Little Green Firedogs (Pt. 2): On Bill Clinton's decision to campaign for St. Joseph:

Big Dog may not have taken it personally when Lieberman stabbed us all in the back with his speech on the floor of the Senate during the impeachment hearings, but many of us did. Loyalty to machine politics runs deep.

"Stabbed us all in the back?????" Of all the reasons one should support Ned Lamont, the fact that his opponent attacked President Clinton for lying under oath about an affair with an office underling should be way, way down on the list.

Hey, I love Elvis, thought he was the best President of the last half-century, hated Ken Starr and his GOP masters in Congress, and strenuously opposed the impeachment of the President. The entire matter was a ginned-up attempt to nail a politician they hated, and should be correctly regarded as one of the most distateful periods in American political history. Thanks to the GOP, the use of the impeachment mechanism to remove a President will be seen as a partisan stunt for a long time to come, something that a Congressional majority does to register its displeasure with a President of the opposing party.

But anyone who is so morally abtuse as to regard Clinton's behavior during the Lewinsky Affair as appropriate, not worthy of censure, really has a hollow core. In the autumn of '98, Clinton didn't do anything to earn our loyalty with his boorishness and dishonesty, so how can anyone other than his most obsequious retainers feel that Lieberman "stabbed us all in the back." Fighting for liberal principles doesn't entail putting on our collective kneepads everytime a Democrat is under attack for his sleazy transgressions.

It's a shame that the ratings for this year's Tour de France are in the toilet, because this year is the first time in awhile that there's actually a competition for the title, and an American might actually win it again.

Meltdown: Matt Stoller has a good exegesis of the shocking collapse of the Lieberman incumbency. Whoever said that this was like watching your standard-issue incompetent Democratic campaign consultant, but from the outside, really nailed it.

Garbo Talks: For those of you who've wondered what an Exchaton post might look like if he bothered to make an argument more substantive than "Wankers", "W.AT.B." or "Thread Away", this morning's local paper of record has an op-ed slice of Prof. Black, about the primary campaign against Joe Lieberman, that's well worth reading.

He hits all the right notes ("Lieberman's problem isn't bloggers, it's the voters of Connecticut, who seem to be increasingly tired of his support for some very uncivil policies, including federal intervention into the Terri Schiavo case, the administration's operations at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay and, yes, that disastrous invasion of Iraq"), eschews trite idioms (no reference to the "netroots"), and avoids even a semblance of the seething rage that has proven so cancerous to the progressive blogosphere. However, the lack of any positive reason for why the Republic needs Ned Lamont in the U.S. Senate is telling. Has there ever been a cipher with so devoted a cohort of loyal supporters as the Cable King? If Ned Lamont were running against Ben Nelson, a Democratic Senator whose record is quite a bit more conservative than Holy Joe's, would Lamont's "voice" and "vision" be as needed? Would anyone care?

Somalia 1, Rwanda 0: Absolutely my last soccer post for awhile.

In the wake of the unfolding tragedy in Lebanon, it's comforting to know that there are still people in the blogosphere who can post something so utterly and confoundingly clueless. Holy shit, indeed....

Bush Works Blue: Actually, the really embarassing thing is his eating with his mouth open. A classless, vulgarian buffoon.

UPDATE: Omigod. I remember how perturbed the British were twenty-five years ago when President Carter gave the Queen Mother a peck on the cheek. Now we've sunk to the level of having a President who's giving an unwanted neck message in public to the German Chancellor, just on the heels of dropping a vulgarity in the presence of the Prime Minister of Great Britain. And that's the level of respect he gives to the world leaders who are his allies. I'm now wondering how it would effect my license to practice law if I turned in my passport....

Man Bites Dog: Blogger admits that he doesn't post about a subject because he doesn't know enough about it to make a worthwhile contribution. Jeez, it's never stopped me from posting on bankruptcy law....

Booted: Arena out as U.S. coach. No word on his replacement. I guess tying the World Champs only gets you so far.

The Midas Touch: What if you gave a dinner for campaign contributors, and no one showed up? It takes a special guest of honor to scare away the fat cats.... [link via Daily Kos]

Howard Owens is back, blogging up a storm in Kern County.

Solid Earth & Gold: I haven't mentioned her recently, but the World's Most Soulful Yooperchick, Annette Summersett, finally has her new C.D. out. Buy it now.

Memo to the Opposite Sex: This isn't sexy. Straight men don't find this to be an attractive look, and we don't respect women who pursue this course; in fact, we pity them. You cannot have a fulfilling, long-term relationship with those men who are attracted, since it's just as likely they are going to be prowling junior high schools looking for their next catch. For the love of Kobe, please don't do this to yourself. [link via Kausfiles]

17 Million: That's the number of people who saw the World Cup Final in the U.S. on ABC and Univision Sunday afternoon. That's a higher number than averaged seeing the 2006 NBA Finals, three times higher than the viewership for the 7th Game of the Stanley Cup playoffs, and as high as the average for the 2005 World Series and NCAA Hoops Final, except those games were aired in prime time, and involved American teams. Its ratings were much higher than the final round of the Masters. It was seen by more Americans than saw this season's final episodes of 24 and Alias, combined...take that, Frank Deford.

Zizou apologizes, sort of, for his boneheaded loss of composure Sunday. He gets some props from, of all people, Paul Zimmerman (aka "Dr. Z"), SI's longtime football writer, here. Two other takes, based on the unsupported assumption that Zidane was the target of a racist jibe (something he hasn't claimed, yet), are here and here. It should also be pointed out for the record that Zidane's ancestry is not Arabic, it's Berber.

Italy 1, France 1 [P.K.-Ital. 5, Fra. 3]: The best World Cup final in twenty years, marred by an act of unforgivable idiocy by the game's best player in the final minutes of overtime.

Where to? For me, it's Over/Under in Santa Monica, which I seem to recall having a decided pro-Azzurri tilt....

Germany 3, Portugal 1: The Wrath of Kahn. A surprisingly well-played consolation game, with the host country getting two goals from the Pig Climber in the second half. Portugal had the run of play most of the match, but had no one who could stick it past Oliver Kahn, starting his first game of the tournament, until the final five minutes, when Luis Figo, possibly playing his last international game, set up a goal with a nifty pass. From hell's heart, I stab at thee....

Slate effectively puts the tiresome complaints about ESPN's soccer coverage, and particularly of Dave O'Brien, to bed, here. Money quote:

O'Brien didn't help his cause among the soccer cognoscenti by referring to them as a "petulant little clique." This country's soccer snobs—and I count myself among them—are a persnickety lot. They lament that most of the USA doesn't give a whit about the beautiful game but bridle at attempts to invite in nonloyalists by, say, explaining the meaning of a yellow card. Our little tribe is like the fans of an up-and-coming rock band. We want them to be successful, but when they break big, we resent the hordes of newbies who weren't cool enough to be there at the beginning. ESPN's biggest mistake here was underestimating the wrath of the soccer purist by choosing a baseball guy. O'Brien never got a fair hearing. Hell hath no fury like a footy supporter taken for granted.

But the numbers say plenty of people have tuned in. This ratifies rule No. 1 of television: No one watches (or doesn't watch) for the commentary. Here's rule No. 2: The quality of the game affects the quality of the commentary. O'Brien was excellent during the pulsating Germany-Italy match, which was decided in the dying seconds of overtime with a pair of dramatic goals. As the game got tense, he augmented the scene with context about the Italian match-fixing scandal. Otherwise, he let the match play out. On the other hand, O'Brien made a lot of enemies trying to flesh out the drab England-Paraguay match during the tournament's opening weekend. That's what you get for trying to keep people entertained.

Perhaps more telling is the fact that the guy doing the games for the Beeb is receiving attacks even nastier than the ones dished out by the elitist pricks in this country.

Best take on Lieberman v. Lamont:

Gee, kids, let's not play in front of old Joe Lieberman's house any more. Gosh, what an old grouch.

