Well, so are all the other Presidential hopefuls-- not one of them has responded to my offer to endorse any candidate who will play me in basketball-- but I particularly want to address Colbert. After all, he's supposed to be the unconventional maverick candidate here, tooling around in a bus stolen from John McCain...
Now, you might say, "Why does Stephen Colbert need your endorsement? After all, his fan group on Facebook has 1.3 million members, and he's got a tv show (admittedly, on basic cable), while you're just a jackass with a web page. He's got the power to break the DonorsChoose servers with a re-run (extending the Challenge by 24 hours), while you can't quite raise $3,500 in a month of trying. Why should he care about you?"
Well, for one thing, while he may have raised more money than I have, he's significantly less successful than ScienceBlogs as a whole. And I think it's safe to say that I represent ScienceBlogs, at least in basketball-related matters.
The really crucial point, though, is that he's forgotten a crucial element of running for President: The Demonstration of Manliness. You might think that it's all about sensible policy proposals and kissing babies and raising money, but that would be hopelessly naive. Especially the policy thing.
No, a critical part of any Presidential campaign is the Demonstration of Manliness, and what better vehicle for this than sports?
Americans need to know not only that the propsective Leader of the Free World looks good in a tailored suit on tv, and can deftly avoid answering any question involving actual facts, but that their brain is positively pickled in testosterone. Hence the importance of the Demonstration of Manliness, which has been a decisive element in every recent election.
It's critical to find some Demonstration of Manliness to be the signature of any Presidential candidacy, and the wrong choice is fatal. Clearing brush is Manly, windsurfing is Not Manly. Well-documented extramarital affairs are Manly, kissing your wife on national tv is Not Manly. Being a fake cowboy is Manly, being an actual combat veteran is Not Manly.
Sports are presumptively Manly (unless they're weenie European sports like soccer), and you won't find a more American sport than basketball. Well, ok, football, but the Kennedys already did that, and plagiarism is Not Manly.
Hosting your own pundit show on basic cable is in a state of indeterminate Manliness (Bill O'Reilly: Manly; Oprah Winfrey: Not so much). In order to solidify his candidacy, Colbert needs to do something to solidify his credentials in this area. It might as well be playing hoops.
Because there's one thing for sure: Getting run out of the campaign for violating federal campaign finance laws is definitely Not Manly.
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Move to South Carolina, and I suspect he'd meet your challenge.
Netball is manly? Since when?
Move to South Carolina, and I suspect he'd meet your challenge.
I have readers in South Carolina...
Netball is manly? Since when?
Wilt Chamberlain claimed to have had sex with 20,000 women during his NBA career. You don't get manlier than that.
Sure, basketball was invented IN America, but it was invented BY a terrori... Canadian. So how American can it truly be?
Regardless of whether the both of you have an audience in SC, you both work in the state of New York (he may live elsewhere, I dunno, but definitely not in SC), which makes this more plausible if we can somehow bring it to the attention of Colbert and his producers. I mean, he's done challenges of various sorts throughout the run of his show...why not this one?
Somehow I think Oprah is considerably more manly than Bill'O and she is not at all manly.
The real question is not whether Colbert is man enough to play you, but how good a loser he is...
Colbert is a master satirist with large and active followings, Larry Niven's "flash crowds," amplifying his performance. America is a dismal dung heap of Official Truth, Luddite religiousity, stupidity, corruption/cupidity, compassion, and debt exceeding 5 GNPs. The 2008 election offers Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber, the Party of Awful Ideas vs. the Party of Terrible Ideas.
Jon Stewart is melancholeric to the Left, Stephen Colbert is choleric to the right: Mort Sahl's Greek tragedies. A not insignificant fraction of the polity would happily write in Stephen Colbert on a Tuesday 04 November 2008 ballot. Consider the alternatives. Vote "NO!" in 2008.
So playing basketball would make the candidate look manly? Tell me again, how far did Bill Bradley's 2000 presidential campaign go? And he played with people like Walt Frazier and Jerry Lucas, not a pick-up playin' physics professor...
Well, even if he doesn't "got game", Colbert at least has the ego of a basketball player...
Too bad even though he paid, Colbert won't get to play. I still say vote Colbert in '08! What do you really have to lose? Think how the electoral college works.
Claiming to sleep with 20,000 women isn't manly.