Apparently, some people watched a football game last night instead (I’ll bet they’re sorry)

Actually, I said pretty much everything I had to say about this in my headline, which came to me when someone dropped by my breakfast table this morning and said, "Did you watch that game?" I muttered something about having had work to do, then when he went away, I quickly scanned through the sections of the paper scattered on my table looking for information on said game, so I would not be caught out by the next person to assume I knew all about it.

To save you the trouble of looking it up, the Chickens played Vanderbilt, and lost. (You may wonder how in the world I could have read any of the paper without knowing any of that, and all I can say is that for me, it’s easy. Items about football, no matter how prominently displayed, seem in my case to be protected by a Somebody Else’s Problem field, and are therefore invisible, unless I go looking for them.)

Only one more thing to say: Who were the scheduling wizards who decided to have USC’s first two games, not only on Thursday nights, but on the Thursday nights that the men who would be president gave their respective convention acceptance speeches? Are we truly living in parallel universes, and does the Leadership of the Free World matter as little to people over in that other world as the outcome of a football game does to me?

Let’s hope not, because I have a creepy feeling that a lot of folks who were glued to the games instead of the speeches are going to end up voting in November, and that’s just scary.

18 thoughts on “Apparently, some people watched a football game last night instead (I’ll bet they’re sorry)

  1. p.m.

    It was a wonderful game, if you’re into a school that doesn’t even have an athletic department, for the second straight year, beating a school where football money flows like flood water and the cry is ever for more, more, more, if Carolina wants to be competitive in the SEC.
    It was a wonderful game, if you like the old mantra that the first five minutes of the second half determine the outcome of the game, because last night, they did.
    It was a wonderful game, and I watched it rather than McCain because I knew I could read his speech later.
    And, yes, I’ll vote in November, more informed than most by a long shot, and there’s nothing scary at all about it.
    What’s scary is that a great many who didn’t hear the speeches and wouldn’t have understood them if they had nevertheless will be voting anyway.

  2. VanDSIRROM

    I’ll tell you what’s scary.
    Liberal newspaper people who destroy people ‘they don’t like’, over minor things like misspelling a word then glorify people ‘they do like’ even when they say things like, “I’m going to visit all 57 states.”
    Now that’s scary.

  3. Lee Muller

    Obama mangles the English language every day, says really dopey stuff every day, and the press just ignores it.
    If G.W. Bush said, “The Nataly Lions” of Penn State, it would be replayed for 20 years.
    If John McCain said, “all 57 states”, the media would start another whispering campaign about “unnamed sources worrying that McCain is senile”.
    Obama is an airhead, and the press thinks he is a genius. That tells us something about the press.

  4. Brad Warthen

    What on Earth was that outburst about? Who misspelled a word? Did I miss something? Possible… I’ve been working like mad all day…
    And who is a “liberal newspaper editor?”

  5. george32

    looks like the dittoheads are out in force tonight. hey, obama is trying to go back to the democrats 250 billion dollar surplus as opposed to bush2 record setting deficit. better learn chinese because that is who is buying our debt. if you like to live beyond your means, you gotta love reagan and bush; screw the granchildren. palin did great on earmarks as mayor, until she decided that was not a great idea and forgot to tell her daughter that condoms are a good idea, especially when you are 16.

  6. James D McCallister

    Parallel universe is right.
    People in this country are in a trance: sports, drugs, “entertainment” in general. Politics reflects this; there has to be a horse race, and spectacle just like a football game, bloodied warriors bashing into one another over and over to win a “victory” that is, at best, ephemeral.
    Issues don’t matter, records of achievement don’t matter (or lack thereof in the case of Obama and Palin), only the personalities and the white teeth and the caribou shot through the throat and the verbal gaffes and who the winners are and who the losers are, all of whom will be pilloried in some fashion no matter which side of the finish line on which they end up.
    Talk about a no-win situation; talk about being wary of any person would want to subject themselves to the process. That’s why you don’t have the best and brightest as your leaders — smart people heed the Groucho Marx joke about being suspicious of any club that would have someone like him as a member.
    But to the topic at hand, I know people that follow sports religiously but couldn’t tell you the first thing about how the world actually works. They used to laugh at me in the office; my copy of the sports section always remained pristine.
    I did win $100 in a Super Bowl pool one time. Best return on an investment I’ve ever made.
    Disclaimer: I will admit that there was a time in which I poured over Grateful Dead setlists the way George Will probably wallows in baseball statistics. Sue me. The Dead were making art, not chasing a ball around.

  7. p.m.

    Mr. Warthen, methinks VanDSIRROM was referring historically to Dan Quayle’s crucifixion for p-o-t-a-t-o-e vs. Barack Obama’s skating past his reference to having campaigned in 57 states — you know, the traditional double standard for Republicans and Democrats in the media.
    And let me ask you, Mr. Warthen, do you think a conservative newspaper editor would recommend a $1-to-$2-per-gallon gas tax as you have? In fact, is there really any such thing as a conservative newspaper editor?

