Being a Falcon's fan in New England means that you don't get to see many Falcons' games. You are dependent on ESPN highlights and the occasional national game.
Since I am home with Heffley (the new pooch) I settled down to watch ESPN's NFL Primetime. I figured that they would want to show highlights from a very entertaining game between Atlanta and Tampa Bay - teams that both sat at 5-2 with the winner taking the lead in the NFC South.
I had to wait until the very end of the show.
Much of the beginning of the show was the firing of Wade Phillips and there were a number of entertaining games on the day. But ultimately, games that involve Brett Favre or the Cowboys or New England...They lead.
The games between good teams who don't have a built in media narrative don't get the same attention. The Giants blow out of the Seahawks came before the Falcons-Bucs game.
Here's where I pivot to politics...
There is practically no difference between the media's obsession with Brett Favre or Mike Vick than there is with the media narratives in Washington DC. The fact is, there are narratives out there that are written in the press box before the kick off, and the game itself almost doesn't matter.
Case in point, Nancy Pelosi will not be back as Minority Leader in the House. Fox especially was pushing this letter from whatever is left of the Blue Dogs asking her to step down. The media narrative is that she is a failure and should go. She couldn't possibly be a good minority leader after losing the speaker's chair.
The facts are different. A) There is no letter, or if there is no one has signed it. B) Pelosi was actually a strikingly successful Speaker, passing several landmark pieces of legislation in tandem with the Senate and a ton more legislation that the Senate never acted on. C) She was minority leader in 2006. That worked out OK for the Democrats.
Nancy Pelosi is a lousy interview and a lousy orator. But she did an exceptional job shepherding complex legislation through a fractious caucus. Maybe there would be some merit in bringing in new blood, but if your idea of new blood is Steny Hoyer... Pardon me if I don't follow.
As Nate Silver articulated in the column linked below, the problem was that Democrats didn't vote in the numbers they did in 2008 and the economy drove many independents to the GOP, perhaps entirely as a protest vote, since there doesn't seem to be much consensus on what policies the GOP will pursue.
Putting Steny Hoyer into the Minority Leader's post was something that reinforces the DC narrative that America is a Center-Right nation. And the only way to succeed in American politics is to move right, constantly and relentlessly Rightwards.
Eventually, if we keep moving right, we wind up where Texas is today, threatening to "secede" from Medicaid and Social Security. A position so bat-shit insane, it's difficult to even argue against. You're left sputtering..."Wha... Wha... How... Are you mad?" But that's where the Rightward shift in the GOP logically ends up: nullification and secession.
America is a much more complicated entity than the Center Right Nation meme of the DC press corps. DC itself is in many ways a Center Right Town, more responsive to power than to policy, politics to governance. And it is in power and politics that the GOP excels.
But I'm supposed to care about the 1-7 Dallas Cowboys because someone decided they were "America's Team" thirty years ago. And I'm supposed to accept that we're a Center Right Nation because those that genuflect before the powerful in DC and Wall Street say it's so.
Instead, I think I'll get GoogleTV and see if I can get Falcons games in New England. I think I'll pursue my own stories instead.
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