Fascinoma

It's now amazingly clear that most Americans are amazingly stupid. Most people of all sorts probably are as well, but in America we seem to have set up a perverse environment which has bred or conditioned a higher rate of stupidity into folks, rather like the rate of obesity. Thus Americans don't seem to understand that the GOP, having operated since the Reagan Era (itself a sign of gross stupidity on the part of the electorate) without any really meaningful oversight -- in that no real penalties have been paid for high crimes and misdemeanors -- has devolved totally into a loose association of criminals, lunatics, and the criminally insane. It is a syndicate for organized crime, and the very people who are supposed to be prosecuting the crimes, are instead commiting them.

American political affiliation takes place, for the most part, in the same tribal-identity regions of the brain where sports fandom arises. To say 'I am a Republican,' is very much like saying 'I am a Cowboys fan'; it has the same relationship to evidence, reasoning and principle. Perhaps if some cagey pundit or politician were to use a really simple football metaphor to describe our political situation maybe it would resonate among the factory chickens of the electorate. So, maybe it's kinda like this:

Suppose one were to have a football game in which all or most of the referees were for various reasons privately very partisan for the home team. Being very partisan they tended to give that side the benefit of the doubt in most or all situations, and so hardly ever called a penalty on the home team, while calling penalties on the visitors whenever it seemed even remotely appropriate. The refs' team would of course notice this, and they would naturally tend to commit more and more flagrant, egregious fouls. The contest would soon go their way, regardless of the sides' relative merits. The broadcasting network, for reasons of its own (most having to do with access to the profitable product) would minimize the appearance of the refs' partisanship, and do all they could to suggest the contest was proceeding fairly and closely. Only the folks in the stands would get a sense of how crooked, ugly and lopsided it had been all along -- and most of them, being for the home team, wouldn't really care that it hadn't been a contest, a game. They just care about a victory for their side. Integrity of the game, that's just...quaint.

Winning is everything says Vince Lombardi, the Patron Saint of the GOP. And hey, we "won" in Iraq, right?

Republicans : Democrats :: Globetrotters : Washington Generals