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Political Sport

© Frank Monaldo

It is easy to understand why we root for our children when they play ball or compete in spelling bees or science fairs. Everyone wants their children to do well. It is easy to understand why we root for the local high school teams even if we do not have children competing. We probably know some of the children who play. They come from our neighborhoods. It is less easy to understand why we root for local college teams. There the connections are probably more tenuous. Most players are probably unknown to us and come from far away parts of the country or even the world. Yet we still root for them.

The connections with professional teams are even more rarefied. The players are professionals playing for money who will often switch allegiances for a more lucrative contract. While some exceptional players repay their communities through community service, professional athletes are generally mercenary. Nonetheless, the sense of familiarity gained by following the exploits of professionals plus the shared experiences of victories and defeat weave what may objectively seem to be irrational bonds. But these bonds can have the positive effect of bringing disparate parts of community, or parts of different wealth or ethnicity, together as part of a shared enterprise. They can also ignobly encourage a mean-spirited tribalism and misplaced loyalty that fails to appreciate the nobility of others.

Whenever the competitive and animal spirits are aroused, there is also the danger of an "us against them" insularity that can demonize opponents. This phenomenon is common in the competitive aspects of politics. The ferocity of political combat can overwhelm manners and even test normal moral constraints of honesty.

This amoral competitive political zealotry is most obviously exemplified by Paul Begala. Begala is the Clinton hound who howls against what he perceives as a partisan special prosecutor while telling the Washington Post just before the last election, "I want to drive a stake through those Republican hearts. I really do.'' Perhaps we should be relieved that Begala acknowledges that Republican have hearts.

This zealotry is a bipartisan phenomenon. David Brock is the investigative reporter who wrote The Real Anita Hill , a thoroughly researched book exploring the Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas controversy. Brock became a right-wing hero by painstakingly documenting that in order to believe Anita Hill, you have to believe that many other disinterested people were lying. Brock later wrote the story for the Conservative American Spectator magazine detailing "Troopergate," the Clinton use of state troopers to pimp for him. Indeed Brock described a "Paula," a woman whom an Arkansas state trooper had escorted to Clinton's hotel room. That "Paula" is the current Paula Jones. The story of Paula Jones has yet to completely play itself out.

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