbrook is a dynamic player, but it's not like he was close to being the best player on the field Monday Night. So put away your hero worship, King, and instead maybe some insight into the game that was just played, if you even watched it.

Predictably, Clueless Pete sets up the choice Andy Reid quote:

"As Reid said after the game, the Eagles just looked tougher last night. "We're a tough-minded football team, and that's important,'' Reid said. "I'm proud of the guys, man.''

That's not bias, though, to single out the Eagles supposed toughness in a game where TE Jason Witten separates a shoulder but misses just one series, when S Roy Williams fractures a forearm on a special tackle teams and is lost for a month. I'm sure Wade Phillips was just disgusted with his own team's effort on Monday night.

King concludes with his pseudo justification for the Eagles losing and Dallas winning. No mention that the Cowboys defense clamped down, holding the Eagles to just 7 points after halftime. Or how, say, Marion Barber playing with bruised ribs gutted out some tough yardage down the stretch. No, it's a case of the Eagles sort of overlooking a specific part of the game that you just know Reid & Co. will fix by the time they meet Dallas again.

"The Eagles lost this game because they couldn't get pressure on Tony Romo. Period. They've got the terminally underrated Trent Cole and Chris Clemons to fix that, and it must be better. But I wouldn't worry. Cole's not going to be as invisible as he was last night."

I searched that paragraph in vain for any praise or credit given to the Dallas O-Line -- superbly coached by Hudson Houck -- for keeping thosee mighty Eagles away from Romo and for giving up no sacks in 31 pass attempts. But I guess Flozell Adams, Leonard Davis and Marc Columbo had nothing to do with Cole and Clemons looking invisible; they must have stopped themselves all night. Rest assured, if Dallas loses this week at Green Bay, you won't see Peter King writing about how noble they were in defeat.

Week Two NFL Caravan

Broncos 39, Chargers 38
One brutal start to the 2008 season for San Diego. Opening week's last second loss to Carolina, this week's last minute jobbing by the refs in the form of a garbage call by Ed Hochuli. A blown call in Denver's favor in the first half after the replay mechanism malfunctioned was nothing compared to an apparent Jake Cutler fumble that wasn't. Postgame, a steaming Norv Turner said Hochuli admitted he blew the call, which Turner rightly called "unacceptable." Has the officiating improved at all since the black eye on the league that was the Seahawks-Steelers Super Bowl? I don't see how you make that case when one team clearly walked away with a win yesterday that was all but handed to them by the zebras. An old-fashioned AFL shootout, with over 900 yards total offense combined, ruined by a ref who didn't know the rules. At the least, I don't wanna see Ed Hochuli anywhere near a playoff assignment this year. Denver's Brandon Marshall caught 18 balls, 2 short of the record, against a Chargers secondary that embarrassed itself, with no one more guilty of covering no one than Antonio Cromartie, the NFL's new brand of "Toast." Usually when a QB goes 21-33 for 377 it's good enough for a W, but Chargers are wasting great play of Phil Rivers: his 594 yards and 6 TDs good enough for a stellar 122+ passer rating, but not enough to prevent 0-2 start.

Colts 18, Vikings 15
New York region got this exciting game, which thankfully offset having to watch the one-sided Giants thrashing of pitiful Rams. Colts spotted Vikes a 15-0 lead before Peyton Manning got hot in 2nd half, connecting with emerging Anthony Gonzalez 9 times for 163 yards. Amazing Adrian Peterson rushed for 160 in giving Minny astounding 180-25 edge in rushing yards. Despite legitimate upgrades in talent all over the roster, and with the world's best RB, Vikes will still go only as far as their unpolished QB Tarvaris Jackson will take them. So far it's been a journey to Oh-and-Twoville. Jackson is only 25, but I don't see him getting much better any time soon. That's as kindly as I can put it. Not a fan, is another way.

