Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Not boding well....

I've just read this post about Bode Miller (via James Wolcott), with some amusement. I'm not sure I buy the analogy between Miller and President Bush, but what strikes me more is the people in the comments thread and, apparently, Tom Watson's e-mail inbox defending Miller.

Like many other folks, I was highly annoyed by Miller's antics at the Torino Games. I have no problem with him not winning. It's the Buffalo Bills fan in me, I suppose, but give me a team or an athlete trying as hard as possible and not winning over a supremely gifted athlete winning with ease, any day. But Miller didn't do either of those things: he's the supremely gifted athlete who just decided that he didn't care enough to even try.

Miller took an opportunity for which many athletes work hard all their lives, and only a few get -- and then said, "I'm good. Getting here was enough. Now I'm just gonna drink."

Here's my take: I hope that, if there is any validity to voodoo at all, then whatever skier would have made the US team if not for Bode Miller is sitting somewhere with a doll of our best skier, a big box of stickpins, and a lit candle. And if the US team decided to kick Miller off, I'd be fine with that, too. As far as I'm concerned, what Miller did is only marginally more acceptable than what the Chicago "Black Sox" or Pete Rose did.

F*** Bode Miller.

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