hatching gate cracks open

pat, pat, pat fixed with tape

as specter haunts the chick

A: Yes, it really is. I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as — to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.

Q: Was there a particular moment of incident that brought you to that decision, or how did you come to that?

A: I remember when de Mello, who was at the UN, got killed in Bagdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man’s life. And I was playing golf. I think I was in Central Texas. And they pulled me off the golf course and I said, it’s just not worth it anymore to do.”

Such was the content of a question and answer segment of a recent, much discussed interview with President George W. Bush. Keith Olbermann goes off in this Special Comment YouTube clip. Hold on for a second while I channel Keith Olbermann for Fantivity’s own Special Blogment:

Golf, Sir?

Golf?

Why did it have to be a sport, Mr. President? Did you think giving up golf would suffice as adequate solidarity for the millions of Fantivity blog readers gutted and mustachioed by the intrepid ennui of missed blog opportunities by YOUR refusal to do anything whatsoever athletic and by-God fantivitish?

(Slow, stern turn to Camera 2)

Golf. And we should expect nothing less from you, Good Sir. Mark Twain once mused that golf was to him “a good walk spoiled.” But you, sir. You. You have made war a good sport spoiled. And in so doing for that most egregious offense to the good blog-writing Americans, there will be no Eagle, no birdie, no par-for-the-course put for you, Mr. President. Only a double-bogie, a three-under par drop shot hack in the rough so gnarled and overgrown not even your precious Patriot Act, warmongering, brush-clearing obsession can redeem you. No, Sir. Mr. President. No, sir. Shame, Mr. Sir. Shame, Sir. President.

Good night and good luck.

Stay tuned for more on the Olympics. There’s sure to be lots of demand for the only blog in the universe with the laser-sharp focus of sports and politics (not mutually exclusive) to cover it correctly. I leave you with a cartoon I found at Slate.com.

Best joke of the whole speech:

“And then you went on to Dallas… I know. I’m a good sport. I’ll have you know we’re going to send Jessica Simpson to the Democratic National Convention.”

There is very little chance that this will blow up into a Pat Tillman sort of political-sports tragedy, as he’s doing the exact opposite move. Odds are Campbell will not become a big-name athlete, either. Campbell did the right thing by trying to follow his dream of playing pro sports. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He has only a few fleeting years of his life to play for a team that’s a season or two away from winning it all. The same cannot be said of the Iraq war.

Smart move, Campbell. Something tells us the war will be there for you when your playing days are done.

Will Obama then go play at Duke, in order to get the vote of the other side of Tobacco Road? If the presidential primary lasts long enough, Obama might develop enough game to play any basketball team in the world. Here is a list of the hoops teams Obama should play against next.

TOP FIVE BASKETBALL TEAMS
AGAINSTWHICH BARACK OBAMA OUGHT TO PLAY A PICKUP GAME

• Senator Bill Bradley’s 1969 New York Knicks
• The Harlem Globetrotters
• The Los Angeles Lakers
• The MonStars of Space Jam
• Davidson

Does he have a case? Of course. Everybody hates the BCS. It’s corrupt, unfair, asinine and a mockery of all that is amateur sports. However, the legality of the issue has been questioned before, and the BCS is pretty confident that it will win. That won’t stop this justice champion, though.

Said Abercrombie, “I know about Plastic Man and Hawk and rest of them. If you’re in the Justice League, wherever someone is in distress, you go.”

Unfortunately for Abercrombie and the sports world, Super Representative Man will need more than his own Power Legislation Beam. He’ll need a whole team of legal experts who serve the people and fight for justice. I wish some such Justice League of America organization existed. All we have is the Justice Department.

Wait, maybe we do have one. I can’t recall…

Can’t tell how well Barack did in the game, but at least he’s taking some shots that aren’t from Fox New’s Chris Wallace. Hey Oh! Swish.

But seriously, folks. If Obama becomes president Fantivity is going to have to catalogue every pickup basketball game he plays, and that could be a lot of work. We’re lucky that George Bush has been a pretty non-athletic Commander in Chief. Bush like to ride bikes, clear brush from his ranch, jog and throw the opening pitch at baseball games. Actually, come to think of it, we might just have to do a presidential sports-relates retrospective with when Bush’s final days arrive.

We’ll keep you posted, because now that George II is a lame duck, he’ll have plenty of time for leisure. And with Dick Cheney’s aim, being a lame duck means he’s the safest thing in the brush! Hey-Oh!

John McCain knocks out Mitt Romney in the third round. Obama dances around Clinton, bobbing and weaving, and keeping out of reach so that he can win on points at the final bell. But wait, the judges are taking an awfully long time to determine the winner…

In an effort to accurately depict the presidential primary races, writers, anchorpersons and pundits use a wide array of metaphors. Sports metaphors in particular dominate the printed page, the television screen and radio airwaves when the Democratic and Republican primary elections are the subject of discussion. And it’s no wonder why.

When you’re conveying the story of an election, which is at its heart a kind of competition, naturally sports metaphors will work easily and effectively to illuminate a point. Due to the popularity of sports in American culture and the saturation of sports terminology in everyday life, sports language and sports metaphors simply cannot be separated from the primary election conversation.

