Bloodsports

"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth." -- FDR

My friend Ben Affleck called from the Campaign Tour and tried to convince me that a coming plague would eat us all to the bone. He was quitting the BoSox in silent protest over the No-mah trade to the Cubbies.

"I am telling you we're in serious trouble if that dim-witted ruse wins the White House again," he said. "Kerry better kick his ass this year, and I want a front row seat. I gotta thing for his daughters."

Things are getting stranger and stranger in this country. So I ratcheted up the heat.

"The election has been cancelled this year. The White House just announced it."

"No way!" he shouted. "No fucking way. An election will never be cancelled in America - there will be riots in the streets."

"For sure," I replied. "Terrible riots in cities all over the country. But the media would love it. 24-hour-a-day reality show programming with security forces beating people with nightsticks and cracking a few heads."

Cops with an MTV Real World slant. It's intriguing, but not because of our election being cancelled. No. We must have elections. Where would this country be without an election in November? And how could you cancel an election and let the NFL season play out? These are dangerous questions, so I try not to think about them. Only a fool would piss off an entire NFL Nation at time like this.

Football and politics are bloodsport.

Would Bobo actually cancel them both?

We are looking down the barrel of some truly dangerous times.

"August," Ben chimed in, "it looks like the beginning of the end."

I didn't know whether Affleck was talking about the Red Sox, the NFL season or Bobo's re-election bid. He sounded a bit under the ether, so I didn't venture a guess.

Nothing lasts forever, it is said. Not even the NFL season. Or this ridiculous "closet" war in Iraq, which seems to be entering a Vietnam crawlspace each passing day, just as Bobo, V.P. Repo and the rest of the White House cabal are getting circled by the bullshit of four running years of deceipt. Just like the days of Bebe Rebozo, Halderman, G. Gordon, Dean and Mitchell, it has the same smell that daddy had before Bubba Bill beat him to the punch. The media is too afraid to "select" Kerry because Bobo, after all, is a disgustingly rich incumbent with a bigger mean streak than a brain, and there just ain't much to do down there on the ranch. They are worrying about the recoil in case this shithead actually gets elected again.

Odds right now: Kerry over Bush 53-47, but a hunch says it's bigger than that. King Vermont will keep his feet to the fire over all these security alerts and the Deaniacs are like pirahna on steroids. Get enough of them, and they leave very little on the bone. And lucky for the average sucker that Daddy Bobo and the current Bobo share one interesting character flaw - they can get a prom queen in the backseat; but they peak too soon and just aren't smooth enough to get her to raise the dress. A moment of silence for Babsy and Lazy-Boy Laura, they musta been something before electricity.

The rest of the month should be downright ugly and violent - just like the start of NFL Training Camp and your normal run-of-the-mill Republican National Convention.

August 30, 2004: Remembering 9/11 (vaguely) and Bronzing the Bullhorn That Bobo Used. Tobe Keith sings the national anthem while riding a couple of Guantanamo Bay detainees to the front of Madison Square Garden.

August 31, 2004: Harmonious 9/11 Victim Tributes and a 65 minute retrospective on Ronald Reagan who just so happens to be dead, and How Kerry Didn't Vote for the $87 Billion. Bobo is shocked by the news on Ray-gun. Pat Robertson leads the delegates in prayer as images of Guantanamo Bay and Abu-Ghraib are touted as the future of police interrogation techniques.

September 1, 2004: All the shit we blew up in Iraq because of 9/11 and all the Iraqi people who can now download porno because of the rebuilt schoools. Here's a wonderful film about how the face of Iraq is changing due to new call centers, access to Starbucks and Saddam trading cards, all of it narrated by Bobo. The Democrats had Obama; we got Osama! slogans are chanted by the Southern Baptist caucus of irrational civil servants. Bob Barker is there to open the curtain as Bin Laden is carted into the ring for a WWE match with Goldberg. V.P. Repo announces that he spoke with several, real, live minorities when campaigning out West. He says the GOP is inclusive. "There are no red states, there are no blue states. There are states that produce oil and we don't care if we gotta evict some Eskimos to suck out the rest."

September 2, 2004: George W. Bush, a "compassionate conservative" who used to towel-slap his boyhood friends in the locker room. They are introduced one-by-one by Dr. Phil who endorses the GOP because of its stance on the highest tax bracket. "Hot damn!" Bobo shouts at his entrance. "We are in New York for the convention. This is wonderful luck. It means we won't have to worry about getting our heads chopped off on world-wide TV."

September 3, 2004, The balloons worked this time, so Bobo uses this on the campaign trail as evidence that he will beat Kerry in November. Bobo likes balloons because they are bouncy. He sells them on EBay and funnels the profits through Iraqi call centers.

Affleck would go GOP, I sense, if the chicks were better. "I think you're chickenshit to join the cause."

"Waste of time," I shot back. "What kind of idiot do you take me for? I would never return from that trip, and you know it. I am something of a pariah to the Dems. They would throw me under the bus for sure."

And then I clicked off the phone. I wasn't into thoughts about travel - not even to a massage parlor.

When he called back again, I was already on the cell with another man named Ignatius from the DNC.

"You're not gonna believe this when I tell ya," I told him, "but Bobo is going to kill the NFL season. What do you think about that one? You aren't gonna stand for this kind of horseshit, are you?"

"Who the fuck are you?" he screamed. "Don't you ever call us again with unsubstantiated bullshit. Even a retard knows that NASCAR dads love the great game of football."

And I didn't have to explain the Bobo reference. He hung up on me.

True enough, Bobo is a three point home underdog. But he's got enough skin in the game to cover the referee.