It’s been a great weekend for football fans. Especially for me - I’ve always rooted for Ohio State, followed by the Big Ten, followed by The Underdog. So it’s fun to watch a few days straight of upsets, strong Big Ten teams, and another win for the Bucks. Even when one of the upsets is Meeechigan.

Watching the second half of the Penn State - Illinois game reminded me of being in high school at the end of the Cooper years. The Big Ten was tough and Ohio State won more than they lost, and that was all the more thought I put into it. To be honest, I like football season better that way. I cannot and wouldn’t much care to memorize facts and statistics; ESPN has a sharp slope of diminishing returns for me. I don’t need to hear seven different analysts all say the same things over and over, ad infinitum.

I’m glad, too, that I’ve gotten used to Musberger being “the guy” announcing most of the games I watch. He’s no Keith Jackson - whose voice I’ll always associate with my favorite time of year - but the man’s a good announcer. Especially with Kirk Herbstreit, who all of my female friends (and several of the guys) openly admit to being in love with, next to him in the booth.

….Since when have the Penn State fans chanted the bass line to “Seven Nation Army” when the team is doing well? That is really annoying.

The presidential debate was depressing so I wimped out about halfway through. John McCain is a tolerable speaker, but no leap forward from Dubya as far as I’m concerned. Barack Obama is a great speaker, and even in the back-and-forth of a debate came off as calm & confident. With so much of Obama’s time spent trying to pin the Bush presidency on McCain and so much of McCain’s time spent trying to avoid that at all costs, you’d hardly know that Obama is extremely, extremely liberal.

This is discouraging because so many people I know who consider themselves politically moderate are gung-ho on Obama. Really? Have you looked at the man’s voting record? The Washington Post has a passable tracking site for Congressional voting histories. If you look at the summary for Illinois members of the 110th Senate, you’ll notice Obama voted with his party 96% of the time. Project Vote Smart indicates in 2007 he received a 100 rating from the AFL-CIO; 100 from NARAL; a 5 from Americans for Tax Reform. Given a national audience Obama talks like a centrist, but he most certainly does not vote like one.

Worst of all, McCain floundered around a bit on the extended discussion of the economy and the mortgage securities bailout. Why, when Obama blamed the current mess on President Bush and a lack of regulation, didn’t McCain nail Obama for blocking reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2005? It would have done a lot to deflect the (entirely justifiable) accusation that two weeks ago McCain was saying the economy was fundamentally sound, and now he’s saying it’s fundamentally broken. A real, missed opportunity for McCain to highlight reforms that he advocated and that Obama helped block.

A new round of TV shows has arrived, as the 17-hour Heroes season opener last night reminds us. (Side note: no, I didn’t watch it, and yes, I still wish they’d killed the bad guy and left Heroes at one season.) As a late bandwagon-boarding fan of The Office, I’m excited for Thursday and another season of my favorite show on TV. Another season, and no more after that.

Logic would dictate NBC wants to keep an established series going for as long as possible - even if it means watering down the characters, dragging out plot lines, and jumping various sharks to keep people watching. Producers and stars, don’t let that happen! Wrap things up in another 20-or-so great episodes, and move on to other things. The show is not Friends, thankfully, with a screenful of shallow characters whose personalities fluctuate as needed for whatever lame 22-minute story the writers think up. Let’s keep it that way!

I bought Season 4 soon after release and burned through the episodes over the following several days. It’s one of those rare series’ that replays well, with characters that feel authentic, little jokes you didn’t catch the first time, and bits of foreshadowing you don’t recognize until after you’ve seen later episodes. But as much as I’ve enjoyed The Office, count this as my vote for a series finale in the spring. Hopes: no high school drama with Jim & Pam; Ryan rejoins the branch on a prison release program; epic battle(s) between Andy and Dwight; Creed vanishes and is never heard from again.

If the facts behind this story are half as awful as they sound… the word “treason” comes to mind. Bob Woodward’s latest book about the Bush administration reveals that the American government has conducted covert surveillance of many Iraqi leaders. Revealing this, understandably, pisses off Iraqi leaders - the type of thing you’d think we could maybe agree doesn’t benefit anyone. Oh wait, silly me; it benefits all the Defeat At Any Cost Democrats running for election this fall.

From The Washington Post (registration required):

Given Bush’s efforts to earn Maliki’s trust, the surveillance of the Iraqi prime minister caused some consternation among several senior U.S. officials, who questioned whether it was worth the risk, Woodward reports. One official knowledgeable about the surveillance “recognized the sensitivity of the issue and then asked, ‘Would it be better if we didn’t?’ “

Apparently Woodward had no such concerns when it came to publishing such a sensitive topic in his upcoming The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008. So what’s more important - the stability of an entire country, or Bob Woodward’s book sales? Everyone who’s anyone has been assuring themselves for years that Bush is a stubborn, clueless, grating leader, but where the surge is concerned I’m sure Bob Woodward figures His Obamaness could benefit from beating that dead horse. Truly the ego of the Western journalist knows no bounds.

From AP story “Palin’s National Guard Faces a Crisis in Personnel“:

Yet the relatively small numbers are also reminders that Republicans may be stretching their claims that Palin is qualified to be a heartbeat away from running the world’s most powerful military. Indeed, Palin’s lack of stature in national and international circles is sure to be a recurring theme for Democrats as the presidential campaigns move forward.

Emphasis mine. Hard to say which lines of attack “Democrats” will favor going forward, but the Associated Press will sure as hell be repeating this one. It’s truly amazing that stories about Barack Obama - whether positive announcements or negative responses to Republican criticism - read like Obama ‘08 press releases peppered with adjectives highlighting the author’s barely contained glee. And suddenly, when a similarly young and energizing conservative candidate enters the picture, it’s vital that the press turn into freakin’ Dick Tracy to uncover any possible sign that she’s unqualified.

Maybe Sarah Palin’s not qualified to run things from The Oval Office in January 2009. Better a green executive be one heartbeat away than a green legislator be there.

For awhile now John McCain has been complaining that he doesn’t get the same airtime as Obama, champion of the proletariat and defender of humanity. Luckily the McCain team found a solution to that problem: announce a little-known running mate for the media to tear apart!

Honestly. I’m so relieved that every network and paper is getting the truth out about Sarah Palin’s illegitimate grand-fetus. Palin’s high school daughter making a dumb decision is boatloads more worrying than if she were an elitist Chicago politician raised under the America-hating wings of radical preachers and terrorists.

When was the child conceived? If we hurry up and elect Obama they can leave the infant in a supply closet and forget this whole thing ever happened.