“I know she’s a great competitor, but then there’s also the fact that I hate her.” —Ty

“We do not talk. We are not Facebook friends. Nothing.” —Diem

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we’re back!

MTV is back with another installment of The Challenge and this time, fresh off the success of the Rivals format, it’s embracing a similar concept: Battle of the Exes will pair players with partners who they hooked up with/dated/sloppily-made-out-with-while-drunk on previous challenges.

Of course, it should go without saying that I love this season’s format, but I feel the need to stress something: I love this season’s format. There’s the obvious drama factor—always-quotable Paula called this season “drama’s wet dream”*—but this season also addresses a lot of concerns I have about challenge format. First of all, I almost always prefer individual or paired competitions (like The Duel, Fresh Meat, Rivals) to team challenges (The Gauntlet, The Inferno, Cutthroat). They prevent players from skating by and force everyone to strategize.

*This would have been an epigram quote if it didn’t sound like a disgusting Entourage reference.

One problem with individual or paired challenges is that they often separate the guys and girls, meaning that there are essentially two challenges taking place simultaneously, which dampens the competition. BotE eliminates that problem by pairing guys with girls (with one notable exception, which I’ll get to).

Finally, the elimination structure is intriguing: The winner of each challenge is named the Power Couple, and gets to chose who the loser will face in the Dome. This creates some odd incentives, and at least prioritizes not finishing in last, which should benefit rookies.

But, of course, the best thing about the format is the drama that comes from pairing players with their exes. Part of the fun, though, is the variety of relationships that Exes encompasses. Whereas Rivals had a similarly diverse group of rivalries, the essence of all of them was essentially the same: These two people don’t like each other. But with Exes, some of them currently hate each other, some haven’t talked in years, and in some one still seems to harbor feelings for the other… and it’s not entirely clear to me what type of relationship is most conducive to the challenge. Whereas Rivals rewarded rivals who weren’t really rivals (Johnny/Tyler, Leroy/Michael, Cara Maria/Laurel), it’s not clear if Exes will have a similar theme.

Before we start discussing last night’s episode, then, let’s break down the details of the relationships in question:

Abram/Cara Maria: This relationship bloomed during Cutthroat, and as recently as Rivals the two were still together. The attraction here was that both Abe and Cara Maria are borderline crazy, yet surprisingly they had one of the healthiest, supportive relationships in Challenge history. They seem to have broken up after Rivals (Wikipedia says that Abram getting arrested had something to do with it, but I know nothing of this). It’s clear, though, that Cara Maria did the dumping and Abram still has feelings for her—the break up seems to have motivated Abram to find a stylist and say, “Give me the Kid Rock!”

Aneesa/Rachel: The token homosexual relationship of the bunch, these two dated back in 2003, after Battle of the Sexes. Enough time has passed that both seem wistful about the whole situation, though Rachel did mention that Aneesa didn’t treat her well. The bigger obstacle for these two is that…you know, they’re both girls. While I appreciate MTV’s efforts to include a gay couple, it does seem like the absence of a male on the team will hurt their ability to perform in challenges.

C.T./Diem: Once again, the most complicated relationship of the season involves C.T. While many/most of these “relationships” are no more than glorified flings, the kind of relationship a normal person might have during a semester abroad or something, Diem and C.T. were actually profoundly important in each other’s lives. They had, as another contestant so aptly put it last night “that Notebook kind of love.” The relationship began after Diem was recovering from chemotherapy, at a time when she says she felt like a “broken woman.” C.T. helped her realize that she was still desirable, and she admits that she thought they would end up getting married. C.T., on the other hand, still feels betrayed that, when his brother died, she wasn’t there for him. Their break up infamously helped fuel the Adam/C.T. fight on The Duel 2.  Despite all this, they haven’t spoken in years, and they both clearly still have complicated feelings about each other. As they should…even I got choked up hearing them talk about each other.

Dunbar/Paula: Ugh, these two have the most boringly complicated relationship. They used to have a flirtatious, love-hate relationship, but it always seemed like Paula wanted more from the relationship than Dunbar. Apparently they had sex at some point, but I have no idea when. It must have been prior to Cutthroat because by then Paula seemed to see everything Dunbar did as a betrayal, and now they don’t speak anymore.

Dustin/Heather: I have no idea who these people are. Apparently Dustin did porn?

