Echopraxia

I love it when politics blogs start talking about sports almost as much as I hate it when sports blogs start talking about politics. Imagine my delight, then, as in this astonishing thread MyDD guy Chris Bowers launches an early salvo in the Pennsylvania governor's race. Since Republican candidate Lynn Swann is locally popular in his capacity as a Hall of Fame wide receiver for the '70s Pittsburgh Steelers, the logical thing to do is to start arguing that he shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame. And this Bowers does quite passionately.

As always, the amusement value comes from the fact that, if Lynn Swann were running as a Democrat, Bowers would be outraged - outraged - at any aspersions that might be cast on his athletic bona fides, and some other douchebag would be running around casting them in much the same manner. "An attack on Lynn Swann," would then come the defense, "is an attack on the very institution of blah, and how typical of the whoever to engage in such underhanded etc."

To be fair to the frequently unhinged MyDD crowd, the ensuing discussion mostly consists of sensible comments to the effect that this is not the way to go about disqualifying a candidate, and Bowers does later reconsider slightly. Interspersed, though, are classic comments like:

We ARE talking about why he shouldn't be Governor. Undermining the notion that he was a legitimate Hall of Fame player is Step #1.