Redskins 29, Saints 24
Washington rebounded from putrid 16-7 loss to Giants in opener to knock off New Orleans. Reggie Bush, the NFL's most overrated player, had a 55-yard punt return TD in which he classlessly waved at opponents for about the last 20 yards. The TD put the Saints up 24-15 at the end of the 3rd quarter, but those were the last points NO would score, just like when Bush taunted the Bears on a TD in a playoff game two seasons ago and they shut the Saints out after that. Bush had 63 yards receiving but was only 10-28 rushing. Jason Campbell had best game as pro, 24-36 for 321 yards, including a game-winning 67-yarder to Santana Moss. Saints a solid candidate for most overrated team going into the season.

49ers 33, Seahawks 30
Changing of the guard in NFC West? With Cards' hot start and 49ers looking much improved at QB, Seattle is looking very vulnerable in Mike Holmgren's last year at the helm. More importantly they're 0-2. Luckily the perfect tonic is at hand in the form of the sacrificial Rams coming to town next week, then a bye. But the schedule is relentless after that, with games upcoming at Giants, home to Green Bay, at Tampa Bay and San Fran, before a home encounter with the Eagles. More importantly, Matt Hasselbeck looks lost, with a 45% completion percentage and 3 picks on the year. On the other hand, Julius Jones, with 127 yards against the 49ers, looks ready for a breakout year.

Cardinals 31, Dolphins 10
I kept seeing the numbers rolling in across the screen. Kurt Warner: 9-9 for 221 and 2 TDs, 12-14, finishing 19-24 for 361 yards -- a perfect QB rating. Cards start 2-0 for the first time in 17 years. Ironically, just when all the pigskin prognosticators stopped picking Arizona as their surprise team, they may be taking a step forward from last year's 7-9 team. I'm gonna assume the Dolphins will improve upon 2007's 1-15 debacle, but it's not gonna be by a whole bunch more wins. I see all the makings of a 3-13 team.

Patriots 19, Jets 10
NE wins ugly, Jets lose ugly. There's gonna be a lot of ugly if Matt Cassel doesn't look any better in coming weeks. Cassel was tentative, shaky and unsteady in going 16-23 for 165 yards. Let's just say he played worse than his numbers: severely underthrowing a streaking Randy Moss, who was 10 yards behind the nearest DB, for a sure TD on one play. I thought there was a reason Belichick kept this guy around for 4 years, but there are practice squad QBs scattered throughout the league that can outplay this guy. You gotta take the bad with the good when Brett Favre is your QB, and on this day there weren't enough good plays to offset the bad pick that turned the game decisively in favor of Pats.

Bills 20, Jaguars 16
Jacksonville is one of those teams everybody seems to overrate when it comes to preseason picks; everybody is anxious to put them on the next level, along with teams like the Saints and Vikings. Jags are a solid team with few weaknesses that looks to be there all year if David Garrard can repeat his efficient, almost flawless 2007 play (18 TDs, 3 INTs). Trouble is, very few QBs in the history of the game have gone an entire season and thrown only 3 picks. Law of averages may be catching up with Garrard, as he's already thrown 3 picks in the first 2 games, with only 1 TD. Jags find themselves 0-2 and staring up at Colts and Titans. They may have to get used to the view. Buffalo QB Trent Edwards, a comer in this league, had a very solid game, going 20-25 for 239, and his passer rating after 2 games stands at 107.7. With continued improvement from Edwards, it's the Bills, not the Jets, who will be challenging Pats for AFC East title till the very end. Bills among most disciplined, best-coached teams in football. Talent is now starting to catch up to the schemes, as the rest of the league will find out.

Titans 24, Bengals 7
No Vince Young, no problem, it's only the Cincinnati Bengals we're talking here. A methodical, read boring, win for Tennessee. Conservative game plan for Tennessee, only 118 yards for QB Kerry Collins more than enough to offset a quizzically subpar Carson Palmer, who through 2 games has yet to throw a TD. He's got 3 INTs and just 228 total passing yards. And the Bengals running game is almost nonexistent. They better find something in a hurry, because a road game against the Giants awaits, followed by games against the Browns and Cowboys. If Marvin Lewis lasts the year, it will be as coach of one of the league's least competitive teams. I wanted to say worst team, but then remembered the Chiefs, Rams and Dolphins are still technically NFL teams.

