I generally don’t pay attention to the Super Bowl, especially when, as has generally been the occasion in recent years, I have no particular attachment to either team. The vast and endless hype over the game does provide an excellent opportunity to do things, like grocery shopping, in pleasantly uncrowded circumstances (if only the DMV were open on Super Sundays!).This particular year, as it happens, I was on the road during the entire game, driving from Amherst, Virginia, to Richmond, to Arlington. As a result, I actually listened to the Super Bowl on a variety of AM radio stations, beamed at me from Lynchburg, Charlottesville, St. Louis, New York and Cincinnati. That means I was able to follow the football game, qua football game, while avoiding the ridiculous spectacle of the Big Commercials that are invariably premiered during the most expensive network television segment of the year. Indeed, I got to hear Dr. John, Aaron Neville and Aretha Franklin do the National Anthem, and even heard a bit of the Rolling Stones halftime show, but without the attendant hype, since the radio commentators were relentlessly focused on football. From the privacy of my car, I was able to assess the game itself as a comedy of crucial errors, with the one real star, to my delight, being Georgia Bulldog Hines Ward.So when it comes to Super Bowl XLI, I recommend getting on the road and disrespecting the television sponsors of the Big Show. It becomes obvious in the light traffic of Super Sunday that it’s really just a football game.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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February 26: Tanden Confirmation Fight Not an Existential Threat for Biden Administration
This year’s big media narrative has been the confirmation saga of Neera Tanden, Biden’s nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget. At New York I wrote about how over-heated the talk surrounding Tanden has become.
Okay, folks, this is getting ridiculous. When a vote in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the nomination of Neera Tanden was postponed earlier this week, you would have thought it presented an existential threat to the Biden presidency. “Scrutiny over Tanden’s selection has continued to build as the story over her uneven reception on Capitol Hill stretched through the week,” said one Washington Post story. Politico Playbook suggested that if Tanden didn’t recover, the brouhaha “has the potential to be what Biden might call a BFD.” There’s been all sorts of unintentionally funny speculation about whether the White House is playing some sort of “three-dimensional chess” in its handling of the confirmation, disguising a nefarious plan B or C.
Perhaps it reflects the law of supply and demand, which requires the inflation of any bit of trouble for Biden into a crisis. After all, his Cabinet nominees have been approved by the Senate with a minimum of 56 votes; the second-lowest level of support was 64 votes. One nominee who was the subject of all sorts of initial shrieking, Tom Vilsack, was confirmed with 92 Senate votes. Meanwhile, Congress is on track to approve the largest package of legislation moved by any president since at least the Reagan budget of 1981, with a lot of the work on it being conducted quietly in both chambers. Maybe if the bill hits some sort of roadblock, or if Republican fury at HHS nominee Xavier Becerra (whose confirmation has predictably become the big fundraising and mobilization vehicle for the GOP’s very loud anti-abortion constituency) reaches a certain decibel level, Tanden can get out of the spotlight for a bit.
But what’s really unfair — and beyond that, surreal — is the extent to which this confirmation is being treated as more important than all the others combined, or indeed, as a make-or-break moment for a presidency that has barely begun. It’s not. If Tanden cannot get confirmed, the Biden administration won’t miss a beat, and I am reasonably sure she will still have a distinguished future in public affairs (though perhaps one without much of a social-media presence). And if she is confirmed, we’ll all forget about the brouhaha and begin focusing on how she does the job, which she is, by all accounts, qualified to perform.