The Connecticut senatorial debate featured one guy who seemed to still be wearing the shrink-wrap and an 18-year incumbent doing a one-man impersonation of The Old Radley Place. Was politics ever fun for Joe Lieberman? If he's winning, he's burdened ever so by High Moral Purpose. If he's in trouble, which he is right now, he's beset on all sides by ingrates and mountebanks. It must be difficult to remain biblical if you cast yourself as Job AND Jehovah. And while Ned Lamont's most fervent acolytes occasionally seem to be writing for Tiger Beat, last night he was cool and precise and extremely disciplined. I don't know what kind of senator he'd make, but I wouldn't go into a business deal against him without body armor.

--Charles Pierce, in Tapped.

It seems Jerome Armstrong has a new client....

Little Green Firedog: I don't know Ann Althouse from Adam's off ox, but I'm not sure you're going to win many fans on the left by portraying Barbara Boxer as a baboon.

Why people should not drink, blog, and comment on the World Cup at the same time, from the Corner:

Makes You Wonder [Michael Ledeen]:

In today's "reportage" of the World Cup semifinal between Italy and Germany, the (lefty) Washington Post reported that the game-winning goal was scored on a left-footed kick, while the (righty) Washington Times reported it was scored on a right-footed kick. The Post account was correct, but don't you find it mysteriously symbolic of something or other?

Emphasis mine. Remember, he's not retarded, he's differently abled.

Since even Thomas Lipscomb has backed away from his assertion that he was "nominated" for a Pulitzer Prize, you would think that the wingers who backed him originally would feel chastened, or at least somewhat reticent about returning to the issue. But, lo and behold, there are some who continue to justify the original mendacity, by arguing that, well, everyone lies about being nominated for the Pulitzer. Tom Maguire brings up a USA Today journalist who claims three prior nominations, while Mark Hyman of Sinclair Broadcasting fame opines

Pulitzer receives 1400-1500 nominations in fourteen journalism categories each year. The organization lists on its website 2-3 names for each category of which one is designated the "winner" and the others are called "nominated finalists." Tom Lipscomb was nominated in the 2005 "Investigative Reporting" category by the New York Sun for his work exposing fabrications by John Kerry during the 2004 campaign. Lipscomb didn't finish among the top three. The Pulitzer staff told The Point they prefer the term "entrant" rather than "nominee" for anyone not selected among the top three. But they acknowledge it is common practice for newspapers to refer to everyone entered as having been nominated.

The last sentence is particularly disingenous, since what is "common practice" is for journalists who worked on articles for which the newspaper received a nomination (such as the USA Today reporter referenced by Maguire) to claim that they were "nominated". Technically, that isn't a true nomination either, but it's a far sight more factual than claiming that the thousands who send in entry forms are "Pulitzer nominees". As Ted Remington notes, by that standard Lipscomb could claim with equal validity to have been nominated to be Miss Universe.

France 1, Portugal 0: Taking advantage of a very generous call on a trip inside the penalty area (from the same ref who called the U.S.-Italy game, btw), Zinedine Zidane once again put off his retirement party for another day, converting in the 33rd minute to lift Les Bleus to the Final. Portugal appeared to be the better team, controlling the ball for long periods in the second half, but had no one who could put the ball in the back of the net; the low point came when Figo missed a point-blank header less than ten feet from the goal in the final twelve minutes, after Fabien Barthez made one of his patented bobbles off a Christiano Ronaldo free kick.

Ronaldo was jeered at the entire game, no doubt due to the combination of the events Saturday, when he was front-and-center in the maneuvering that got Wayne Rooney sent off, but mostly because he wears that handsome, smug, shit-eating Tom Cruise grin. Nevertheless, he played exceptionally, giving his side numerous opportunities to score, but it appears that Man U may be about to perform a Perugia, and tell him to hit the road. A defense of Ronaldo is made here, in the middle of a column that is a hardy perennial in English sportswriting, the blanket attack on anything and everything that has to do with the Three Lions. It has all the classic essentials of such a piece: the personal attack on the coach, his assistants, and his team selection; the character blasts on the star players (Beckham, Rooney and Lampard); the indefensible notion that reaching the quarterfinals is tantamount to a national disaster; and, my favorite, the extolling of the Magical 1966 champions. Brian Glanville has written the same banal piece after every international tournament since 1970.

There's a kernel of truth to these attacks. England may have made the quarterfinals this time, but they never looked very impressive, and for the coach to select a teenage player who had never started in the bigs, at a position for which his squad was thin, in favor of other, more experienced players, then never seeing fit to use him during the tournament, deserves all the ridicule one can muster. But the notion that all England needs is a good coach to start dominating the World Cup is, frankly, nuts. Of the other major soccer powers, it draws from the smallest population base, thanks to the archaic division that allows Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to field different teams. England did win one World Cup, in 1966, because a) it hosted the tournament; b) Pele was injured; and c) the English got a terrible call in the Final that gave them an undeserved goal. The U.S. will win a World Cup before England wins its second.

And, of course, culturally, the present age is not a particularly rich time in English history. Its film industry is decrepit, churning out costume dramas and little else. Kylie Minogue is considered a major pop star. A culture that continuously spits out and relentlessly hypes the Spice Girls, Oasis, Guy Ritchie, Kate Moss, Coldplay, Robbie Williams and Kate Beckinsale, that elects and reelects the likes of Tony Blair, and that considers Christopher Hitchens, Julie Burchill, Tina Brown and Mark Steyn to be "public intellectuals", can't help but ensure that its athletic heroes are going to be drawn from the same low hanging fruit.

Italy 2, Germany 0 [O.T.]: A great finish. The Azzurri maintained their unbeaten record against Germany in World Cup play, scoring two goals in the final two minutes of play after putting a relentless onslaught at the German goal in extra time. Having been eliminated the last four World Cups in extra time or penalty kicks, the Italians finally got the breaks. Grosso, a defender, hit a perfect curl in the 118th minute after a corner kick, which the Italians had performed poorly the whole game, then sub Del Pierro converted on a breakaway in the waning seconds of action.

Some belated perspective on the American position in world soccer: on Sunday, a team will be playing in the World Cup final that failed to beat the U.S. in the same tournament, in spite of playing with a man-advantage for half that game.

If I were a Democrat in Connecticut, I'd vote for Ned Lamont. Having said that, Lieberman has every right in the world to run for his party's nomination, and, losing that, preserve the option of running as an independent in November. If its "democracy" to challenge a sitting incumbent within a primary, there should be no objections to that same incumbent trying to win by appealing to voters outside the party. Elections are won by getting more votes than the other guys, not having the election handed to you in a one-party state because you win your primary. If Lieberman believes he would win a plurality of votes by running as an independent, bully for him.

I just don't want to hear about any sitting Democratic Senator (that means you, Charles Schumer) knifing Lamont in the back if he wins.

Smythe Gets Results: Remember the Pulitzer "nomination" boasted by Swift Boat backer Thomas Lipscomb, whose columns on the subject were touted as the most persuasive on the subject by numerous right wing bloggers. Well, the Pulitzer claim has now been scrubbed from his bio, which now reads that "his work was entered for the Pulitzer for investigative reporting in 2005." In other words, someone (maybe himself) filled out an entry form on his behalf.... [link via Daily Kos]

France 1, Brazil 0: Les Bleus own Brazil. For the third time since 1986, France eliminated Brazil, with Thierry Henry's goal in the 57th minute proving decisive. The collapse of the defending champions, who were dominated in a manner not heretofore seen at this level, was utterly inexplicable. Another superb game by Zinedine Zidane, whose perfectly placed free kick found Henry wide open at the mouth of the Brazilian goal; amazingly, it was the first time in the 55 matches they had played together that Zidane had ever assisted on an Henry goal. Coming less than a week after conservative politician Jean Marie Le Pen had attacked the team for not reflecting the French people, a team whose starting line-up consists of seven black players, including Saturday's goal scorer, and is led by the child of Algerian immigrants can feel especially vindicated.

It sets up an all-Europe semifinal, with Axis powers Italy and Germany meeting on the 4th of July, while their wartime lackeys face off the following day. Brazil remains the only non-European team to take the Cup on European soil, while no European team has ever won the Cup outside the continent.

Portugal 0, England 0 [P.K.-Port 3-1]: Damn penalty kicks. In a game which England dominated, in spite of playing a man down for the final 58 minutes, the lack of an assured goalscorer proved decisive. Portugal, the only nation still left that has never won a World Cup, advances to their first semifinal in forty years, and assures that this year's winner will be a country that was at one time ruled by a fascist government. A devastating loss for the English; this was by far their best game of the tournament, and the red card given to Wayne Rooney is further evidence that the world's dumbest soccer players play for the Three Lions.