Raiders 23, Chiefs 8
Raiders will be in every game this season if they just let Darren McFadden tote the rock 20-25 times a game. Yesterday, in overwhelming Kansas City, McFadden had 21 carries for 164 and Michael Bush added another 90, part of an even 300 yards rushing for Oakland. Of course they will win a lot more close games if they get more than the 55 yards passing they had yesterday from JaMarcus Russell. Chiefs seem absolutely rudderless as a franchise now, and it's gonna be painful to watch this team on a weekly basis.

Panthers 20, Bears 17
Had Panthers down for my sleeper team. It wasn't the Jake Delhomme who almost stole that Super Bowl from New England a few years back with a magical second half (12-21 for 121 yards, 1 INT), but magic is what Carolina seems to have going, as evidenced by their two miraculous wins to open the 2008 season. Panthers were staring a loss in the face, trailing Chicago 17-3 midway through the 3rd. But they scored 17 unanswered to close it out. Bears' TE Greg Olsen lost 2 fumbles in a defensive struggle, with both teams COMBINING for 462 yards (Panthers 216, Bears 256). Can't blame Rex for this gross one.

Giants 41, Rams 13
Thankfully we were spared from having to take in this stinkeroo, with NFL generously beaming Colts-Vikes to NYC at 1pm. Semi-close game early, then Rams seemed to remember how much they're supposed to suck, and got down to it in the second half. If this was the last game of the year, people would be trotting the 'Q' word out -- quitting. But it's early in the season and so we just gotta assume they're this bad. Last week told me all I need to know about how the Rams care about winning: RB Steven Jackson yucking it up on the field with the Eagles after a 38-3 crushing of his team. Think they'd like Kurt Warner back at QB right about now? I do, because for whatever reason Marc Bulger is playing like a shell of his former self behind a porous offensive line, but maybe he's just proving that he wasn't that good in the first place. Playing Eagles and Giants first two games may be skewing the Rams' enormous degree of suckitude in getting outscored so far 79-16. Time will tell, as it always does.

Packers 48, Lions 25
Despite lopsided final score, Lions didn't pack it in down 21-3. In fact Detroit stormed back to take 25-24 . No ground game whatsoever for Lions; a game, battered Jon Kitna found Calvin Johnson for 2 scores. But the outstanding play of Aaron Rodgers (42-60 on the year with 4 TDs, good enough for a 117+ QB rating) figures to lead to some enterprising Packers fan making a mint selling "Brett Who?" t-shirts outside Lambeau Field.

Buccaneers 24, Falcons 9
Need a few more weeks to get a read on both these teams. Figures to be up and down year for both teams with uneven QB play week to week. Atlanta rook Matt Ryan came crashing back down to earth with his 13-33 for 158, 2 INTs and 4 sacks. Brian Griese efficient enough with no turnovers on 18-31 passing.

Steelers 10, Browns 6
For second week in a row, Romeo Crennel dubiously went for a FG late instead of the TD. Last week Cleveland went for 3 while trailing 28-7. This week with 3:21 left, trailing Pitt 10-3, he goes for the FG, which means the team still needs a TD to win. Bad message, playing not to lose instead of to playing to win. Steelers, on the other hand, never beat themselves and are hands down the most physical team in the game.

"Theater Of The Hopeless"

WITH ALL THE rainouts last night forcing doubleheaders today, there are a total of 20 MLB games being played today -- the most in one day since August of 1974. And I hope my Yankees lose both of their games today at Yankee Stadium to the Tampa Bay Rays, all the better to hurt the Boston Red Sox, who come into today trailing by only 2 games. Not that the Yankees need any more reasons to lose this season. Mike Mussina, after tying Cy Young for career strikeouts, gave up a 2-run single to the next batter, and Rays lead 2-0.

Derek Jeter is at that point in his career where almost every day he seems to be tying or passing one or another Yankee legend's record. The other day it was passing Babe Ruth in hits, and with his first hit today he is now within 8 hits of Lou Gehrig for most hits all time at Yankee Stadium. It seems only yesterday me and my dad were agreeing that this skinny kid with the #2 on his back has a chance to be something special.

