The turmoil of deciding between Rex Grossman and Kyle Orton (while not currently a technical choice) is probably enough to shred a locker room apart on its own. So, when you add in the decision that is the 2008 Presidential Election, it’s entirely plausible to believe that the first place Chicago Bears are a nation divided.

According to NBC Chicago, thems be the facts.

“I would say this locker room is split,” McKie explained, calling the conversations with his teammates after each of the Presidential debates “heated.” The normally tight-knit linebacker corp is divided. Jamar Williams is not afraid to campaign in the locker room for Obama, while fellow linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer preaches the Republican viewpoint.

In a locker room with million-dollar athletes, their number one issue of concern comes as no surprise.

“Taxes,” said kicker Robbie Gould, “that’s what everyone in this locker room is most concerned with.”

Well, Robbie, I think we all worry about taxes. For instance, while I’m all about social change and yada, yada, I really need to protect the millions I’ve made while blogging.

Keep reading →

By far my favorite part of these interviews is Chris Berman. There’s nothing to be learned from either candidate at this point — Obama wants a college playoff; McCain hates PEDs; yay — but there is something to be learned about Berman’s ability to adopt gravitas. What did I learn? He doesn’t do it very well.

What did you learn about yourself? What did sports teach you? Oh, for the love of God, Berman, ask them an actual question. You suck. Also, while we’re at it, I didn’t need you to tell me voting is my duty and my privilege. I know that already, numbnuts.

As for the rest of Monday Night Football’s political crossover, there’s good news for Obama fans today: Because the Redskins lost, this totally means he’s going to win the election. This makes perfect sense!

Pittsburgh beat Washington in the NFL on Monday for a dominant victory that US presidential candidate Barack Obama will see as a good omen. For all but one of the last 17 presidential ballots, since 1937, a Redskins victory has signaled a win for the party currently in power.

Keep reading →

Politics and sports. They go together like … lamb and tunafish. Or perhaps you prefer spaghetti and meatball. Either way, nothing says “recreational fun that doesn’t involve anything other than mindlessly screaming for your favorite team” quite like “mindless screaming about issues that do matter.” Or something like that.

The point being is that as we get tight on the election day, you can believe you’ll see more and more athletes associating themselves with various candidates. One of these is Chicago’s Son, Mike Ditka, who was seen today rolling around with Sarah Palin.

Ditka, who said he was a conservative Republican, urged voters against partisanship and inaction. “This is the land of opportunity. It’s not a land of handouts. If you’re willing to work, you can find a job,” he said.

With his signature tough-love attitude, he tried to charge up voters. “Don’t talk about what you’re gonna do, prove you can do something,” he said. “If we’re smart, the only option we have is to elect John McCain and Sarah Palin.”

Now, that’s taken out of context, but, um, yeah. It doesn’t really make that much sense. However, I would concur –based on the WSJ article telling me so — that Ditka’s (and therefore McCain’s) stra-tegery was to try and remind Pennsylvania voters that Barack Obama accused them of “clinging” to guns and religion.

Keep reading →

Talking to a friend the other day, we both agreed that people — and by “people,” we meant “we” — were getting really, really tired of this election. He being one of the most politically enthusiastic people I know, I was surprised that he shared this sentiment. But it’s true. This thing really can’t end soon enough. I can’t do it anymore. Won’t do it! Can’t listen to it! Can’t watch stupid political Youtubes anymore! Can’t do it!

Anyway, that was my way of preemptively apologizing. This is another political item. Brace yourself.

Sen. John McCain made a direct appeal to baseball lovers Tuesday morning while mocking his rival’s decision to buy 30 minutes of television time Wednesday night for an address to the nation.

“No one will delay the World Series with an infomercial when I’m president,” he said to the approval of a crowd of thousands at a stadium here.

Yeah! Television networks won’t be operating independent of the government! And every Diamondbacks broadcast will be shown live on every single network … all day. Because, as we all know, pushing the start times of sports games back is just un-American.

In fact, McCain’s own convention speech this summer forced a change in the start time of the NFL’s season opener, which started an hour and a half earlier to accommodate McCain’s speech.

To be fair, he said after he was president, so that technically doesn’t count? Ehh?

Of course this is all beside the point. Here’s what matters: Which candidate will make sure that, after the election, they never say or do or even think anything about sports, ever, ever again? That’s the world I one day want to live in.

If the Cubs have done nothing else this postseason (besides ripping their fans hearts in half and discarding them in the nearest trash recepticle) it’s given comedy shows easy fodder. “The Daily Show” went after them earlier in the week. And, last night, during NBC’s Thursday edition of “Weekend Update” — which I’m really digging they are doing for the next few weeks, by the way — they did a sketch of the town hall Presidential debate. And Bill Murray was in the audience to ask a question. About the Cubs. Comedy gold!

Bill Murray: still bringing the heat after all these years.

There was some minor gnashing of teeth earlier in the week about John McCain’s interview with ESPN. The gnashing was such: Because ESPN assigned Serious Journalist Bob Ley to interview McCain, would McCain’s interview be more contentious than Stuart Scott’s hug-fest with Barack Obama? It made sense — Ley is, after all, a much better journalist than Stuart Scott, and it would make sense if Ley decided he wasn’t going to go out like a punk in his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This, of course, would cause McCain’s campaign to blame the liberal media for being evil and wanting everyone to marry their gay friend and have subsidized abortions forever. Or something like that.

Alas, it was not to be. McCain’s interview was about as friendly and smooth as can be:

If you’ve been reading this blog since we started, or if you know me even a little bit, you know I’m a political junkie. I watch a lot of interviews and speeches. That, by far, is the most comfortable I’ve seen John McCain in weeks. He’s authoritative on the issue of unionized boxing. He was reasonable about mixed martial arts. He even cracked a semi-funny joke! The last time he did that was when he thanked the Zooastrians in the audience on “The View” — and we all know how that train wreck interview went.

Well done, John McCain. You’ve escaped the journalistic prowess of ESPN. Breathe easy.

It was just a few weeks ago, before the conventions riled everyone up, that Barack Obama sat down with ESPN’s Stuart Scott for a nice little puff piece about Obama’s thoughts on sport. Rarely were things heated or contested; the most “controversial” answer came when Obama admitted he thought Cubs baseball “not serious.” Few people seemed to care.

But ESPN must devote equal access to the campaigns, and so John McCain was interviewed this weekend by Bob Ley at the NASCAR Sprint Series Sylvania Cup something-or-other. The one major change, besides the fact that Obama was indoors and playing basketball, is that Ley, McCain’s interviewer, is known as a tough and scrupulous journalist who will not be afraid to ask McCain contentious questions. Stuart Scott has no such reputation.

So MDS at FanHouse wonders — can McCain use that disparity to his advantage?

The problem, though, is that Scott gave Obama a puff piece, complete with a game of one-on-one that ended with a hug. Somehow I can’t see Ley and McCain hugging it out at the NASCAR track.

ESPN tells me they don’t know yet when the interview will air, but I’m betting that when it does air, we’ll see that Ley asked tough questions, because he’s a good journalist. And I’m sure the McCain campaign will use Ley asking McCain tough questions and Scott asking Obama softball questions to bolster their claims that the media is biased against Republicans, because that’s been one of the key McCain talking points in the last couple of weeks. ESPN should have assigned Ley to both the Obama interview and the McCain interview. As for Scott, he didn’t realize it at the time, but he was doing McCain a big favor by treating Obama with kid gloves.

Keep reading →