Great Moments in Crackerdom: Overheard by a spectator at the annual Dems v. GOP Congressional Baseball Game:

Two rows behind me is Congressman Bilbray. A lot of people walked by and said congratulations and all that, and these two guys stop and say it and that they were out in San Diego for election day helping him. And Bilbray says ‘you guys were great out there, that’s an election day you can tell your grandkids about, let’s just hope you don’t have to tell them in Spanish!”

[Link via Wonkette]

Italy 3, Ukraine 0: To no one's surprise, the Azzurri are through. Gianluca Zambrotta's goal in the sixth minute was all Italy needed, and Luca Toni ensured the Ukrainians would sleep with the fishes by scoring two easy tap-ins in the second half. Ukraine came close several times, hitting the cross bar twice, but failed to score on Gianlugi Buffon, who has yet to allow a shot past him in the World Cup.* The only blemish on Italy, as they head to the semifinals on July 4 against Germany, is the 1-1 draw with the U.S.

*The only goal he conceded was an own goal.

Germany 1, Argentina 1 [P.K.- Ger., 4-2]: Klose Kall. Trailing by a goal with less than ten minutes to play, Germany equalized via the head of Miroslav Klose, then prevailed on penalty kicks over an exhausted Argentinean team playing its second extra time in less than a week. It was everything predicted, at least for the first ninety minutes, as both sides through everything they had at the other, Argentina grabbing a lead just after the start of the second half, only to lose their momentum when goalkeeper Roberto Abbodanzieri had to be replaced following a collision with Michael Ballack. The tense action during regulation gave way to a tentative overtime, with both sides, previously unbeaten in penalty kicks, seemingly content to run out the clock. Then Jens Lehmann, whose controversial selection as starter over legend Oliver Kahn threatened to drive Jurgen Klinsmann of the country out on a rail, came up big, stopping goalscorer Roberto Ayala to clinch a place in the semis.

Todd Zywicki, who normally writes apologias for last year's awful Bankruptcy Reform Act, has a rather thoughtful piece on the World Cup, and its sudden emergence as a major event on the American sports calendar:

The way to think of sports, I think, is like fashion (I'm sure this isn't original to me). The rising and falling interest in sports over time is just a matter of changing tastes, rather than one sport or another being better or worse than another. Having just read Jeremy Schapp's "Cinderella Man" I was stunned to learn how popular boxing was in the 1930s compared to all other sports. Babe Ruth's scandalously large contracts during that era were a small fraction of the amount that Jack Dempsey would pull down for one fight. Today, boxing is a borderline fringe sport. Ditto for horse racing. The Olympics may or may not be in a permanent death spiral--I suspect that it is too early to tell. Hockey has gone from one of the country's "four major sports" to essentially the same level as Major League Soccer, and I think the NHL strike just expedited a trend that was already underway. It is now standard to refer to the "three major sports" in the U.S. Casual sports fans used to be expected and able to watch and politely talk about the Stanley Cup playoffs; today that is no longer the case.

So, the World Cup is becoming more popular because, well, it is becoming more popular. For whatever reason, one can speculate. But I'm guessing it has little to do with the intrinsic merits of soccer and more to do with the fact that it is becoming part of the lexicon of the casual sports fan, perhaps because it is fun to be wrapped up in an event of such global proportions. But, for instance, I don't expect much crossover from the World Cup's popularity to MLS. In the sense I am thinking of it, MLS is essentially a different sport from the World Cup because it is wrapped in a different social network, not because it is somehow a different sport.

Zywicki's observation about the malleable trendiness of certain sports is well worth noting. When I first started following sports some thirty years ago, the sports landscape we know of today was much different than it was then. Baseball was inarguably the national pastime, with pro football battling with college football for second. The NBA was a distant third, with half-filled arenas and title games broadcast at 11:30 p.m., and college basketball a sideshow, with attention paid only when the "UCLA Invitational" reached the finals. Pro hockey had no Sun Belt presence worth noting, and soccer barely existed. And every four years, everyone watched the Olympics, and unless you were willing to plunk down cash to see closed circuit broadcasts of the event, no one saw the World Cup.

With individual sports, the landscape was even more different. When one spoke of tennis, it was almost exclusively of the men's game, and it was considered a major sport, light years ahead of golf in terms of popularity. Women's tennis was considered a novelty; some interest would be paid if Billie Jean King was in the finals, but beyond that, nothing. Not only would Muhammed Ali routinely defend his title on live prime time network TV, so too would fighters in lower weight classifications, like Carlos Monzon and Roberto Duran. Track and field was also a major sport in the U.S.; the annual dual meet between the US and Soviet Union was one of the big events of the late summer. The Indy 500 was much, much bigger than the Daytona 500; NASCAR was considered minor league, and A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti routinely dominated that circuit when they deigned to race in it. The Triple Crown in horse racing was huge; you weren't a sports fan if you could not name the previous year's winners. And obviously, thirty years ago there was no cable sports TV to speak of; a fan pretty much got to see his local teams, the Game of the Week, and little else.

None of the changes over the last thirty years occurred overnight. In the U.S., cable television has pretty much obliterated the sports world we knew of back in 1975. It not only fueled the explosive growth of sports like football (both pro and college), where the public appetite can now be sated by wall-to-wall broadcasts of games over fall weekends, but it has also enabled other sports, like soccer and hockey, to survive even with a fraction of the public interest. It has created public interest in activities (X-Games, poker, hot dog eating, spelling bees) that weren't even imaginable as spectator sports thirty years ago, and given female athletes celebrity that exceed that of men in the same sport (as with tennis or U.S. soccer), at the same time that few people know who the heavyweight champion(s) is, or can name another male tennis player besides Roger Federer.

The changes fueled by cable television are what makes a broadcast of the World Cup possible in the U.S. Otherwise, it would be impossible to justify televising all sixty-four games of a tournament for a sport few English-speaking people in the country follow. With so many channels available, each of them appealing to a separate niche, televising Serbia v. Ivory Coast or Angola v. Iran becomes viable; American soccer viewers are now plentiful enough to sustain the needs of advertisers, so that even the lowest-rated games in the World Cup are higher than what would typically be shown by ESPN at that time.

It is perhaps a sign of the times that today's Supreme Court decision invalidating the President's "innovative" interpretation of due process would be seen as surprising, rather than just a routine assertion of what a fair trial is supposed to look like.

Halfway through my forty-eight hour decompression, I present you some...fun with numbers !!

The long-awaited decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on the Tom Delay gerrymander is out, and it's a split decision (literally: it was 5-4, with something like six different opinions). A couple of the districts will have to be redrawn on Voting Rights Act grounds, which may help the Democrats pick up a seat, but the principal of mid-term reapportionment was sustained by the Court. This could be super good news for the Democrats over the long run, since legislative districts can now be redrawn everytime the party captures the governorship and state legislature in a state. Rather than waiting until the next census, the party can rely on any big year at the ballot box to make changes (ie., Ohio in 2006, anyone?).

UPDATE: A more pessimistic view of the decision is here. Certainly, in states where Democrats now have control of the state government, like Illinois, creating even more Democratic districts will be tough, because of the Voting Rights Act. While that constrains the party from encouraging immediate reapportionment, the key will be how well Democrats do in statewide races in Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio, where the Republicans have a decided partisan edge in House membership even though the states are split down the middle between the parties. Should the Democrats capture the governorship and the legislature in just one of those states, since today's ruling gives a stamp of approval for the redrawing of districts as early as next year, it would wipe out much of the current GOP edge in the House.

So much for a powerful wave of xenophobia carrying the GOP to victory in November. Utah Republican Congressman Chris Cannon, who was targeted by anti-immigrant groups for his moderate stance on the issue, won an easy primary victory tonight over a challenger who ran a single-issue campaign based on anti-immigration. If there was any deep-seated obsession among the conservative base (Utah, anyone?) on this issue, it would have shown up here.

