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