When the Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles 90210 clinched the AL West with a win over the Yanks in their series finale the other day, it marked the earliest a team had clinched a division title since they went to the divisional alignment for the 1969 season. Yanks, on the other hand, have the AL's 7th best record, and 12 other teams in MLB have better records, which helps to put their lost year in perspective.

More painful perspective: Yanks scored 2 runs or less 46 times this year, compared to 33 in all of 2007. I'm tempted to say after all the number crunching, maybe it all comes down to something as simple as not making up for the loss of Jorge Posada's 2007 production (.338, 20 HRs, 90 RBI), which if spread across a season would make right a lot of offensive woes. Whatever the conclusion, Yankee fans are gonna need a fall guy for the year, and the name Brian Cashman immediately springs to mind and will do just fine.

Now it's 7-0 Rays, and the word forfeit never sounded so reasonable. Forfeit the game, give up the season already. Nothing to play for over the last 10 games at Yankee Stadium. That's pitiful really.

Yanks' radio man John Sterling just called this game "the Yankees' worst of the year" -- as if such a thing were truly quantifiable. Anyway, it seems there's been a "worst game of the year" almost every week this season.

The other day Tyler Kepner, Yanks' beat writer for The Times, called playing out the rest of the season a "theater of the hopeless." Can't argue with that. We all waited for the hot streak to come, hoped for the run that never came, but unlike even last year, this Yankees team didn't have the collective heart to will themselves to win day after day, and so the long playoff run ends not with a bang but with a whimpering wind through what will soon be not only an empty ballpark but an abandonded one.

The Yanks have only 3 hits today, all by Jeter, against Rays starter James Shields and we're already in the 6th inning. This is their 2008 season in a nutshell, the utter futility. Better the season ends this way, however, than another first-round knockout in the playoffs. That's somehow worse. Let's hit bottom, take stock, reload. All that's left for a Yankees fan this year is rooting agains the Red Sox and rooting against the Mets, and then hoping Jeter gets those 6 more hits for the record. That's what happens in losing seasons: the fans of the team start paying attention to individual records.

Read & React

HOLY HAND GRENADE, has there ever been a more eventful Week One in the NFL's history?! Between the major injuries and the big blowouts, it seemed like everybody was drawing definitive conclusions based on just a game played.

Based on the first game results, the dogs of the league would appear to the Rams, Bengals, Texans and Lions; all 4 teams are virtual locks for last. Don't think the Redskins will be as bad as they showed Thursday versus the Giants; they're an 8-8 team, but that's still bringing up the rear of the loaded NFC East. That's as far ahead as I'm willing to look. One game at a time, as the league's most trusted cliche puts it.

The first inclination among both writers and fans after Tom Brady's season-ending injury was to write off the Patriots with extreme prejudice. Now, Jets fans can't contain their giddiness, and who can blame them feeling optimistic when they look at their QB situation compared to their division rivals. But I for one would not be so eager to bet large sums of money against a cornered Bill Belichick, at least until we see Matt Cassel play a few more games. I just hate writing off a player before he gets his fair shot. Hell, didn't we learn anything from Tom Brady and Tony Romo coming out of nowhere? Let's give the kid a chance. I think there's a reason that the talent evaluators on the sport's model franchise over the last decade kept Cassel on the roster all these years.

Now, just like in baseball, where I refuse to follow the first 10 games of the endless MLB season, I usually try not to put much stock in Week One or Two results, no matter how one-sided. It takes at least 4 games into an NFL season before you know anything about how the season is gonna play out .

One thing I especially dread is the trend of "Power Ranking" NFL teams. You now see this regularly on every football Website. I mean, this is not college football, where rankings are everything; unless I'm mistaken, there will be a playoff tournament after the regular season, so ranking the Cowboys first, Giants second, Chargers third, etc., is an exercise in complete futility.

Remember how we were inundated all last year experts writing off the NFC's chances of winning a Super Bowl any time soon or even staying on the same field as a team like the Patriots or Colts or Chargers. How did that work out, all those columns about the supposedly inferior conference? Now just a year later, NFC teams like the Giants, Eagles, Cowboys and Packers are as deep and talented as anything the AFC now has to offer. Panthers and Saints may be a notch below those teams but still dangerous if Delhomme and Brees stay healthy at QB. There are major question marks surrounding the Colts (Manning's health), Chargers (losing Shawn Merriman) and Pats. Broncos and Steelers may be class of the conference by midseason. How the worm has turned.