France 3, Spain 1: Two late goals from '98 vets Vieira and Zidane enabled Les Bleus to maintain its perfect all-time record against Spain, and advanced to a quarterfinal rematch with Brazil. The Spanish, on the other hand, maintained its perfect streak of never having failed to disappoint in the World Cup.

Part of the story of this evening's game will be how France has managed to drift aimlessly through the first round, barely doing enough to qualify with a 1-0-2 record, only to "suddenly" catch fire and surprise the Spanish, who had looked so impressive in the first two weeks. It's always a story when that happens, even though it seems to happen every World Cup.

For instance, in 1970, Italy finished the first round with a 1-0-2 record, managing only one goal, and failing to score against both Uruguay and Israel, but still qualified for the quarterfinal. They went on to lose in the Final to Brazil. In 1978, Holland went 1-1-1 in the first round, including an embarassing loss to Scotland, and qualified for the second round only on goal differential. Again, they caught fire, and took Argentina to overtime in the Finals before losing. In 1982, Italy went 0-0-3 in the opening round, and again got out of the group on goal differential. They ended up winning it all, beating West Germany, a team that lost its opener and also only making it out on goal differential.

And so it goes. The West Germans again had to struggle in 1986, losing to Denmark, tying Uruguay, and rallying to beat Scotland in the first round. Even after they squeaked out of their group, they didn't get hot right away. They beat Morocco, 1-0, on a goal in the final three minutes, then knocked out Mexico on penalty kicks (after a scoreless game) to go to the semis, where France completely dominated them from start to finish. However, the Germans scored a fluke goal early, then snatched the clincher when the French sent everyone forward at the end, thereby earning the right to lose to Argentina in the Finals.

Four years later, it was Argentina's turn to live dangerously. After losing to Cameroon in the Cup opener, they needed a late goal to tie Romania and advance to the second round, where Brazil slapped them all over the field for 81 minutes, only to score on their only opportunity of the day, and win 1-0. As with the West Germans four years earlier, the quarterfinal featured a scoreless tie, this time against Yugoslavia, which was then followed by a 1-1 tie against Italy in the semis. In both instances, the gods smiled on them in the penalty kick phase, and the RG's suddenly found themselves in the Finals. And in 1994, Italy started off 1-1-1 in its first round games, again advancing only on goal differential. They never looked that impressive en route to the Finals, scoring two goals late to beat Nigeria, beating Spain 2-1 in the quarters, then getting some questionable non-calls against Bulgaria in the semis to win, 2-1.

In 1998 and 2002, each of the Finalists breezed through the first round, so it's not like the Finals have to include at least one team that started slowly (although France in '98 and Germany in 02' did not set the world ablazin' in the games leading into the Finals). But how well you play in the opening round is not a reliable barometer on who goes all the way, and fans of France and England should be advised that other squads have played even more poorly than theirs, yet have still been able to play for the gold trophy at the end.

Brazil 3, Ghana 0: Ronaldo completely pulled the pants off Ghanaian goalkeeper Richard Kingson in the fifth minute, juking and jiving before drilling a shot into the back of the net for his record-breaking 15th career World Cup goal, as Brazil beat a game African squad to advance to next Saturday's quarterfinal. Both this article and the ESPN broadcast noted how the Black Stars played the more attractive soccer, and "dominated" the action, which, quite frankly, is bullshit. Brazil scored right off the bat, played prevent defense and allowed Ghana only a couple of good scoring chances, and hit back when they needed to. Ghana kicked the ball around more, and to use the euphemism favored by soccer geeks, played "creatively" (ie., they looked good when ineffectually firing the ball at the goal), but the game was never in doubt. The score could have easily been 7-0; only the brilliant play of Kingson kept the game respectable. Ronaldinho still hasn't scored, btw.

A great inventor dies.

A level-headed, non-elitist critique of the O'Brien-Balboa announcing team, as well as why many of us who understand little espanol still prefer watching the Univision broadcasts, in the NYT World Cup blog. And to follow up on last week's post on the killer ratings the Cup is getting, here's a story from the heart of Red American, Atlanta, where the U.S.-Italy game last Saturday outdrew all three games of the Braves-Red Sox series, the U.S. Open, and that week's NASCAR event.

I suppose the two questions people have of over the new Mrs. Urban's nuptials last night are 1) how come it was in a Roman Catholic church, if her previous marriage wasn't annulled; and 2) why was she wearing white? Well, for an answer to the first question, at least, go here...Andrew Sullivan has more.

Ukraine 0, Switzerland 0 [P.K.-Ukr., 3-0]: The Swiss accomplished two dubious firsts, one ignomonious, one bittersweet, in the process of being eliminated by Ukraine. After both teams failed to score in ninety tedious minutes of regulation and thirty undramatic minutes of overtime, Switzerland failed to make a single penalty kick, the first time that had ever happened in a World Cup. Moreover, after shutting out their opponents for the fourth straight game, they became the first team to ever go an entire World Cup without surrendering a single goal. The Ukraine now take on Italy this Friday in the quarterfinals.

Italy 1, Australia 0: An absolute heartbreaker for the Socceroos. Francesco Totti converted a penalty kick on the final play of the game to lead the Azzurri to a spot in the quarterfinals. Australia had a man advantage almost the entire second half, and seemed prepared to take the edge into the thirty-minute overtime, when disaster struck.

Portugal 1, Holland 0: In the ugliest game of the tournament to date, Portugal used a goal halfway through the first half by Maniche to edge the Oranje (who, incidentally, were wearing their away gear, which inexplicably has no orange in it. What gives?), as the first of the World Cup co-favorites gets bounced. Nine of the fourteen Portuguese players who saw action got carded, opposed to seven of the Dutch players, and some of the record-tying sixteen yellow cards were even deserved. Both sides finished with nine men. Kudos to referee Valentin Ivanov, for reminding soccer fans that at the end of the day, it's really the refs that are the story, not the players. Portugal next plays England, but will be without playmaker Deco, who received a red card for, believe it or not, delaying the game, and, in all likelihood, Man U. star Cristiano Ronaldo, who was badly injured in the first half.

Steve Gilliard, whose "e-mails" figure prominently in the New Republic's fatwa against Kos, responds here. It's an eloquent and measured post, indicating that on a very key point in Jason Zengerle's argument, something may have been falsely atributed to Gilliard, and at the very least, TNR owes the man an apology (least of all for quoting private e-mail), and the rest of us an explanation.

[UPDATE: Zengerle has now, kinda sorta, apologized, admitting that the Gilliard e-mail was bogus, but then claiming that "this error is of a relatively minor nature," which unfortunately will allow "others to try to use this minor error to distract people from much larger issues" (including, swear to Kobe, whether Kos' buddy Jerome Armstrong was once a believer in astrology), and refusing to out the source who gave him this Fake-But-Accurate memo.]

The New York Times has a good summary of the collapse of immigration reform in Congress. Although most of the article focuses on the problems Bush has had with House Republicans, it really underlines how the Democrats have hit the Trifecta. Not passing any bill shows that Bush and the Republicans can't get anything done, depressing turnout among the base in much the same way that the failure to pass a health care bill doomed the Democrats in 1994. Second, taking an extreme anti-immigrant position turns off swing voters who are less passionate about the issue, and are amenable to a compromise that doesn't vilify immigrants. And lastly, it dooms efforts by the GOP among Latino voters, who stand to be much more important, over the long haul, than any latent conservative appeals to xenophobia, as the California Republican Party can attest. The Republicans may be on the verge of creating a Democratic base in the Southwest, and more significantly, making Texas a two-party state again, that may rival the solidly Blue Northeast come election time.

England 1, Ecuador 0: David Beckham provided all the offense England needed with a patented swerving free kick in the 60th minute, then threw up moments later due to dehydration caused by the extreme humidity in Stuttgart. England almost never loses games like this in the World Cup, and they did just enough to win today. None of the athleticism Ecuador showed in their first two games was evident here. In spite of the fact that Beckham has never really come up big in the World Cup, he is now the only English player in history to score in three different Cups. All in all, a morning yawner.

