May 10, 2005
When Celebs Opine, Pt. II
So I head over to The Huffington Post to see what all the fuss is about.
Scrolling down the list of posters I see most of the usual suspects. Larry Gelbart (wrote the M.A.S.H tv series); Bill Maher; Gary Hart; Rob Reiner; Larry David (wrote the Seinfeld series); and so forth, all sharing their wit and wisdom.
The presence of one name surprised me. There was sportcaster Jim Lampley, offering a post titled nothing less grandiose than "The Biggest Story of Our Lives." "Wow," I thought. "Who'd have imagined that the guy who covers boxing for HBO and swimming for NBC during the Olympics would be the guy to bring us "The Biggest Story of Our Lives?"
What is this big story? That President Bush stole the election through the insidious machinations of Karl Rove. That's right.
Lampley knows it's true, too. How? Because...
"At 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on Election Day, I checked the sportsbook odds in Las Vegas and via the offshore bookmakers to see the odds as of that moment on the Presidential election. John Kerry was a two-to-one favorite. You can look it up."
Ahhh, I see. It's all so clear to me now.
Honestly, I wish I had never seen that blog post. I've always enjoyed Lampley's work as sportcaster. But from now on, everytime I see his face on my television, I'll see block letters on his forehead spelling out the word I M B E C I L E. And that will be hard to ignore.
This is precisely why celebrities should limit their crazed rantings and inane holdings-forth to those cocktail parties where everyone agrees with one another and no one even knows anyone who voted for Bush.
Out here in fly-over country, it's making it hard to take them seriously while they do their day job.