Seems a little too early for such a showdown matchup, but Week Two gives us Eagles-Cowboys this Monday Night. Would have been nice in Week Six or Seven, but we'll still learn a lot about how strong this NFC East division may be. Everybody seems to want to focus on Romo's struggles last December in the 10-6 Eagles win -- the Jessica Simpson pink jersey game -- overlooking Romo's 38-17 dismantling of the Eagles at Philadelphia in a November Sunday Night game, when he went a blistering 20-25 for 324 yards and 3 TDs. Nice to know that Romo has that to fall back on, because judging by the experts no QB has ever completed a pass against the Eagles blitz.

But Romo will continue to be scrutinized until he erases the playoff drought, as if he's personally responsible for the Cowboys lack of postseason success since 1996, as if he ever stunk up a stadium or was, say, "Eli Manning Against the Panthers" bad -- throwing up 3 awful picks. No, Romo has exactly 1 INT in his two playoff games against 2 TDs. Yes, he hasn't played up to his own regular season standards in the postseason, but when measured against all-time greats like John Elway, Peyton Manning and Brett Favre, sometimes the football gods test even the best before pointing the way to Football Valhalla. That's what makes the journey all the sweeter.
No QB in recent memory ever took the beating that Eli Manning took his first 3 seasons, not only from the out-of-town football pundits but also, and especially, in his own hometown from fans and sportswriters alike. In 2007, when Manning threw 20 INTs in a so-so regular season, the criticism became a feeding frenzy (and it's not like I wasn't one of the hungriest sharks in the sea), reaching the point where people were almost competing to throw the nastiest, lowest blows in Eli's direction. That's my latest conspiracy theory for why the New Jersey Giants rode one of the unlikeliest, most unbelievable waves to a championship in the history of organized sports. The notoriously temperamental and contrary Football Gods decided to reward poor Eli for taking all those personal cheap shots. And it's that same logic that this year Tony Romo gets his just reward, bringing his Cowboys along with him to the Promised Land. If you've got a better working theory, I'd love to hear it.

The Airborne Toxic Event - Moving On

Unforeseen Musical Directions

If, as Kurt Vonnegut said, "Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God," then what can be said about unexpected concert tickets at the last minute? That's what happened to me on Friday night as I found myself taking in the Airborne Toxic Event at Roseland Ballroom, a group that I had never, ever heard before at a concert venue that I had never, ever been to.

Turns out my friend Steve had an extra ticket to the show. For the last few weeks he had been jacked up about seeing Airborne Toxic Event and since his taste in music is almost a mirror image of my own, I jumped at the chance to see some good live rock & roll in what some still call the Big City.

We had less than zero interest in the first band going on at 8, so instead we hit a midtown bar for a cold one, getting back to Roseland just in time, literally as the band took the stage for their first song. One thing the band had going in their favor was that the name Airborne Toxic Event was taken from one of my all-time favorite books:

"The band takes its name from the postmodern novel White Noise, by Don DeLillo, which won the National Book Award in 1985. In the book, a chemical spill from a railcar releases a poisonous cloud, dubbed by the military as an “airborne toxic event.” This serves as a metaphorical device for the novel’s themes of mortality and media consumption, as the protagonist Jack Gladney is forced to confront the prospect of his own death."

ATE was actually second on the bill, with Scottish band The Fratellis headlining. The Airborne lineup was your standard 2 guitars, bass and drums, but the 5th member happened to be an electric violin player, a modern day Scarlet Rivera if you like, who also played keyboards and tambourine. Something about the arrangements as well as the lead singer's raspy vocals immediately reminded me of Arcade Fire, judging by the 4 or 5 songs that I know of that band.