Argentina 2, Mexico 1 [O.T.]: Unbelievable game. Maxi Rodriguez hit the goal of the tournament nine minutes into overtime, as the the popular favorites took everything the Tricolores had for 120 minutes. Both teams swapped goals in the first nine minutes, then exchanged body shots the rest of the way before Rodriguez hit his gamewinner. Those who have attached Team U.S.A. as "overrated" should note that Mexico is a team we routinely beat. Next up is an epic quarterfinal between Argentina and Germany, a rematch of the 1986 and 1990 World Cups.

The local paper had an op-ed piece yesterday by a local talkradio blowhard, who discovered the startling numbers Univision has been getting for its World Cup coverage and posited the notion that the Reconquista has occurred. Imagine, more people are watching Spanish language coverage on Univision than on ABC (a phenomenum that has been true in L.A. for the 25 years that the games have been broadcast). More people are tuning into Mexico's games than the U.S.' (bfd, most soccer fans in SoCal aren't American citizens, they're immigrants; why should they root for the U.S.?). Being a sports fan means developing a loyalty to a team, a loyalty that doesn't get abandoned simply because you move away. If a Mexican immigrant were to immediately abandon El Tris and start rooting for the U.S., that would be stark evidence he's untrustworthy and not fit to be a U.S. citizen, and he should be deported immediately. Who wants someone in our country whose loyalty is so pliable?

Germany 2, Sweden 0: Lukas Podolski scored twice in the first twelve minutes, and Germany dominated an undermanned and outclassed Swedish team the rest of the way to earn a quarterfinal berth, probably against Argentina on Friday. Germany's performance through four games has been a vindication over the controversial, "American" tactics of manager Jurgen Klinsmann, who now finds himself the frontrunner to assume the same position with the U.S. Klinsmann lives in Orange County, and would no doubt find the move less taxing.

One of the more popular postings on World Cup-related blogs has been an attack on the lead announcing team for ESPN-ABC's broadcast, Dave O'Brien and Marcelo Balboa. Boycotts of the English language broadcasts have been proposed, an online petition has been started, demands that the Disney corp apologize for this massive affront to American soccer fans: a veritable clusterfuck of indignation. For most of the people watching, it's hard to see what the outrage is about. The broadcast sounds like a typical American sporting broadcast, not unlike what you would hear if the sport was basketball or baseball, the sport O'Brien hails from.

The real reason for the outrage is simple. Native-born American soccer fans are elitist pricks. Soccer is the only sport that is regularly attacked in the sports section, so we have to had to develop a pretty thick skin over the years. We have had to go out of our way to get our soccer fix, hitting pubs at 5 in the morning to watch Premier League games, picking up rudimentary Spanish to follow the broadcasts on Univision. As a result, we have come to see ourselves as a Band Apart: we're not the ones with the problem, it's the ordinary American sport fan, who despises soccer as an element from a foreign culture, that misses the point. When the World Cup comes around every four years, the sport picks up more than a few casual fans, fans who aren't in the slightest bit interested in the Bundesliga or the lastest fixing scandal in Serie A, but who are intrigued by the international flavor and intensity of the event, and those fans easily outnumber the native-born fanatics.

So it's not like Dave O'Brien is doing an inept job announcing the games.* Any American announcer would be getting blasted; every American who has attempted to announce World Cup games in the past, from Jim McKay to Mario Machado to Charley Jones to J.P. Dellacamera, has been blasted by the American Soccer Fan. It's part of the snob appeal of the sport, not unlike how the connoisseur of the music felt when Ken Burns did his documentary on the history of jazz; if an American is doing the game, and he's bringing techniques learned and crafted from announcing other American sports, he's going to get roasted. It says less about the quality of O'Brien's work and more about the chip on the shoulder that the native born fan has towards American culture

*One of the attacks, I swear to God, is that one of the announcers allegedly called the English goalkeeper Paul Robinson, "Paul Robbins", a syllable that probably gets dropped a hundred times during the Premier League season by announcers trying to think on their feet in the middle of a game.

A good thumbnail guide to the various teams that made it to the Round of 16, starting tomorrow.

Switzerland 2, South Korea 0: The last Asian team (and the side with the loudest fans) gets sent home early. The Swiss scored once in each half, and used a rock-solid defense to crush everything the Koreans threw at them, to get the win and the group title. Next up: Ukraine.

Incidentally, Sunday's telecast on ABC featured a look-in at fans of the Korean team at a packed Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. Many of those fans chanted and sang in Korean, and waved Korean flags in celebration after their team scored late to tie France. And yet, none of the Minutemen xenophone-types were complaining about such blatant disregard for the feelings of true Americans....

Pity Party: Atrios tries to get a grip on why everyone doesn't love him and the other Kewl Kidz:

There are a variety of reasons people seem to like to get their hate on at us, especially Markos, and I'll try to spell them out as I understand them without bothering to argue with them.

1) A-list bloggers have shitty blogs that no one should read but people just read them because they've been around for so long.

2) A-list bloggers are supporting the wrong candidates/causes. They are doing X, but they should be doing Y.

3) A-list bloggers suck up all the attention from better bloggers who everyone should be reading.

4) A-list bloggers end up representing the "netroots" but they shouldn't.

5) A-list bloggers aren't generous enough with their links and should be providing more publicity for other bloggers.

6) A-list bloggers are stupid and they're ugly and nobody likes them.

Of those, I'd say 2, 3 and 4 are simply the nature of the beast; you support candidate or cause A, and supporters of candidate or cause B will get upset. Kos, especially, is feeling the heat for that right now. 1 is definitely not true, since many of the uber-blogs on the left are relatively new (like FDL and C&L, both of which came after 2004), and Kevin Drum has been around awhile without resting on the laurels earned back in 2001-2.

5 and 6, though, are definitely true, and is one area where the Right has us beat. The most frustrating thing for any blogger starting out is to get attention, but conservative bloggers have the good fortune that people like Glenn Reynolds, Mickey Kaus and Hugh Hewitt are very generous with their links (perhaps too generous; it would have nice if someone had bothered to perform due diligence before linking to Thomas Lipscomb several weeks ago), sending traffic to many different sites every week, and nurturing allies for the future. These guys get lots of e-mails, requesting or demanding that they link to one thing or another, and lord knows that must be terribly annoying, but they still manage to spread some of that wealth around.

And if you've sent such an e-mail in the past, of course, there's nothing like receiving a rude response, or having an "A-list Blogger" (cute terminology, btw, straight from the Social Register) cite something of yours without giving you credit, to ensure an enemy for life. It shouldn't be any surprise that the lack of civility, of common decency, towards one's adversaries that has become so endemic in the blogosphere, should also reflect an unpleasant personality by the blogger. As Richard Nixon might attest, and as George Bush has discovered the past eighteen months, if you've kicked a lot of people on the way up, your inevitable fall is going to be pretty ugly. Your enemies will do what it takes to get even, and you'll find out that you made fewer friends than you thought.

France 2, Togo 0: It was scary for a half, but Les Bleus exploded for two goals in the second half to assure their place next week. Hats off to the Togolese, who made up for their unseemly complaints about bonuses and the like with three solid, albeit losing, efforts on the field. The star of last Saturday's Battle of Kaiserslautern, Jorge Larriando, officiated, but did not red card anyone. The French will take on Spain Tuesday in perhaps the most evenly matched of the second round games.

Ukraine 1, Tunisia 0: Andriy Shevchenko's penalty kick in the 70th minute sealed the game for the nation making its first appearance ever in a World Cup game, in what may have been the most tedious, dreadful 90 minutes so far. After having been exposed to this, I might have problems fathering children. The Carthage Eagles controlled the match, but had a man sent off just before the halftime on the worst call of the tournament.

This group was easily the worst of the tournament; the Ivory Coast, Czech Republic, U.S.A., Poland, Serbia, and possibly even Paraguay would have all qualified ahead of Ukraine had they been placed in this group, and the Ivory Coast would have undoubtedly won the group. FIFA definitely needs to do a better job seeding next time.

You'd thing after all the "terrorist cell" stories that have turned out to be bogus, the media would prove to be a little more skeptical this time, but I guess that's asking for a lot. Where the lead investigator is admitting that the "plot" was more "aspirational than operational", and its leader is someone who goes by the name "Prince Manna" and "Brother Naz", that's a pretty good indication we're not talking about an imminent threat.