  8. Lee Muller

    Democrats keep lying about Clinton and the Democrats “running a surplus”.
    Clinton never proposed a budget with a surplus. He ran up $1.4 TRILLION in new national debt. He wanted even larger deficits, but Newt Gingrich stopped him.
    The deficit spending under Bush is inexcusable, because his small rollback of the Clinton tax increases on the middle class pulled us out of the Clinton Recession of 2000, generating enough new extra revenue to pay for the war on terror and balance the budget.
    All of the deficits are due to needless social welfare spending. Democrats actually fought to double the deficits from 2001-2008.
    Those who didn’t read the actual factual news back then can still look it up online in the Wall Street Journal and Barrons.

  9. bud

    What on Earth was that outburst about? Who misspelled a word? Did I miss something? Possible… I’ve been working like mad all day…
    -Brad
    That had to do with a previous post about Dan Quayle’s mis-spelling of “potato’e'”. That wasn’t a big deal but it was funny. Then Lee Muller launched into this tirade trying to defend Quayle. Typical Lee Muller, he made a fool of himself over something completely unimportant.

  10. Lee Muller

    Dan Quayle read “potatoe” off a flash card given to him by the judges at the spelling bee in Trenton, NJ.
    Then the Democrats in the media, from “news” to Jay Leno, lied to the public, telling them that Quayle didn’t know how to spell.
    It is the same accusation that every Republican is stupid, uneducated, etc, a myth perpetuated by insecure, wannabe elitists. Many of them came from an Ivy League and prep school background, where ridiculing others is standard behavior.
    The reality is that the Democrat base is mostly semi-literate, low income workers, government employees, and welfare leeches, manipulated by these elites.
    I

  11. george32

    gingrich had resigned from congress in disgrace after getting the governmen to shut down in a battle with clinton. the national debt shrank by over 250 billion in clinton’s last year in office. bush cited this as a reason to cut taxes so we could start running up our granchildren’s debt to china again (as his father said reagan and bush2 love voodoo economics-spend more with less income). read bush2’s first state of the union address, if you can. if you don’t belive me or bush 2 the deficit grower, check the records of the federal reserve, the congressional budget office, etc. head ditto might have missed it because it took place during his drug abuse days.

  12. Lee Muller

    According the US Treasury website, Clinton ran deficits every year, and increased the national debt by $1.4 TRILLION.
    No surplus. Sorry.

  13. george32

    so treasury, which did not sell long bonds the last 3 years of the clinton administration is lying as did bush when he cited the surplus as a reason for a tax cut.i didn’t find your reference on the treasury website, but it was noted they were not selling debt to china, they were retiring it. that means surplus.

  14. Lee Muller

    Yesterday, Obama claimed to have always supported the surge in Iraq, and knew that it would work.
    What a pathetic liar.

  15. george32

    the deficits were left over from bush1. unless bush2 lied, like he did about wmd, etc. and as did the the federal reserve and the cbo, then why did he cite the 250 budget surplus as a reason to cut taxes and start mortgaging the country to china again. by the way check the deficit percentage and absolute increase under reagan and bush2. the reason they did not sell long bonds, as your stockbroker will tell you, is that there was no deficit to finance. by the way, actual factual is redundant, rather like ignorant dittohead.

  16. Lee Muller

    Oh…now Clinton’s budget deficits from 1993…2000 were…”left over from Bush”.
    You were caught lying, so you make up an even wilder story… just like Clinton.
    The Treasury did sell bonds to finance all 8 years of Clinton deficits. Robert Rubin’s firm handled a lot of it, and he collected $300,000,000 in deferred compensation upon leaving “public service” as Treasury Secretary for Clinton.

  17. slugger

    The below comment by Fowler sitting on a plane with John Spratt has brought out the cover your butt comment
    by Spratt that he did not hear the comment because he did not have his hearing aid in place.
    “Subject: Emailing: Major Political Gaffe by Former Chairman of DNC Don Fowler Speaking About Hurricane Gustav Cleveland Leader.htm
    “The hurricane’s going to hit New Orleans about the time they start. [Chuckle] The timing is — at least it appears now that it’ll be there Monday. That just demonstrates that God’s on our side. [Laughter] Everything’s cool.”
    Where is the outcry by the SC and the NC newspapers? Spratt is up for re-election to the house (I think that he was born there because it has been so many years). Spratt is owner of banks and he sits on the finance committee. Could this have anything to do with Fred and Fannie and the taxpayer bailouts?
    Excuse me. To criticize democrats in office offend some of you bloggers. I am an independent voting for the pistol packing mama and her sidekick McCain who suffered enough during his time in captivity to win my vote. There is no way that anyone can prove any person in politics sacrificed more than McCain for this country. McCain is the national leader in the fashion of John Wayne. All the Hollywood crowd that kiss the hem of the garmet worn by Obama only prove what we have always known about most of the Hollywood types. Liberals, homosexuals, socialist…etc…etc…

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