Taking Back the Super Bowl

by: Living Liberally

Mon Feb 02, 2009 at 15:00

Drinking Liberally Shot of Truth
by Justin Krebs

The values are all there: teamwork; fairplay; a transparent and honest judiciary. By many counts, sports embody liberal values.

So why does it seem like pro sports -- and its apotheosis, last night's Super Bowl -- are the domain of conservative thinking? Is it the martial posturing (although, despite the on-field pre-game presence of David Petraeus, the NFL does claim it's moving away from military metaphors)? Is it the culture of excessive consumerism embodied in the ads? Is it the machismo that sometimes resembles an anti-woman ethos (and has led to Superbowl Sunday having a horrid reputation for spousal abuse)?

Living Liberally :: Taking Back the Super Bowl

And yet, there's Bard for the Blue Collar, the Boss himself, at the halftime show...surely Liberals should think twice before giving this ground over to the other side.

Fortunately, some members of Drinking Liberally decided to take to the field -- our Philadelphia friends, despite the Eagles ouster, organized an outing...and even made a special logo for the occasion.

How did you mark yesterday? We know friends who had anti-Super Bowl outings to the movies, or nice dinners. But here in New York City, just as many liberals were finding ways to watch (grass-fed sliders, anyone?) and liberal reasons to root (Pennsylvania voted Obama, so Steelers were preferred; on the other hand, you gotta love the underdogs, so there was an argument for the Cardinals).

What was your reasoning?

We've reclaimed our bars...we've reclaimed our capital...now let's reclaim the NFL.

Tags: Living Liberally, Drinking Liberally, justin krebs, nfl, Super Bowl, militarism, David Petraeus, (All Tags)

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Taking Back the Super Bowl | 3 comments

Fun time at the Corner! (0.00 / 0)

This is fun.

Please No More Super Bowls for NBC [Andy McCarthy]
A game so fantastic it even overcame the coverage by the awful NBC - Al Michaels and John Madden honorably excepted.
People tuning in to football for an escape were treated, as they have been all season, to Keith Olbermann. I used to like Olbermann as an ESPN sportscaster when sports was all he did, but that was a long time ago. Now, just the sight of him turns off a lot of the audience - though I am nut for football, I generally just don't watch, turn off the sound, or switch to something else when he's on, and I know I'm not alone. If I'm stupid enough to watch his nightly rant on MSNBC and succeed in getting myself aggravated, then fine - he's got a right to his views, they have a right to put him on the air for the 15 or so people who evidently watch, and everyone knows what the deal is, so I should just change the channel or not turn on the TV in the first place. But the Super Bowl is a national event and (is supposed to be) a non-political event for a captive audience. Why Olbermann?
But even he was not as blood-boiling as Matt Lauer's cloying interview with President Obama. It would have been mildly annoying, but par for the course, if we had only had to endure Dear Leader's views on football (Matt Lauer's he's-so-cool gape as POTUS wows us with his intimate knowledge of flaws in the BCS system, his breakdown of the Steelers/Cardinals, and Look, mom, he even uses his own Blackberry!). But lapdog Matt, of course, couldn't leave it at that. So minutes before gametime, we were treated to the correspondent's observation that "many people were disappointed" when not a single one of those awful Republicans voted for the "stimulus" bill in the House - remarkably, of the two guys in the room, Obama was the only one who approached fair-and-balanced, telling a seemingly incredulous Lauer that Republicans had "a lot of good ideas" which he hoped to incorporate. (I found myself cheering when NBC had technical trouble and lost the audio feed for stretches of the interview.)
...

Doesn't that just put a smile on your face?

by: Mark Matson @ Mon Feb 02, 2009 at 20:23:19 PM UTC

there are some things in life (0.00 / 0)

that aren't political. There are football fans of every political persuasion. Its okay to just be a football fan without any additional meaning.

by: Marylander @ Mon Feb 02, 2009 at 20:47:16 PM UTC

Not going inside the box (0.00 / 0)

I feel more and more that there are those 'indicators' you have to show to be 'liberal' so if you don't fit in the box, you're not Left. That's BS. I love football and don't think of it along political lines. Does everything I do have to be political? I already can't be Liberal to some people being a Christian or an enviornmentalist since I own a car and had two kids! I'm not going to completely subscribe to every little idea that Progressives call their own in order to define if I'm with you or against you.

by: justsaying @ Tue Feb 03, 2009 at 00:24:46 AM UTC