Spain 1, Saudi Arabia 0: Having already clinched a spot in the next round, Spain took their collective foot off the pedal and played their reserve team, and still dominated a weak Arabian team. All eleven starters from the opener against Ukraine were benched, and seven players saw their first Cup action. There are too many teams like the Saudis in the World Cup, teams with no hope of advancing. The big difference between the NCAA Tournament and the World Cup is that the Field of 64 gets winnowed down immediately; SUNY-Albany, Alabama State, and Oral Roberts play their games, get beat and go home, while the Saudis, the Togolese and the Costa Ricans stick around for two weeks, their hopes dashed right off the bat, but still having to put out a team to sacrifice to the soccer gods.

Croatia 2, Australia 2: In perhaps the most exciting first round game so far, the Socceroos rallied twice, scoring the tying goal with less than twelve minutes to play, then hung on in the teeth of a desperate Croatian attack, to clinch a berth in the next round. Croatia is eliminated in the first round for the second straight World Cup, while Australia, which had never scored a goal in its previous history in the tournament, gets set to take on Italy. The game-tying goal was scored by Harry Kewell, who had only narrowly averted a suspension prior to the game for blasting the officials in the aftermath of their loss last Sunday to Brazil.

Kosonoia: Pro, con and con. The posting of private e-mail would normally shock the conscience, if it were a person-to-person communication, and not being sent out over a mass listing. If you're going to send a message that you want to keep private, it's best you not send it out to a hundred people. That being said, this Greg Sargent piece effectively demolishes the argument that because some liberal bloggers had expressed concern over the issue, it somehow means Kos is silencing dissent.

What I don't understand is why there was such fine concern in the first place. An allegation that one prominent blogger is currently being investigated for securities violations, while another gives props to candidates who employ his buddy, is plenty serious. The old, "I can't talk about it right now, it's still being investigated" excuse, while it may justify the silence of the defendant, isn't an excuse for me, or anyone else, to keep quiet about the matter. We're supposed to be speaking truth to power, after all, and a similar pattern of conduct wasn't acceptable when it was Karl Rove being investigated.

And hoping the story will die out if we don't respond is, frankly, pathetic. I only hope the words "Let's starve it of oxygen" don't become the blogosphere's version of "give 'em an hors d'oeurve, and maybe they won't come back for the main course."

Brazil 4, Japan 1: The Fat Man Lives. The favorites shook off the effects of a stunning first half goal by Japan, then methodically took apart their opponents with three second half goals to clinch the group, and a second round match-up with Ghana. Ronaldo, who has been all but compared with Mo Vaughn and Vlad Guerrero in the bulk department, scored two goals, the first just before halftime to tie the score, and the second with eight minutes to play to assure the win, and thereby move into a tie with West German legend Gerd Muller for the most goals in World Cup play with 14. This was the team that everyone has been waiting to show up.

Italy 2, Czech R. 0: See, I told ya:

Italy has very little incentive to win tomorrow, and neither, for that matter, does the Czech Republic. The optimum result for both teams would be a tie, since both could advance. In fact, Italy would definitely advance, and the Czechs would in almost every other scenario; only a Ghana victory would knock them out. Similarly, a 1-0 loss to the Czechs would also likely assure both teams of advancing in almost every scenario. The U.S. would either have to blow out Ghana, or Ghana would have to win; a tie or close U.S. win sends both forward. Both teams can watch the scoreboard, and if Ghana strikes first, they can react accordingly, but if it appears that our game is a taut, close affair, there's no incentive to open things up.

And, as I predicted last night, once Ghana scored in its game, in the 22nd minute, it was only a matter of time before Italy would break loose, scoring five minutes later...ah, forget about it. I can't rationalize this away. I was wrong. Big time. Smythe sucks.

The best part of the game was actually the first fifteen minutes, with both teams applying intense pressure, and contrary to my prediction, both teams came out firing. The Azzurri played today they way a World Cup contender plays, and they could easily won by a more lopsided score. The Czechs looked old...a much bigger disappointment than the Americans, since they were supposed to go far in this tourney, and their dominant performance in the opener was supposed to be The Tell. Instead, it just showed how overrated they were.

W.A.T.B.: Kos' response to the TNR allegations is up, and frankly, it's pretty lame: a demand that his readers discontinue their subscription to the New Republic. If you want a more substantive defense as to one of the more serious charges, that Kos uses the Advertising Liberally network to silence critics on the left, check out here, here, and here, while TNR responds here. Kos' claim that his private e-mail urging other uber-bloggers to stonewall the specific allegations against him and his chum, Jerome Armstrong, was "off the record", while true, just doesn't cut it; after all, so was Nixon's efforts to cover up Watergate. We're still left with dangling charges that Kos and Armstrong have been shilling for politicians in a manner not unlike the way Armstrong was shilling penny stocks a few years back and getting slapped by the SEC, particularly concerning their egregious conduct in the Ohio Senate race last year. Any lefty blogger who turns a blind eye to that deserves all the scorn he receives.

Ghana 2, U.S.A. 1: We wuz robbed, maybe. An atrocious call at the end of the first half gave Ghana a penalty kick, which former Juventus star Stephen Appiah converted. The goal allowed the Black Stars to play D in the second half, and in spite of coming close a number of times, it wasn't to be. Clint Dempsey scored the only goal for the U.S. in the 42nd minute off a perfect pass from DeMarcus Beasley, but the subpar effort of playmaker Claudio Reyna proved devastating.

In the aftermath of the game, the ESPN crew really took off after Bruce Arena, another sign that it's a bad idea to have former national team players doing the commentary. Ghana was favored going into the game, and could have advanced with a draw. Thus, they played more cautiously than they did against the Czechs, and took advantage of a Reyna blunder and a blown call by the ref for their goals. Any tactical decisions that a coach might make are going to get mooted when the refs are calling phantom fouls in the penalty area. As for the rest, Ghana has a great team, and the big reason the U.S. couldn't work its game plan was that Ghana wouldn't let them. It was a tough group, and two good teams were destined to go home early. It just so happened that one of them was the U.S.

The other complaint was that the U.S. was doomed following their 3-0 loss to the Czech Republic, which supposedly put them in a hole from the start. Putting aside the fact that the inspired effort against Italy was largely due to the weak effort in the opener, the fact is, had the U.S. tied the Czechs rather than lose, they still would have been eliminated by today's loss. Had they tied the Czechs and Ghana, they would have been eliminated. In fact, had they beaten the Czechs, 1-0, the loss today to Ghana would have sent them home on goal differential. The important game was today, as it turned out, and they didn't get the job done, but the reason for that is what Ghana did, not what the U.S. failed to do.

Adolf Coulter: In the glorious tradition of Late German Fascists. Take the quiz. It's easier than it looks, and even I got ten of thirteen !!

Why the Nash Bargaining Solution will probably mean heartache for the U.S. tomorrow: Those who have seen the Oscar-winning film A Beautiful Mind probably remember the bar scene, where John Nash and some buddies spot a gorgeous blonde and several brunettes walk into a bar. His buddies, naturally, want to go after the blonde, presuming that even if they fail, one of the attractive but not stunning brunettes (Jennifer Connelly shows up later) will be there as a consolation prize. Nash, however, realizes that the best strategem would be to ignore the blonde, and pursue the more-attainable brunettes: all of them going after the same woman, even if she is the most desirable, would only offend her friends, harming the ability for all of them to get a lil sompn' sompn', while not assuring that even the least geeky of the lot would get lucky with the blonde.

It's a little bit more complicated than that, movies generally having to focus on a core audience beyond Ivy League mathematicians, but it does explain why the U.S. has its work cut out for it tomorrow if it wants to advance to the second round of the World Cup. On paper, it's simple: the U.S. has to beat Ghana by four goals. That gets Team U.S.A. in, no matter what else happens. Since that is highly unlikely, the Americans not having scored four goals in a game for some time, and Ghana having just manhandled the same team that beat the U.S., 3-0, in the opener, the next best scenario is for the U.S. to beat Ghana, and Italy to beat the Czech Republic.

