PARIS—Hola, Sportstrotter amigos. How’s it hanging? I know it’s been a long time since I rapped at ya, but the lines on the field don’t paint themselves here at Sportstrotter-MGD Stadium.
I’ll tell you where I’ve been the last couple weeks: holed up in my tiny apartment, with the heat on (winter starts early here in Paris), half-dressed and huddled under a desk with my laptop, obsessively reading the news and trying not to piss myself. With a virulent mixture of abject, tremble-inducing terror and maniacal, Joker-esque amusement, I’ve been following along at home as the world self-destructs. Economics, politics, society, science, culinary, environment — you name the topic, and one undeniable truth pervades: we’re fucked.
Worse still: a Cubs pitcher recently threw a no-hitter; the Buffalo Bills are 3-0; even the Yankees, ever-fueled by Steinbrenner’s billions, missed the playoffs this month. If that’s not a sign of the apocalypse, I don’t know what is.
Yes, friends, these are exciting, historically dire times we’re living in. To talk each other off the ledge, we’re first of all going to need something to talk about. Something we both care enough about to have a reasonable, informed discussion on. Anchower? Sports? The Bush Doctrine?
That’s one thing I’ve discovered, reading so much news: if you’re on the ledge with US Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin, you might want to steer clear of the topic of world affairs. As James Fallows pointed out earlier this month on his Atlantic blog, Palin’s swing-and-a-miss on identifying the Bush Doctrine in an interview with ABC’s Charlie “Charlie :)” Gibson spoke volumes about her ignorance of even the most basic conversational points of the last eight years of United States foreign policy.
‘It is embarrassing to have to spell this out, but for the record let me explain why Gov. Palin’s answer to the “Bush Doctrine” question — the only part of the recent interview I have yet seen over here in China — implies a disqualifying lack of preparation for the job ….
What Sarah Palin revealed is that she has not been interested enough in world affairs to become minimally conversant with the issues. Many people in our great land might have difficulty defining the “Bush Doctrine” exactly. But not to recognize the name, as obviously was the case for Palin, indicates not a failure of last-minute cramming but a lack of attention to any foreign-policy discussion whatsoever in the last seven years.’
The best part of Fallows’s post, and the only reason I reference it in this space, is that the example he used to illustrate his point about basic conversational knowledge of a topic was … sports talk radio. “Mention a name or theme – Brett Favre, the Patriots under Belichick, Lance Armstrong’s comeback, Venus and Serena,” writes Fallows, “and anyone who cares about sports can have a very sophisticated discussion about the ins and outs and myth and realities and arguments and rebuttals.”
For instance, Condoleezza Rice — coincidentally one of the architects of this mysterious “Bush Doctrine” – has repeatedly mentioned her desire to one day become commissioner of the NFL. Now, let’s say presumptive commissioner Condi gives an interview to ESPN’s Stuart Scott, who asks her, “if you had been in Roger Goddell’s place, how would you have handled the 2007 Spygate investigation?”
She can take any position she wants on the question. I’d like to hear it — especially because any jabs made towards Bill Belichick would be implicit critiques of her pal Dick Cheney. Hey, don’t tell me the similarities between those two men aren’t frightening.
But if Condi clearly demonstrates in her response that she has no idea what Spygate was, we have to wonder if she’s really as passionate or as qualified to become overseer of the NFL as she says she is. If she has no idea what Scott is talking about … next.
So, in that vague spirit, I bring you a scattered, rambling list of my thoughts on the most compelling goings-on during the last several weeks in the sporting universe. No crib notes. No elaborate context. Just sports talk. If you’ve been following along at home, these should initiate some sort of emotional reaction or opinion in you. If not, well, I guess you’re not qualified to be vice president of sports. You sure are good lookin’, though
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