After about the 3rd song, the singer mentioned that the Roseland air conditioner had stopped working that very morning, and indeed the place was not only like a sauna, but served the exact same purpose as one, drenching band and audience alike in a sheen of sweat, yet unlike, say, a packed rush hour subway platform with no AC, somehow this felt just right. The lead singer/rhythm guitarist, whether intentionally or not, had that Joe Strummer chopping at the guitar strings while backing away from the mike stand move down pat, but I guess if you're gonna emulate someone as a rhythm guitarist, Strummer's not a bad monkey to ape.

Airborne Toxic Event only has one album out, so the set lasted for just short of an hour, then a long break of 40 minutes or so before the main act, the Fratellis, hit the stage. We took the opportunity to get some air in the lobby, where I saw something that may turn out to be an amazing coincidence.

I had passed by the place hundreds of times, but had never set either foot inside Roseland Ballroom, which was a famous ballroom dancing place from the 1920s until the '60s. It's a huge, cavernous place, pretty much kept intact from those old days.

Here's your irony alert. I had just spoken to my friend Anthony on my way to the concert about an hour before I met Steve, his brother Matty and their friend John in front of Roseland on 52nd Street. Tony mentioned that our old friend Urb had pulled up in front of his parents' house in Astoria and said hello to his dad last week: "Hey, Mr. Trentacosti, remember me?" Now, I've known Tony's parents for years and years, and I know his mom's name is Mary, but I couldn't remember his dad's name. That's what I was thinking as he told me the story.

Just a few short hours later, I'm drinking a beer and checking out the scenery in the lobby when something on the wall catches my attention. It's a neat little tribute with the names of all the couples who first met while dancing at Roseland and then got married. About halfway down the first column I see Mr. and Mrs. John Trentacosta, 1953. Yes, it's spelled slightly differently, but I know from experience that long Italian names like Trentacosti or long Greek ones like Eleftheriou and Vrakipedes from my own family are usually off by a few letters whenever someone else is writing them down for posterity. I know the year 1953 is about right, because that's around when my folks got married and they were about the same age as Tony's parents. I have a call into Tony right now and we'll get to the bottom of this.

Anway, I knew even less about The Fratellis going in than I did about Airborne Toxic Event, and came away less impressed by their shambolic brand of neo-glam. Oh yeah: their lead singer seemed to have his own Marc Bolan thing going on. Not that they were terrible or anything, just more 1970s derivative and somehow less memorable than Airborne Toxic Event. Yet the capacity crowd clearly felt otherwise, with most of the young'un's in fact there expressly to see the aforementioned headliners The Fratellis. As if to prove it, great numbers of them could be heard singing and even on occasion chanting along with the band in something very close to unison. Let's say by all indications they got their money's worth.

Monday Postscript: Heard from Anthony this morning and, yes, his parents did meet at Roseland in 1953. His dad must have been some ballroom dancer, because two years later they got married and they're still together more than a half century later. You have to admit me seeing their names still there on the Roseland lobby wall Friday has to be classified as one helluva New York coinky-dink. I do have a cell phone pic by way of documentation, just in case there are any skeptics out there.

Un-Conventional Impressions

I PROMISED MYSELF I was not gonna watch a second of the Republican Convention this week, but there I was last night, soaking up the entire asylum, er, assembly of Rich White Simpletons shouting "USA! USA!" If you spotted a black face and it wasn't attached to a security guard, your eyes are much better than mine. There was a Jon Voight sighting, however.

The reason a political junkie like yours truly thought long and hard about skipping the festivities was purely medical: my blood pressure and stress rising to apoplectic levels was a very real threat that I gave into at the last second. To try to prevent all my pent-up disgust from exploding all at once, my strategy consisted of screaming obscenities loudly and giving the middle finger often to the television screen. Like most adult males of my particular demographic and psychological profile, this kind of behavior is ordinarily confined to your big sporting events.

One of the reasons it would have been wise for me to skip the Tuesday night lineup was because it featured two of the more revolting politicians our broken democracy can lay claim to: Fred Thompson and Joe Lieberman. Now, these two phony lying hucksters would have been abhorrent human beings no matter what profession they chose; but it was as attack dogs for the corrupt Republican platform that they were there speaking last night, back to back.
Fred Thompson has obviously polished his "Aw Shucks" corn-poke act over the decades, most notoriously employing his hayseed hypocrisy to great effect as the leading force in the Senate driving the Clinton impeachment back in '97-98. Last night he got great applause for his usual stump speech, which mostly bravely defends America, apple pie and motherhood against a degenerate Hollywood and media elite bent on handing the dangerously liberal Obama the election before a single vote is cast.

