Politics and Sports should not mix

So Barack Obama and John McCain were on Monday Night Football last night, during the half time show. Apparently, each spoke about what they would do to change the state of football (professional and amateur). McCain said that he would outlaw performance enhancing drugs (aren’t they already banned?) and Obama made some comment about making one playoff series, ladder style, I suppose, to determine the college football champion.

Hey, I don’t care that these guys want to come on Monday Night Football, or even want to talk about football, but I do care that they are using it as a Presidential platform. I mean really, should these guys be talking about what they would do for football–the night before the election? Or at all, even? Last time I checked the NFL was a large organization with its own laws and rules (beholden to real US rules sure) and they have proven that they can/can’t police themselves. They are a private corporation, and as long as their practices do not break any state or federal laws, let them deal with the situation how they see fit. This is not a matter for Congress, the Supreme Court, or the President. It’s asinie and ridiculous.

Obama’s statement is no better. A federal law dictating how college football play-offs should work? Puh-leeze! Again, this is no place for any branch of government. It should be up to the colleges to reach an agreement as to how they will conduct their playoffs.

And yeah, these statements could be jokes, and an attempt to connect with the Monday Night Football viewer, but it bothers me nonetheless. That they would waste their time to make a joke (and I really don’t believe either one of them was joking–call it a hunch) about what they would do for the world of football as President is ridiculous, and it just perpetuates the myth that the President makes laws. I know, we can thank Bush and his signing statements for that, but both of these men are running on a ticket of change (at least McCain was, but who knows what his platform is now? Country first? whatever hell that means), but there tehy were talking about an area where they would have no real power, and making promised they possibly cannot keep.

Nothing new I now, but frustratiing still. I guess I am just too naive because I was hoping that politics as usual could be stopped after the election. Of course, the election is today, and did not happen yesterday when these moronic statement were made, so I guess they still had to play the game. I can only hope, though, that once this mess of an election is over we can move on to really important things like the economy, the wars, our deteriorated foreign relations, and of course, steroids in baseball. Cause that shit’s gotta go.