Prohibitionist Bracketeers Unite!

Matt Welch | March 17, 2008

If there's any bigger college hoops fan than Nick Gillespie, it's John Sidney McCain III. Go to his campaign website now to fill out your bracket and compete head-to-head against the Maverick! No word yet whether he's offering campaign swag to the winners like last year (UPDATE: "You'll also be eligible for great McCain 2008 prizes"!), or whether there's another potentially illegal office pool at his campaign HQ, but we can say for sure that the Arizona sports fanatic is the most influential voice on Capitol Hill for banning all gambling on college sports.

McCain supports an Internet gambling ban, wants to federalize oversight of professional boxing (and not just because his status allows him to get choice ringside seats in Vegas), rid steroids from even amateur sports via random drug tests, and regulate the supplements industry. Read all that and more in this 2004 interview with ESPN, where he commits the even more grievous sin of comparing the great-but-quiet Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (whose blog is a daily must-read) to the great-but-assholish Barry Bonds. Oh -- and he reveres John Wooden for making Bill Walton cut his hippie hair.

Comments

JMR|3.17.08 @ 9:09AM|#

And "Newsbusters" is outraged at SNL for

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/03/16/saturday-night-live-mccain-crazy-old-black-new-president

having the temerity to call McCain "old"! The gall of those writers!!
JMR

Yahoo Answerer|3.17.08 @ 9:12AM|#

If he goes against Hillary he will win. Against Obama I am not so sure about. Obama has so many energetic fans who will trudge through snow and ice to vote that he might be able to pull it off.

Yahoo Answerer|3.17.08 @ 9:14AM|#

Oh, LITERAL basketball. I thought John McCain was running for POTUS, not for head of the NBA. Guess I was wrong.

Taktix®|3.17.08 @ 9:18AM|#

From the Newsbusters link:

NBC's "Saturday Night Live" continued its political activism disguised as satire on March 15, this time choosing to make the case for Barack Obama while doing an entire sketch about John McCain being "crazy old."

A) I would have been fired from my college newspaper for writing a lede this shitty, and I was an editor!

B) Neo-cons don't have a sense of humor. Case in point: Red-Eye

Episiarch|3.17.08 @ 9:23AM|#

I tuned into MADTV this weekend to see if they had some Spitzer action, but it was a best-of episode.

However, they started with Kenny Rodgers' Jackass, which sort of made up for it.

Yahoo Answerer|3.17.08 @ 9:23AM|#

Oh, I just remembered. And this may explain why McCain is doing this. Barack Obama was endorsed by the journalist Borat who said that he supported "that basketball player Barack Obama." McCain has to compete with avid basketball fans somehow.

JMR|3.17.08 @ 9:36AM|#

Oh, that's nothin'. You wanna see proof Neocons have 0 sense of humor? Pick a random episode of "NewsBusted" on the site, and click on "play." It's so bad it might qualify as "funny, but in a pathetic way."
JMR

Yahoo Answerer|3.17.08 @ 9:47AM|#

JMR, you mean like Star Wars Holiday Special?
http://www.starwarsholidayspecial.com/

Episiarch|3.17.08 @ 9:49AM|#

Or like Battlefield Earth?

Taktix®|3.17.08 @ 9:59AM|#

Or like Domino?

JMR|3.17.08 @ 10:08AM|#

Well, the Starwars thing is actually funny!!
JMR

Brandon|3.17.08 @ 10:09AM|#

Yahoo Answerer said, "If he goes against Hillary he will win. Against Obama I am not so sure about. Obama has so many energetic fans who will trudge through snow and ice to vote that he might be able to pull it off."

RealClearPolitics.com disagrees: in a McCain-Obama race, McCain is up 0.8 points. In a McCain-Clinton race, Hillary is up 0.2 points;

Taktix®|3.17.08 @ 10:19AM|#

Operating under the assumption that polls are accurate, which is a stretch, head-to-head match-ups without a second head, so to speak, are wildly inaccurate.

For an example, please see: Election, 2004

|3.17.08 @ 1:08PM|#

I am going to go over there and fill out brackets and title it Keating 5's picks or something or other. Guess I will have to settle for some lame ass fleece.

|3.17.08 @ 4:38PM|#

I did this last year. I did not get any cool swag from it even though I out picked McCain. I have gotten a multitude of spam in my junk email account from the McCain campaign though.

Hint: Belmont is not only a brand of Canadian cigarette, there's a team in the tournament by that name. Don't confuse the two when filling out your brackets.

|3.18.08 @ 11:49AM|#

I saw the Weekend Update bit in question. My take was that the SNLers were as much slagging the networks for playing down the issue of McCain's age while the GOP nomination was up in the air as they were picking on the Senator. The CW is that the press likes JMcC, and took it easy on him, compared to the usual proctoscopies other Republican candidates claim to have to endure.

Don't forget to review Robinson's Rules for Rooting before filling out your brackets.

Kevrob

Go, Marquette!