Self-aggrandizing sportswriters injecting their political opinions into coverage of atheltic events? Heaven forfend, I can't imagine such a thing. Unless, of course, they are giving us all moral instruction on gender quotas, advertising, alcohol, gambling, urban planning, education, and labor relations.

And odd, isn't it, how they all seem to advance the most hackneyed ideas from the PC handbook? Here's a pop quiz for the peanut gallery here at OWO: name the last sportswriter, columnists included, to argue a conservative or free market viewpoint in print. Winner gets drinks on me at the next OWO cocktail outing.

Well said. I guess that what really bugs me is that his opposition is based solely on the fact that he dislikes the current administration. The actual merits (or lack thereof) of the war on terror are irrelevant. At least he's honest enough to admit those are his motivations (unlike some unnamed politicians). I guess I'm just some idealist who thinks politics should stop at the waters edge.

By the way - next year it's the Avs.

Military planes fly over NFL stadiums. FOX shows a plane taking off from an aircraft carrier in its lead-ins for its sports broadcasts. Baseball hype often includes so many references to the sport as "an American game," and the game's origins are shrouded by the Doubleday myth so that its ties to "foreign" games are covered up.

Guess what, folks. That's politics. Heck, that's borderline propaganda.

I don't think there any sinister motives involved here. But I do get a little queasy at seeing war and football packaged so neatly. It clearly warped Dennis Miller's brain.

By all means, keep the politics out of the stadium and the arena. Applaud athletes as athletes.

But when you're writing about something that spills over to the real world, whether it's about Pat Tillman or Rae Carruth, you're allowed to treat it for what it is. Reilly wasn't writing about the neutral-zone trap here.

BTW, I'll gladly take Mr. McCarthy's bet. I work in a sports department, and most of them fall into the school of thought I call "frat-boy libertarianism" -- as long the Jets on the tube and the beer is cold, nothing else matters.

Maybe Beau works at Fox Sports New York! And what I think Jim is hinting at is the sports "feature" columnists, not really your sports reporter-types.

And Jim, I can remember the last time someone's column wasn't run because it wasn't toeing the company line; that columnist at the New York Times who argued against Howell Raines' constant anti-Masters coverage in 2003.

Okay, Beau, you're on. I read USA Today Sports pretty closely and I can't recall the last time I saw a conservative or free-market view expressed on those pages. Which one did I miss?

As for most of the scribes there being libertarian, I must say I'm pretty surprised to hear that. Are we talking about the same place that's edited by gender feminist Julie Ward and that features a host of liberal voices like John Saraceno, Kelly Whiteside and Christine Brennan?

Beau's point on mixing sports and militarism is well taken, although I wonder if he would have us do away with, say, the national anthem before games or the president throwing out the first pitch. The line between what's cultural and what's political seems a little blurrier there than in Title IX coverage, for instance.

All good topics for us to hash out over some pops. I'd be delighted to see you there, Beau, and even more so if it ends up the drinks are on me. Say, Eric, when is the next cocktail outing anyway?

Saraceno's a liberal voice? I've hung out with the guy and didn't quite catch it. In browsing through his archive (http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/saraceno/index.htm), there are certainly things that any good conservative should be happy with.

Same for Kelly Whiteside. Talked to her plenty of times, never talked politics.

You apparently know more about Julie Ward than I do.

The Web staff has the libertarians. I can't speak too much for the print staff except that they hate soccer, which always struck me as a right-wing, possibly xenophobic point of view. (Note to any USAT people reading -- I'm generalizing. Please don't fire me.)

But I definitely intended that comment to go beyond USAT. Someone (I want to say it was Albom, but I couldn't find the reference) has already made this point for me -- sports writers are usually the target audience for "The Man Show," not NPR listeners.

I'll keep my eye out for a specific column. They always come when I'm not looking for them, especially during NFL season.

excellent commentary.

We may have some middle ground here, Beau, if you will indulge me. From what I can tell, USA Today hates men's soccer. Editor Julie Ward can't seem to get enough of the U.S. women's soccer team. There's simply no question that coverage of the women's team is far more regular and prominent than that of the men's.

The purpose for this, I would suggest, is that certain women's sports have become proxies for liberal notions of "women's empowerment." Left-wing feminist groups, like the Women's Sports Foundation, use these athletes to camouflage dubious ideas such as the "pay gap," federal mandates like Title IX and the blurring of any differences between men and women. All of this is wrapped within the high feminist catechism that women are perpetual victims, and that some vast cabal is trying to hold them back in sports. See -- just like in the workplace with the "glass ceiling!"

Consider this piece on political activist Julie Foudy that ran as an above-the-fold feature:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/soccer/national/2003-09-08-cover-foudy_x.htm

Although Foudy earned the ire of her fellow Title IX commissioners with her strident posturing, notice how writer Kelly Whiteside includes no voices of disagreement. Instead, Foudy is simply the cheerful "conscience" of the team. Whitesdie even touts her for elective office!

Imagine, by contrast, a profile on Davis Love's christian activism. Or how about a piece on how the depth of the men's Olympic team has been hamstrung by Title IX cuts? Here's a zany one: Stadium advertising tied to lower ticket, concession prices, say economists. Julie Ward has a parakeet cage in her office, no doubt, for depositing those story pitches.

Let me clarify something here: I don't have a problem with occasional political opinions in sports stories, expressed at a reasonable volume. I have a problem with someone who consistently confuses their role as a sports columnist with a role as a political columnist. If you want to be the latter, fine - just write for the op-ed page, not the sports section.

That said, Reilly's column was offensive to me because it took a mocking tone towards Pat Tillman's sacrifice, and implied that he was foolish for participating in a war that has "no basis." And I would've disliked that line regardless of if it was printed in a sports section or an op-ed page.

Jim -- First of all, you know Julie Ward's not the sports editor, but one of the deputies, right? The sports editor is Monte Lorell.

Second of all, you can't take a Foudy profile and coverage of the U.S. women's soccer team (which has its share of fans, believe me) and spin that into a feminist ideology.

In 2003, there was more coverage of the women's team than of the men's team because they played a World Cup. In 2004, you're going to see plenty of coverage of the women's team because they're playing in the Olympics, and it'll be the last go-around for an athlete (Mia Hamm) who captured the imagination of America's youth like very few others. (These kids were wearing the Hamm jerseys long before Julie Ward noticed, I guarantee you.)

In 2002, Kelly Whiteside went to Korea and did a damn good job covering the original World Cup. The U.S. men were everywhere that summer. This summer, they're playing Grenada, which isn't that interesting apart from the fact that the U.S. had a little military action there some 20 years ago.

As for the other issues mentioned -- I seem to recall USA TODAY covering ALL of them. I did a quick Web search (need to wrap up here) and found this quote:

"All that is of little consolation to men in Olympic sports such as wrestling who have seen teams become endangered species."

from this story: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/stories/2002-06-19-title-ix-cover.htm

And that was one of several.

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