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Hillary Clinton: Poor Sportsmanship Personified

by Christopher McIntosh
01/30/2008

Politics ain't my thing. Moves too quick, and it makes me too upset.

You want to argue about how the introduction of the wild card has been the single worst development in baseball outside of HGH, I'm your guy. I'll go 12 full rounds (and win, mind you) but if for some reason I don't, I'll take another pull from my whiskey and happily move on to the next subject.

Because ultimately, it just don't matter.

Politics, though, is a game where they play for big chips. The kind you don't cash in at the end of the night but the kind they make you store in one of those security deposit boxes they're nice enough to offer you.

It's serious. Real people get hurt. And lots of them in some cases.

As far as non-serious issues go, we are firmly in the Winter doldrums. College football is over, the SEC went 7-2, LSU won, and UGA beat up on the record setting QB from Hawaii so bad that he may never recover. His draft stock has dropped faster than a Portuguese soccer player who's come within 10 feet of an opponent. There is no baseball except for the impending Clemens trial... I mean, hearing during which he will testify under oath regarding his "alleged" steroid use but that's weeks away (and I'm counting the days).

College basketball is not quite my thing and it doesn't get too hot and heavy till February anyways. The NFL is on the inexplicable two week break between the conference championships and the Superbowl during which the only thing I've learned is that Tom Brady has a right foot and an unconscionably attractive girlfriend who is neither his fiancee nor the mother of his child. Even the English Premiership was off for FA Cup matches and my channel wouldn't show the good ones (thanks, y'all, seriously).

Point? Ain't nothing going on. So I lost control of my TV this weekend. Just as importantly, I lost control of the ability to leave my apartment given that the temperature was somewhere around 3 degrees. 3. It was so cold the native Chicagoans were telling me to stay inside, not knowing that I was an interloper.

My wife does not have the same issues with politics I do, so we watched Keith Olbermann call the South Carolina democratic primary which was contested between a black man with a white mother from Kansas whose childhood was split between Hawaii and Indonesia and the former first lady of the last Democratic administration.

I got a longish memory. I remember (apparently, better than Bill Clinton) Jesse Jackson's campaign. More importantly, I remember the big show, Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann on Sportscenter Sunday nights.

Needless to say, I was a bit weirded out.

If this had been a fight, this would have been a pre-Buster Douglas/Mike Tyson special.

NBC called the election for Obama with ZERO precincts reporting. Zero. He eventually won 55-27 or something. Either way it was 2-1 in a three person race. Edwards only trailed Clinton by about 7-8 points. Since they call it a race, I kept waiting for Olbermann to scream out, "THEY'RE NOT...GONNA...GET HIM".

I don't know much about politics, but I do know a bit about whippings.

More importantly, I know a little bit about how you conduct yourself after one (not that I've been on the wrong end of any... cough... um... moving on).

There are rules. And Hillary Rodham, et al did not follow any of them. Made me turn to my wife and say, "this is why our kids are going to play some form of team sports/games/competition."

You have to learn how to lose graciously.

Hillary, however, pretty much demonstrated exactly how you're not supposed to act.

1. Whippings hurt, but strangely they hurt a little bit less than losing on a last second jumper. We know this. Apparently, Hillary don't. When she finally emerged (inexplicably in Tennessee) she looked a little bit too glassy eyed Stepford Wife. It's great to be resilient, but if you've just gotten knocked unconscious by a Mike Tyson uppercut, claiming that you're fine to continue and wondering why they called the fight just makes you look crazy.

2. Shake hands. Obviously, this doesn't apply literally, but there is a way things are done. Everyone who didn't win gives a "concession" speech in reverse order of finish. And in said speech, you actually congratulate your opponent. Hillary Rodham had not one, but two opportunities given the co-equal status she gave Bill for that week and neither one could utter a full sentence offering congratulations, barely acknowledging that the primary even happened. This would be like a football coach facing the media after losing 55-27 and refusing to even acknowledge that they got beat. It's lunacy.

3. Show up. The candidate wouldn't even remain in the state. Read that again. She left the arena before she'd say anything. In just about every professional sport, you'd be fined a whole big lot for that. And for good reason. You're a public figure who lives off of the public's dollars (or votes, in this case). You feel bad about getting whupped? Too [redacted] bad. Get in there and do your duty - face your people.

4. Don't denigrate the game and as a corollary, don't announce your attention to cheat in the next contest. In the statement that served as the longest bit of congratulations Hillary Rodham offered she simultaneously backhandedly swiped at the relevance of winning South Carolina by talking about how happy she is that millions of people will finally get into the game on Super Tuesday. I'm no expert in coded language, but when she said that (or it was read for her) I heard, "well done, Obama, lot of African-Americans in South Carolina and you got a bunch of them. Now we're going to NJ, NY, Connecticut and other states where there are, well, white people. Let's see how well you do there") Independent of that, she immediately declared her campaign was on to Florida.

There's one problem. Florida, like Michigan, doesn't count because of their toying with their primary's date. Everyone had agreed not to campaign there. So why would she invoke Florida? She also pulled a similar stunt in Michigan by being the only person to remain on the ballot. That's Belicheck shady. It ain't exactly cheating, it's probably a strategically brilliant move, but it ain't right either.

Sportsmanship went entirely out the window this weekend and I didn't watch a single game. All I had to do was follow Hillary Rodham and her bush league tactics after getting whipped.

If you're going to play, you're going to lose. Sometimes you're even going to lose in ways you didn't think were humanly possible.

Be prepared. Or you might end up looking petty, foolish, mean, and small.

I hear that's not a good thing in an election.

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