The most common metaphors slip into the political dialogue seamlessly. Think about the race for the Whitehouse, the jabs that candidates give one another, and the comebacks they achieve. If we can’t talk sports when we’re talking politics, we don’t have much to talk about at all.

But which sports metaphor most accurately describes the primary elections? This question was the basis for a competition (a sport if you will?) hosted by Slate Magazine. Readers were encouraged to write in their favorite sports metaphor for the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama Democratic Party presidential candidate primary election. Ideas came in from all over the globe, with every kind of sport or game imaginable presented, and all were, in one way or another, symbolic of the election. Some were better than others. In the end the prevailing metaphor, as decided by Slate’s writers, was boxing. And I couldn’t agree more.

How does boxing knock out the other political-sports metaphors? First, let’s go over the ways in which the other sports fail to be as all-encompassing as boxing.

There are plenty of sports which are popular in America, and it would seem to follow that the best sports metaphor would be one that is easily understood by the general population of the United States. This would eliminate some good sports, such as soccer, cricket and rugby. Although soccer has some nice comparisons (such as the length of the game, the boringness, the acting) hardly anybody in the States would appreciate randomly throwing in “yellow cards” and “offside calls” into the political conversation. No, like a good presidential candidate, a good primary election metaphor must be American-born,

Team sports are no good, either. Although there are fine cases to be made for sports like baseball, football, basketball and hockey (all very American, all very accessible in nomenclature) they’re tagged out because of the team aspect of those sports. Sure, the candidates have their staff and spouses, campaigns and endorsements behind them, but in the end primaries especially are a one-on-one competition.

The candidates are selling themselves as individuals, with personally nuanced stances on the issues. Their personalities and resumes are the focus of the debate. Instead of getting backed by the parties, individual fortunes and individual donations fund the battle (see Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton). When the general election kicks off, the Republicans and Democrats go at one another as two teams. We will again play one broad party platform against the other. A party’s officially nominated presidential candidate will symbolize his or her side of the political aisle. The red team will play the blue team for the right to hoist the Bible at the swear-in ceremony. Only then can the team metaphors become apt. But for now, there are no teams. The primary is an individual sport, with the teams not entering the discussion until they can decide on their starting quarterback. For now, it’s an in-camp position battle.

Individual American sports make for the best sports-as-primary election metaphors. That leaves us with a few sports left. There’s horse racing, which is a nice metaphor because of the pageantry, the show of it all, and the whole race aspect of it. One candidate is trying to make it to the party convention floor before the others.

But thoroughbred races are sprints. A better metaphor still is the marathon, which, in addition to pitting two humans against one another, it also accurately describes the extended timeframe of the primary elections- long and tiring.

But come to think of it, the primaries aren’t really about racing from one place to another faster than your competitor. They’re about racking up the most points from several mini-competitions. If long distance bicycle racing were more popular in America, it might fit, but perhaps a better metaphor is found with a points-based individual competition: Figure skating.

While it only grabs the attention of the American public every four years (a fitting way to describe the electoral process), figure skating terminology is still accessible, if seldom used. We know what landing the triple axel means, but it’s an awkward, if not comedic sports metaphor when you try to jam it into a political conversation. Tennis could do, if only Joe Six Pack could stand Brain Williams claiming that Rudy Giuliani double faulted. I don’t think that would volley. And golf would be well over par.

Then there’s boxing. It’s American. It’s an individual sport. The terminology has been beaten into our brains. The competition is played out in a series of sub bouts (rounds) where the winner can either knock his opponent out quickly and decisively (John McCain), or can come down to the scorecard with no unanimous winner (Clinton-Obama).

There are also plenty of tiny examples where distinct boxing matches accurately convey the story of the primary. Obama could be the metaphorical Muhammad Ali, charismatic and graceful, while Clinton is Joe Frazier, the unrelenting force. But there’s one last part of the boxing metaphor which puts it over the top of all the other sports.

Superdelegates.

Imagine the Cubs scoring 5 runs and the Yankees scoring 4, and then after the final out the umpires getting together to determine to which team they will award the win, based on their own preferences. That’s pretty much how boxing is done, though. And that’s exactly the kind of thing that will happen in the Democratic primary election. The combatants pound each other round after round, while scoring just enough points so that either one can win it at the end. Nameless scorekeepers then determine the winner as they see fit- and there’s barely any denying that the crowds, the promoters and any number of other corrupting elements influences will rig the judges’ final outcome.

Boxing is perfectly fitting to describe the primaries because it’s such a one-on-one, imperfect, confounding, corrupt, and all-together American sport. No wonder it turns so many people off.

The project at Fantivity for the next couple of days will be to find and flesh out some of the most popular/endearing sports metaphors for the primaries. The Top 20 list so far:

1. Marathon
2. Boxing
3. Horse racing
4. NASCAR
5. Baseball
6. Football
7. Basketball
8. The Olympics
9. Golf
10. Hockey
11. Pro wrestling
12. Monopoly
13. Soccer
14. Chess
15. Rodeo
16. Tennis
17. Poker
18. Synchronized swimming
19. Rodeo
20. Gymnastics - Just kidding, that would be the worst sports metaphor in governemnt since finding Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq was described by CIA Director George Tenet as a “slam dunk.”