Restoring Honor and Dignity to Professional Sports Attendance

Jibbenainosay, you may have a point regarding the umpirical umplications of the NBA fight-night film review.

However, the Confidence Man scries greater things in this aspect.

To wit, this presents a golden opportunity for the Dems.

As many have opined (among them Nick Confessore and Ezra Klein), the Democrats need to be exercising targeted, effective, and opportunistic message discipline as the Loyal Opposition.

Now, we all recall how, during Clinton's terms in office, the Gingrich machine was constantly a-roil over how Clinton's Bad '60s Juju (otherwise memorably named by Gen. J.C. Christian as the Clenis [tm]) was instilling a trickle-down economics of amorality and perversion across the land. And, of course, how Bush ran in 2000 on a promise to "restore honor and dignity to the White House."

(Tangentially, the Confidence Man has been thinking lately that Bush's phrasing there was indeed intended to evoke Clinton, but also served as Fundtalk to his base in the Federalist Society. More on that anon. Also, please note our portmanteau neologism "Fundtalk," or "Fundtalker," consisting of "Fundie" -- for fundamentalist -- plus "Windtalker" -- the WWII Navajo code-speakers.)

Well, what's good for the Gingrich is good for the gander.

The Confidence Man strongly believes that responsibility for the recent NBA fracas -- as well as the spectacular chair-tossing in Oakland during an Athletics game this summer -- should be plavced squarely on the shoulders of President Bush.

Bush has enshrined violence as a first resort to solving problems. Bush values gut reactions over contemplation. Bush prioritizes an insecure cowboy machismo over rational discourse. Bush embodies the principle that mnight makes right, and that no one should be accountable for his actions.

And that sort of example has real consequences in this world. People look up to the President -- no matter who holds the office -- as a moral exemplar.

And when the President does the things that this President has done, good people across the land lose their moral compass and start to do things like this.

(Of course, we've expounded on this before; but the Dems now have a clear opportunity to really exploit the situation.)