Cheat to Win

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What does it say about a man, a team, that feels it must cheat in order to win?

HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel reported Friday evening on the Bill Belichek-New England Patriots cheating scandal, stealing signals by videotaping in advance, a practice that extended over seasons, not just a single game.

Senator Schumer’s askin’ questions. Punishment’s been doled out, but in light of the full extent of the prolonged cheating over seasons, the fines, the loss of a draft pick hardly seems sufficient.

The culture of cheating pervades these days.

But as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told 60 Minutes when it comes to another case of cheating to win, hey, it’s ancient history, get over it.

Pretty much sums up the sorry state we find ourselves in these days. Where punks with attitude in pinstripes can cheat with impunity and get away with it. Or can they? John Conyers has some thoughts on that in regard to the crafty Karl Rove. [Funny, every time he comes to mind I think of Charles Durning dancin’ through Best Little Whorehouse in Texas… despite that bit o’ dancin’ with David Gregory…]

The controversy over steroids in baseball has waned, never really did get into the role of the Current Occupant, himself a baseball owner back when the steroid usage was rampant. Guess nobody wanted to open that little door.

Interesting that cheating has been the mantle he’s worn all his lifetime. Cheating to get out of Viet Nam. Cheating to get those gentlemanly C’s—how else to explain the abysmal ignorance of the CO?

Even this week, we see the Current Occupant in a foreign country in a cheater’s play of the politics of smear, just before he headed off to ap-pease-please the Saudis like a beggar at the doorstep, with not even that much cred…Ap-pease-please may we have more oil oh you funders of the terrorists who struck us on 9/11.

Not soon enough the book will close on this administration. And we’ll be left to wonder, does cheating go totally unpunished? Does it get a wink and a nod from those it advantaged? Will the tide of history record the truth, or even try? John McCain seems to be trying to rewrite history already as he grasps at falsehoods in a tag team with Bush to try to smear Obama and Democrats.

Will the same old pattern of lies and cheating persist? Or, having placed us on the precipice of permanent third rate status, is the master of the gentlemanly C now simply going to pass the torch to more of the same?

Or will we regain what we once had? Honor. First nation leadership in the world. You can have a voice in changing that...if you choose. If you work for change. If you vote.