Choice Thompson: "Sarah Palin is the only nominee in the history of either party who knows how to field-dress a moose!" Call off the election now! It's over!

Joe Lieberman has an undeniably morbid bearing, and last night at the podium he looked at times like a mortician at a Sweet Sixteen party. He mumbled and stumbled through a singularly uninspiring speech -- his own creepy sotto voce laughter disturbingly, frequently audible over the humming of the less-than-fully aroused convention crowd.

Lieberman's appeal to disaffected Dems and independents was not only exceedingly superficial and disingenuous but also totally unlikely to have any effect on the election. After 8 years of the most deliberately polarizing president in at least a generation, lapdog Lieberman is appealing to voters to put Country First -- incidentally the convention motto, which took on unabashedly bizarre and proto-Fascistic overtones considering the militaristic stamp of the night.

Tonight it's Rudy Giuliani's turn, one of the very few modern day pols who, to me, rivals the above two for sheer soul-sucking malignancy. Then it's America's chance to get to know Sarah Palin, the cartoonish-sounding, self-described "hockey mom" a desperate John McCain tapped as his running mate.

My first reaction to the Palin nomination was, Great move for the Republicans. Cynical, desperate and almost wholly marketing-driven, yet potentially brilliant politically. But over the course of less than a week, the lack of vetting (has that word ever been used with more frequency than this past week?) by the McCain camp is startlingly obvious, and that's leaving aside for the moment the tabloid frenzy over her unmarried teenage daughter's pregnancy.

There is already enough politically exploitable baggage attached to her that Louis Vuitton will be opening an Alaskan outpost should the McCain-Palin ticket be cashiered in November. The Democrats would be wise to lay low until the debates and press conferences thrust Palin further into the spotlight. Obama-Biden operatives would be wise to use her own words to show that her brand of frontier conservatism is out of touch with the voting mainstream.

As far as I can tell, Palin supports creationism being taught in schools to the exclusion of evolution; abstinence education in lieu of sex education; is rabidly pro life and anti-abortion; and in a more comical vein exhorts fellow Alaskans to pray for a natural gas pipeline and for oil drilling in her state: "God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that," she said. This kind of stuff makes her a hit with the evangelical crowd and will ensure a higher turnout among those lunatics than if, say, Lieberman or Tom Ridge were the VP choice, not uncoincidentally reported to be McCain's original selections. But does it garner her enough support among moderate women and environmentally minded voters, not to mention the coveted youth vote that has gone overwhelmingly Democratic the last two elections.

Even after 8 years of the Bush nightmare, most progressives and mainstream Dems just can't work themselves into a frenzy of personal hatred over John McCain, given his back story of overcoming overwhelming suffering during those years in a Vietnamese POW camp. Any other candidate would not be getting the near-free ride he's enjoyed so far, rightly or wrongly, judged solely on the merits of his uneven political career and constant shifting of opinions. In an earlier, simpler time, such unsure waffling would be branded as the dreaded "flip-flopping" -- a labeling that ringingly resonated with the double-digit IQ crowd that the Republicans almost exclusively set out appealing to in their every campaign move.

What makes the Rovian strategy so effective is that it simultaneously appeals not only to the grossly uninformed and blissfully ignorant among the electorate, but also to the reptilian part of the brain that often drives gut reactions and first impressions. Those are the emotions that cut deepest and last longest, and thus the more considered and thoughtful sections of our mind are often at a loss to parry them, no matter the ultimate consequences.

George Orwell wrote that Mankind at this stage of its development was ill-equipped, perhaps even fatally unprepared, to meet the challenges and demands that history was making of it, and thus we keep electing dysfunctional politicians and getting the resultant unresponsive governments we deserve. As good an explanation as any for the rotten state of our nation since right about the time the highly coordinated firing of assassins' bullets cut short a certain young president's life back in 1963, and thus our last best hope in the process, after but a thousand short days.