Even if the first thing happens, I think it's unlikely the second will. Italy has very little incentive to win tomorrow, and neither, for that matter, does the Czech Republic. The optimum result for both teams would be a tie, since both could advance. In fact, Italy would definitely advance, and the Czechs would in almost every other scenario; only a Ghana victory would knock them out. Similarly, a 1-0 loss to the Czechs would also likely assure both teams of advancing in almost every scenario. The U.S. would either have to blow out Ghana, or Ghana would have to win; a tie or close U.S. win sends both forward. Both teams can watch the scoreboard, and if Ghana strikes first, they can react accordingly, but if it appears that our game is a taut, close affair, there's no incentive to open things up.

There is one obvious benefit to winning the game: avoiding a second round matchup with Brazil. But Italy wins the group with a tie, unless, of course, Ghana wins. However, an Italian victory knocks out the Czechs, while a decisive Czech victory would almost certainly eliminate the Italians. A safe, defensive battle would likely help both teams, while a wide-open, offensive match would kill the loser. And if there is anything the Azzurri does really, really well, its play dull, tactical, defensive soccer. So it looks like we'll have to wait til 2010....

Holland 0, Argentina 0: With both teams already through, and numerous starters on the bench to prevent yellow cards, only pride and placement were at stake, and it showed. Very, very dull.

One of the ironies of the Miami Heat winning the NBA Title last night has to do with the role Shaq played in the victory. The big reason the Lakers traded him after the 2004 NBA Championship debacle (besides the fact that they had grown tired of him acting the role of the Whiny-ass Titty Baby) was that he could no longer co-exist with Kobe Bryant, who had supplanted him as The Man on the team. When he went to the Heat, he was seemingly the big star, competing only with a player, Dwyane Wade, who had had a big rookie season but nothing else.

In the course of two years, Wade has gone from being a prodigy to being the Greatest Player on the Planet, while Shaq has just gotten old. It is safe to say that the Heat were carried to the championship on the tired shoulders and injured knees of Wade, while O'Neal spent a good portion of the 4th quarter in the games the Heat won on the bench, with Miami too paranoid to let him perform his clown act at the free throw line unless it was absolutely necessary. He won another ring, of course, and he still is one of the top centers in the game, but he now even less The Man in Miami than he was in L.A.

Cote d'Ivoire 3, Serbia & Montenegro 2: Rallying from two goals down, the nation known to most Americans as the "Ivory Coast" won their final game of the tournament, and all but assuring that S&M will finish 32nd in the standings when all is said and done. The Elephants are easily the best of the teams eliminated so far, and when you look at the five African teams, you also see Ghana a win away from advancing, as well as Tunisia, who threw a real scare into Spain on Monday, and Angola and Togo playing down-to-the-wire in each of their games so far. And this was supposed to be an off-year for teams from the continent, after upsets in qualifying knocked out perennial powers Nigeria, South Africa and Cameroon.

Then again, we might not be blogging about it simply because we find the story to be boring...but who knew there was a super secret e-mail list among lefty uber-bloggers? I thought there was something cliquish about the upper level progressive blogs, hyping each other, while starving the oxygen from everyone else. It seems Kos, Prof. Black, et al., now have a nifty way of generating a united, lock-step response on any issue...now that's a scandal.

Iran 1, Angola 1: With the door ajar to the next round, thanks to Portugal's early lead vs. Mexico, the Black Impalas had a chance to shock the world with a three-goal margin, but instead settled for the draw. In spite of having nothing at stake, the Iranians dominated play, and with better finishing would have won easily, or so I've been told.

Portugal 2, Mexico 1: In a battle of penalty kicks, Portugal converted, while Los Tricolores choked again. Maintaining its perfect mark of never having missed a penalty kick in World Cup play, Simao gave his team a two-goal lead midway through the first half, while Mexico, which has been eliminated twice in the past on penalty kicks, saw Omar Bravo blow a chance to tie the game on his second half attempt. The Portuguese, with nothing to play for and with five starters benched to prevent them picking up a second yellow card, took control early, then held off a furious Mexican push which continued even after Perez was sent off for "diving" in the penalty area. Both teams advanced to the second round for the opportunity to get slaughtered by Holland and Argentina.

The record of the four CONCACAF teams in the 2006 World Cup is an abysmal 1-7-3, with only Mexico's 3-1 victory over Iran in the first game breaking the monotony of failure. If this were the NCAA Tournament, CONCACAF would be the 2006 Big 10.

The trial of Saddam Hussein has always been the canary in the coalmine for the new Iraqi government. It has been conducted in such a haphazard and arbitrary manner to call its fairness into question, while failing to focus on the true barbarity of the ancien regime. Compared with, say, the Truth and Reconiciliation Commission in South Africa, or with the investigations of war crimes that the International Court of Justice conducted concerning Bosnia and Rwanda, the ongoing circus in Baghdad has been a joke, an indication that what we replaced Saddam with is incapable of administering the hallmark of any free society, due process.

So this morning's murder of Saddam's defense counsel by men purportedly working for the government should cause some reflection on what we've created in that country. The third defense lawyer to be executed since the trial began, Khamis al-Obaidi had been a low-key figure, exchewing the bombastics of his co-counsel or the buffoonery of Ramsey Clark, stating only weeks ago that "if we withdraw out of fear it will not be a shame for us as lawyers but for the entire Iraqi judicial system." Had this case been tried before a real court, at the Hague, he would still be alive.

Paraguay 2, Trinidad 0: Sweden's draw in the concurrent game with England made this one moot, but Paraguay gained a measure of consolation with the shutout win. BTW, ESPN's favorite stat is the one showing that teams which have scored first have some awesome, unbeatable record, like "25-3-8" or something. King Kaufman at Salon treats it with the respect it deserves: basically, any team that scores has just dramatically increased the likelihood that it won't lose, since 24 of the 36 games played so far have been shutouts. The really important goal is the second one....

The catfight between the Greatest Cyclist Ever and the World's Biggest A-hole continues, with Lance Armstrong calling for sanctions by the IOC against anti-drug czar Dick Pound for his role in the bogus allegations that Armstrong cheated when he won the 1999 title, and Pound responding by suggesting that the seven-time Tour de France champion and cancer survivor has "too much time on his hands." Pound has a chip on his shoulder against American athletes dating back to when he was the chief Canadian apologist for Ben Johnson, and the notion that he should be given any influence over drug policy for Major League Baseball is asinine.

England 2, Sweden 2: A pair of defensive blunders, the final one in the 90th minute, gave the Swedes an undeserved tie in a game the English dominated for long stretches. The result means that both teams advance to the knockout stage, where England will play Ecuador on Sunday, while Sweden takes on heavily-favored Germany on Saturday.

The tribute vice pays to virtue.

Poland 2, Costa Rica 1: In a meaningless game between two teams already eliminated, the Poles rallied after the Ticos took a first half lead on a free kick. For the second straight Cup, Poland gets shut out in its first two games before winning a moot finale, but at least both teams played as if they gave a s***.

Germany 3, Ecuador 0: With several starters resting and/or kept on the bench to avoid a second yellow card, Ecuador effectively pissed away whatever momentum they may have had from the first two games by easily falling to the Germans. The host country wins the group, and will now play the runner-up of Group B (likely Sweden or Trinidad) in the second round. As the ESPN announces repeated, ad nauseum, throughout the second half, all three goals were scored by players of Polish ancestry. Viva Reconquista !

A Michael Kinsley classic, on Bill O'Reilly, from Slate's 10th Anniversary:

Yet O'Reilly, like many other people, clings to the fantasy that he is a stiff among the swells. He plays this chord repeatedly in the book, a potpourri of anecdotes and opinions about life in general and his in particular. He had a very strange experience as a graduate student at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (which let the likes of Bill O'Reilly through its ivy-covered gates, he is careful to note, "in an effort to bring all sorts of people together"). Other Kennedy School students, he says, insisted on being called by three names, none of which could be "Vinny, Stevie, or Serge." Their "clothing was understated but top quality … and their rooms hinted of exotic vacations and sprawling family property. Winter Skiing in Grindelwald? No problem." They tried to be nice, but Bill was nevertheless humiliated, in a Thai restaurant, to be "the only one who didn't know how to order my meal in Thai."

