On Any Given Sunday

"Tampa Bay has about as much chance of making it to the Super Bowl as there is Saddam Hussein calling in live on the Larry King Show and making a teary confessional that he does indeed have hidden weapons of mass destruction and would someone please come and remove them for him" -- Desultory Turgescence, mocking Condoleeza Rice's prediction of a Tampa Bay-Oakland Super Bowl last week prior to the AFC and NFC Championship games.

Having proven the ultimate futility and fruitlessness of any attempt to outguess the Condoleeza Rice NFL Clairvoyance Conspiracy, Desultory Turgescence now officially reconsiders its opinions on the old, "time is running out" flim-flam, and Rice's special relationship with Paul Tagliabue. In fact, it now appears certain, when reading between the lines, that Rice has brokered a deal allowing Tagliabue to remain in power as the NFL commisioner in return for a special psychic vision which applies to the results of NFL post season championship games.

This "vision" has something to do with the results of the NFL post season championship games being decided in advance, passed on to Rice so that she can appear on Meet the Press, dazzle us all with her uncanny telepathic abilities thereby lending credibility to her other prediction: the "Time is Running Out" incantation that coyly hints around at the demise of Saddam without coming right out and saying: Saddam is as good as dead.

BBspot would have us believe that the invasion of Iraq will begin and conclude during the half hour, halftime intermission of the Super Bowl. Champion mouthpiece Colin Powell, in his best Donald Rumsfelt imitation said early today that the United States is ready to dance this tango solo if necessary. The problem with that belief is that few of the Super Bowl Ads would be applicable to a halftime invasion of Iraq.

Instead, the White House plans on occupying themselves with unleashing yet another series of harsh anti-marijuana propaganda. For those interested in seeking a silver lining in this black cloud of hypocricy, you can be comforted by the fact that at least they've toned down the "smoking pot is equal to flying commercial jet airliners into American financial and military facilities" brand of hysterical rhetoric typical of last year's ads.

In one of the other new Super Bowl spots, from WPP Group's Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, New York, a man riding on a subway car sees the ghosts of victims of drug crimes who tell him the dealers were fighting about his money. "Drug money supports terrible things," the ad says. So does government money for that matter. In fact, ALL money, at least in part, supports terrible things. It's a typical sort of hocus-pocus, the kind of fact-twisting and puerile deductive reasoning popular in political campaigns.

In another "America Good, Marijuana Evil" -type ad, a little girl who could be from Latin America appears as a ghost to a female office worker to tell the woman that "you killed me." The child then goes on to explain that she was a victim of a drug dealer whose product the office worker purchased.

I'm getting the impression that the REAL message of the The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy is that smoking marijuana induces hallucinations of ghosts suffering some unresolved trauma or psychological conflict and haunting YOU for smoking that bong hit last week because that bong hit just cost us the war!

Frankly, I'm not buying it.

The way Desultory Turgescence sees it, if anything goes wrong with the War, the primary people to blame will be Celine Dion, who will be croaking her way through "God Bless America" and the Dixie Chicks, who will be harmonizing on the National Anthem.

First of all, what are they trying to tell us by having that Canadian-style Pop Holocaust spector of Celine Dion whining her way through a song about America? Weren't there any AMERICANS available? If we're going to use foreigners to extravasate "God Bless America" I'd rather see Uday Hussein, with the fate of his father's regime tied to his castrati falsetto, twitter his way through his song with an AIM-9 Sidewinder Missile tied to his back. Celine Dion should be singing songs about birth control and why French Canadians should be kept in iron cages in some remote Canadian wilderness, not "God Bless America". Listening to her is going to make everyone so sick to their stomachs they won't be in the mood for war for many days later.

And the Dixie Chicks doing the National Anthem? Do we really want a bunch of Hee Haw harlots turning our national anthem into a jug band revival? Better if they save their energy for a bikini-clad Miller Light "Tastes Great-Less Filling" cat fight.

Hopefully, the Super Bowl will be a classic. Between the marijuana induced ghost hallucinations, the French-Canadian dry-heave rendition of "God Bless America" and the hillybilly hoedown, not to mention the calls to war, the incessant commercials for beer so bad you wouldn't wash your car with it and the John Madden spasmotic outpourings, if the GAME itself doesn't distract us, we are all likely to lose our minds, run mad into the Super Bowl night, tearing out our eyes to rid us of the image of Celine Dion.

Condoleeza Rice is going with the Oakland Raiders again this week. If they win, Tagliabue probably gets another 5 years as NFL commisioner. If they lose, well, Tagliabue may find himself declared a pot-smoking French Canadian terrorist for singing subliminal messages of comfort to the enemy.

Prediction: Oakland 31 Tampa Bay 16.