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<\/td>\n<\/tr>\nIn addition to inventing Democracy, competitive sports
\n and the gay bathhouse, the ancient Greeks had a nifty way of settling
\n political disputes short of all-out war.<\/p>\n
Each side, or tribe, or city in the dispute would send out a champion,
\n usually the leader or the baddest dude in the group, who in those days
\n were often the same guy. These two guys would emerge onto the battle
\n plain, or in front of
\n the
\n city
\n under siege, and engage in a little down-and-dirty
\n one-on-one hand-to-hand combat. Winner takes all.<\/p>\n
There is some evidence this tradition of representative combat predated
\n the Greeks, at least if we consider the Bible a historic source. The
\n legendary
\n combat between David of Israel and Goliath of Philistine reputedly took
\n place about 300 years before the first official Olympics.<\/p>\n
This eminently
\n sensible solution avoided widespread bloodshed, general mayhem
\n and collateral
\n damage, and
\n allowed
\n one city
\n to establish
\n its preeminence
\n over another without reducing both to smoking piles of rubble. Although
\n this heroic combat lacked the visceral appeal of raping and pillaging,
\n as the tradition evolved into what we know as sports today the ancient
\n Greeks partly compensated for
\n this loss by introducing ritualized drunken orgies, which continue,
\n in a flashy commercial fashion, into the modern day.<\/p>\n
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could settle our political differences today
\n with some form of ritualized combat? Avoid spending hundreds of millions
\n of dollars and distracting hard-working Americans from their jobs and outside
\n obsessions, not to mention quality TV time?<\/p>\n
Considering the two healthy, athletic Alpha Males we currently have
\n jousting for the office, the Dowbrigade would like to propose a sort
\n of Presidential Decathlon, consisting of ten events chosen to test the
\n mettle of the aspirants to the laurel wreath representing the "World’s
\n Most Powerful Man" title in the very skills they will need to be successful
\n in this challenging post.<\/p>\n
We arrived at this "ten event" formula only after careful consideration
\n of historical precedent and the principles of fair play. A mano-a-mano,
\n duel-to-the-death of the old school, although an attractive idea on the
\n face of it, and steeped in tradition and history, would be not only illegal
\n under current statutes, but not really guaranteed to produce a winner
\n with the best skill set for governing a modern super-power.<\/p>\n
Certain entire areas of competition were rejected because they gave
\n too much advantage to one or the other of the current candidates. For
\n example, we threw out any sport included in the X-games as being too
\n heavily favoring John Kerry, accomplished wind-surfer, motorcyclist,
\n hang glider and hacky-sack expert. At the same time and by the
\n same token we eliminated all sports involving weapons as favoring the
\n Texas roots of the incumbent, as well as introducing the risk of decathlon
\n degeneration into the aforementioned duel-to-the-death.<\/p>\n
Although both men have some experience at "America’s Pastime", baseball
\n and other team sports were rejected on the grounds that it would be unfair
\n to ask the President to field a team including Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft
\n and Tom Ridge (although we bet ‘Leeza knows how to break up a double
\n play). So all 10 events are one on one, Kerry vs. Bush. Without
\n further ado, here they are:<\/p>\n
First Event – The Handshake Marathon: Handshaking is the preeminent
\n political movement, and a successful President must be capable of repeating
\n it
\n endlessly, and with feeling. We would suggest that the candidates
\n each be required to shake the hands of an entire mid-sized city, including
\n babies and pets.<\/p>\n
Second Event – Scramble Drill: In this event the candidates will simulate
\n an essential Presidential survival skill – getting out of the Oval Office
\n fast in the event of a terrorist strike. The candidates will have to
\n pretend to be working (second nature to these guys, and not worthy of
\n a dedicated event) in a mockup of the Oval Office when an alarm will
\n go off. How quickly can they navigate the maze of underground tunnels
\n and crazed security personnel and reach the White House helipad?<\/p>\n
Third Event – Arm twisting: A new twist on a hoary political tradition
\n – the arms to be twisted will be robotic prosthetics, capable of measuring
\n pressure, torque and duration and reading out an objective evaluation
\n of the candidates skill in this essential ability.<\/p>\n
Fourth Event – TelePrompTer reading: A front-line skill without which
\n a President would be reduced to speaking extemporaneously, and we all
\n know
\n where that leads. As an additional hurdle, while trying to accurately
\n read some meaningless gibberish, the candidate will be required to ignore
\n a variety of distractions such as foreign correspondents in suspicious
\n turbans, nubile interns in thongs and energetic bloggers trying to ask
\n questions.<\/p>\n
Fifth Event – Grammar showdown: For those unavoidable moments when Presidents
\n are forced to speak without benefit of a prepared statement, how many
\n grammatically correct sentences can they formulate within five minutes? Answers
\n will be judged by a panel of English teachers and newspaper editors.<\/p>\n
Sixth Event – Mud Slinging: In this crowd-pleasing event points will
\n be awarded not only for the quantity and quality of mud slung, but on the candidates
\n ability to sling without being sullied by either his own, or his opponents,
\n mud.<\/p>\n
Seventh Event – Poker: This most quintessentially American of games
\n begged to be included in the Decathlon The only question was, which
\n game? Stud poker seemed too old-fashioned, century-before-last, and modern
\n favorite
\n Texas Hold ’em favored too strongly one of the candidates. We would
\n prefer going with some obscure variation, like Reverse Dentist’s Numbers,
\n a favorite of the Dowbrigade’s circle of degenerate poker-playing buddies. This
\n is a game with rules so wickedly complicated that after over 20 years
\n of playing, and winning some sizable pots, we still have no actual idea
\n what they are.<\/p>\n
Eight Event – Risk: This quintessential American board game barely
\n beat out Monopoly on the grounds that American Politics is about more
\n than just the money, its about taking over the world.<\/p>\n
Ninth Event – Back Slapping: Candidates will take turns slapping each
\n other on their backs until one of them is no longer able to continue.
\n Use of knives, scissors, box-cutters or any other implement more suitable
\n to Back Stabbing is prohibited.<\/p>\n
Tenth Event – Find the VP: Closely related to the Scramble Drill, this
\n interesting event tests the ability of the candidate, after evacuating
\n the Oval Office, to locate his Number Two at the proverbial "Undisclosed
\n Location".<\/p>\n
This kind of political duel would not be unprecedented. After
\n all, who can forget that we are in the 200th anniversary of the duel
\n to the death between Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and
\n Vice President Aaron Burr, weeding out the field for the 1804 Presidential
\n elections.<\/p>\n
So lets bring back the tradition of Clashes of Champions. Who
\n can argue that the world is not a better place since sports have channeled
\n many of mankind’s aggressive drives to dominate into non-destructive
\n and socially acceptable avenues? We have come a long way from the Peloponnesian
\n Wars, when cities would raise vast armies and invade other cities to
\n raze, ruin and subjugate them. Imagine if New York City raised an army
\n and launched punitive expeditions up I-95 every time a bunch of Boston
\n rabble-rousers got drunk and started chanting "Yankees Suck"! <\/p>\n
Though the outcome would indubitably be the same, we are probably better
\n off without all of the messy raping and pillaging which would undoubtedly
\n result.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In addition to inventing Democracy, competitive sports and the gay bathhouse, the ancient Greeks had a nifty way of settling political disputes short of all-out war. Each side, or tribe, or city in the dispute would send out a … Continue reading