I should explain this last one to those who may not have been aware that Thai is the lingua franca of the American WASP upper class. The explanation is simple. American Jewish parents only one or two generations off the boat often spoke in Yiddish when they didn't want their children to understand. Italian-Americans used Italian, and so on. But WASPs only had English. (They tried Latin, but tended to forget the declensions after the second martini.) So they adopted Thai, which they use in front of the servants and the O'Reillys of the world as well. (At least it sounds like Thai after the second martini.) When they turn 18, upper-class children attend a secret Thai language school, disguised as a ski resort, in Grindelwald.

Having attended a prep school with some of the same swells O'Reilly speaks of, let me add that if you couldn't speak Thai, you were made to feel small by the kids from the mansions and country clubs. Even today, when one of the richies patronizingly corrects my pitiful attempts at "the Thai", I feel the same sting. Damn you, Ben Sherwood....

Spain 3, Tunisia 1: In what was the best game of a day marked by match-ups between countries with hitherto no connection with each other, Spain scored three goals in the final twenty minutes to rally past a determined Tunisian squad, and thereby advanced to the second round. Tunisia must beat Ukraine on Friday to remain alive.

Ratings so far for the 2006 World Cup have improved dramatically over 2002, which is not surprising considering the last Cup took place mainly in the wee hours of the morning in America. But the U.S.-Italy war on Saturday got the highest ratings for any soccer game in this country since the '98 Final, almost doubling the numbers for the third round of the U.S. Open and the sixth game of the Stanley Cup Finals, and nearly matching the numbers the same network got the following night for Game 5 of the NBA Finals. Today's games will be the true test of the number of soccer fanatics in America: it's one thing to get sports fans to watch the home country on a weekend, and quite another to tune into Switzerland and Togo at 6 in the morning.

At a recent gathering of local bloggers:

Word spreads that Ann Coulter is supposed to be coming, with Mickey Kaus. Mickey is ostensibly a centrist Democrat, but has long seemed to have a fetish for blonde Republican pundits. This is not to imply that they are or are not dating -- I have no idea.

So anyway, while talking to Christian Johnson and Donna Barstow, I see Mickey arrive with the Ann-tichrist herself. Donna says I have to talk to her; that she would if she were more familiar with Ann's work. Christian is anxious to get a picture with Ann. It's funny how there are people here who have probably used all kinds of invective to describe her, yet immediately wanted to talk to her. Liberal blogger Joseph Mailander, for one, was seen conversing pleasantly with her, and I hope he blogs about what was said, cuz I'd like to know.

Andrew's a fan of Ann's -- I hear a fragment of a joke he tells her that begins "There were these two black guys..." but I didn't catch the punchline. It was probably funny.*

I ask Matt Welch if he'd met her. He responds "Have you met Eichmann?"

Matt is amused to snap a picture of Joseph and Ann. At first, I thought he was just trying to get one of Joseph in the same frame as Roger L. Simon The Man Who Created Moses Wine, whom Joseph frequently and amusingly beats up on metaphorically. Roger looks to have gained weight since last I saw him. Too much lounging around in pajamas?

I did not speak to Ann, though had I done so, I'd have asked what church she attends. I can tell you that she's very tall, freakishly thin, and has big hooters, though not obviously fake ones.

I tell Matt that I'm thinking of a joke along the lines of "What's the difference between Ann Coulter and a turd in a box?" I haven't figured out a punchline, but it probably ends with "....and the other is a turd in a box."

Matt Welch and Luke Thompson are officially deities. [link via LAist]

*No, it wasn't funny, since he wasn't overhearing a joke. See LYT's apology here.

A devastating WaPo piece on Jason Leopold, the journalist who "broke" the story about the indictment of Karl Rove. Leopold has a book out that he was hyping at a recent LA Press Club soiree. I left that one pretty early, since it seemed ridiculous to be listening to someone admit that much of his earlier journalism was little more than drug-addled fantasy.

Ukraine 4, Saudi Arabia 0: Four different players scored for the Ukraine, which earned their first World Cup victory over international soccer's equivalent of a Slumpbuster.

Switzerland 2, Togo 0: Putting aside centuries of bitter strife between the two countries, the soccer players of Switzerland and Togo met today in a match many fans have circled on their calendars for months. Goals by Alexander Frei and Tranquillo Barnetta, and a non-call inside the penalty area that would have given the Togolese a free kick in the first half, proved the difference. The Sparrowhawks showed up for the game, a matter that was actually in doubt only a few hours before thanks to a threatened walk-out by their players due to a dispute over bonuses. The Swiss can advance to the second round with a tie against the Koreans Friday, thanks to superior goal differential.

South Korea 1, France 1: Park ji-sung became the third Man Utd. player in as many days to play the hero, scoring in the 82nd minute as the Koreans rallied to tie Les Bleus. Thierry Henry of Arsenal had earlier put the French into the lead, notching their first goal in World Cup since the 1998 Final. More referreeing controversies occurred in the first half, when an apparent French goal was not called, and in the second half, when Zinedine Zidane received a yellow card that will keep him out of France's final group game (and may end his career), and marred the game. It will be difficult for anyone watching the game to get that ditty the Korean fans were singing out of his head.

One of the stars for France is their bald goalkeeper, Fabien Barthez. Barthez, who at one time was romantically involved with former supermodel Linda Evangelista, bears an uncanny resemblance to the late character actor, and original "Dr. Evil", Donald Pleasance, whose perhaps most famous for his recurring roles in the Halloween movies. But Pleasance earned a special place in movie lore for starring in films featuring two of my favorite actresses. In Cul de Sac (1966), directed by Roman Polanski, he played the owner of a castle who is visited by a mobster on the lam, along with his girlfriend, who is played by Francoise Dorleac. Ms. Dorleac was on the cusp of stardom when she was killed in an auto accident the following year, at the age of 25, and she was, almost impossible to believe, the prettier older sister of Catherine Deneuve. And of course, Pleasance also played the father of Smythe's World icon Phoebe Nicholls in Blade on the Feather (1980), a deliciously tawdry spy thriller in which my blogmuse, playing a spoiled young adult version of Varuca Salt, gets nekkid with co-star Tom Conti. Neither Dorleac or Nicholls really have anything to do with Fabien Barthez, Dorleac having died the year before Barthez was born, and there being no evidence that the infrequently-working Engish character actress has ever met the French goalkeeper, but as Nicholls' character would say in the above movie, "come on daddy, play the game...."

The New York Times does some nice bit of digging on Jorge Larrionda, the ref who endeared himself to soccer fans the world over with his carefree use of the red card in yesterday's U.S.-Italy match. Turns out that Larrionda had a bit of history, getting himself suspended in his native country (Uruguay) on allegations of corruption four years ago, preventing him from working that World Cup, and had blown two calls in a Confed Cup game involving the U.S. and Turkey in 2003, both of which led to Turkish goals.

Meanwhile, it seems that anger at the officiating has been limited to these shores. Elsewhere, the red cards handed out to Mastroeni and Pope have been defended. The Times of London reporter opined that "The match was to finish with just nine men on either side. Simone Perrotta was stretchered off after being caught by the boot of Carlos Bocanegra, and there were no substitutes left to take the field. Ugliness had finished the contest that neither side deserved to win." Der Spiegel agrees, while the title of the Sydney Morning Herald's article on the game ("U.S. Point Way as Red Mist Descends") must be seen clearly seen as a commentary on international disapproval of American foreign policy. Kevin Drum also backs the ref, while moderating a good discussion of the game in his comments section.

Brazil 2, Australia 0: The tournament favorites struggled at times against the surprisingly game Socceroos, but scored twice in the second half, including the first World Cup goal by someone whose entire name is "Fred". Ronaldo again looked shaky, a prematurely-aged has- been at 29. Thanks to security, there is apparently a dearth of something that has always marked Brazil games: samba drums. It takes away a lot of the color and atmosphere, but it does assure the paying customers safety from the threat of terrorists bringing dirty bombs into the stadium via percussion instruments.

Japan 0, Croatia 0:

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Also, Japan saved a penalty kick in the first half.

U.S.A. 1, Italy 1: Works for me...I have to say, although it was technically the correct call, I have never seen a goal waved off because another player was offside on a shot. The Americans played out of their heads today, killing off a 45+ minute power play in the second half, and at the end of the game, it was the Azurri that was relieved the game was over.