Johnny/Camila: These two are only “exes” in the loosest sense of the term. During Cutthroat, Camila harbored a crush on Johnny, but it was never acted on. If they ever hooked up, either then or on Rivals, it was off-camera. This is probably the best case scenario for a team, since Johnny and Camila still like each other, and haven’t had time to develop strong feelings of resentment or regret. Combing that with the fact that both Johnny and Camila are strong in challenges might make them the favorites in Exes.

Leroy/Naomi: I like Leroy. He was a great player in Rivals, and he was extremely patient with his partner’s shortcomings. But Naomi seems nuts. If Leroy hooks up with another girl in the house, she threatened to kill him and the girl. This does not seem advantageous for Leroy…

Mark/Robin: These two are the vetest of the vets. How old is Mark? His original Road Rules season aired in 1995. Someone born on the day it premiered would be old enough to drive in most states. His relationship with Robin began on Battle of the Sexes 2, and they did date for some time after the season ended, and there seemed to be some questions about Mark’s fidelity. Robin admitted last night that “Mark is hot,” but she has a kid now and he’s almost 40… Will they end up hooking up? Probably.

Nate/Priscilla: Who?

Ty/Emily: Oh man, do these two seem to hate each other. When TJ announced them as a pair, Emily wouldn’t even walk over to him. I like Emily, but this her second challenge where she’s been teamed with Ty, and his emotional instability and general worthlessness at challenges have a tendency to hold her down. It’s a shame, because Emily could be great with a decent partner.

Tyrie/Jasmine: The less said about these two, the better. Jasmine is possibly my least favorite player in challenge history (including Wes!)—though she did amusingly lament the fact that she hooked up with Tyrie as opposed to C.T. or Wes or Johnny. Tyrie is notoriously terrible at these challenges, and it’s hard to see how pairing him with Jasmine will help at all.

Vinny/Sarah: Another relationship that seems to have lasted about five minutes. Sarah clearly regrets her “one-night stand” with Vinny, and the fact that he appears to have prepared for the show by doing nothing but eat can’t help. On the other hand, these two have been partners once before (Fresh Meat II), so it’ll be interesting to see if that helps.

Wes/Mandi: When C.T. rejected her last season, Mandi sought refuge in the arms—and bed—of none other than Wes. It was very hard to get a read on how either of them feels about the relationship now. Wes calls Mandi “the closest thing I’ve had to girlfriend the last few years,” but they don’t seem particularly close or distant. Mandi does seem upset that she’s partnered with the house hothead… which didn’t work out for her so well on Fresh Meat II.

Is that everyone? That seems like everyone. Anyway, those are the teams who headed into last night’s first challenge. Now, if you read my Rivals recaps, you may recall that my chief complaint that season was that the challenges almost never required the rivals to actually cooperate—why team up players who hate each other if you’re not going to exploit that hate?

Last night’s challenge—“Give Me Some Honey”—indicated that the producers learned their lesson. The challenge consisted of each player in a Speedo, walking from one end of a beam to another, where she douses herself in honey, and returns to her partner, who wipes as much of the honey of her body and into a jar. In other words, the challenge is designed to have the exes rubbing and touching each other’s almost naked bodies—to be intimate with what Dunbar called their “no-no special places.” It was ideally suited to maximize awkwardness and awaken any old feelings that might exist.

The competitive aspects of the challenge, though, are not as compelling. The best strategy is “get a lot of honey on your body.” Nate (Who?) boasted to the camera that he was going to blow away the competition, and then promptly proceeded to spend his time falling off the beam about a dozen times. It was an embarrassing performance that put him and his partner into the Dome (this season’s name for the site of the elimination challenge).

On the other end of the spectrum, Johnny/Camila and Mark/Robin had a bonus duel to see who would reign as Power Couple. Though Johnny/Camila won, Johnny mentions that it’s a double-edged sword, since you have to potentially make an enemy by nominating someone for elimination.

That might be true down the road, but everyone knows that the first elimination is for rookies, right? WRONG. After Wes performs his go-to move of trying to alienate and belittle the most powerful person in the house, this time by picking on Camila, Johnny decides to throw in a veteran.

The only problem with his plan is that Nate/Priscilla seem really bad, and pretty much incapable of besting Wes/Mandi. The elimination challenge, which involves jumping over and ducking under a spinning beam, at first seems like a test of coordination, but it’s really just a matter of endurance, which Nate and Priscilla do not have. Both of them fall before either Wes or Mandi, sending home our first rookie pair.

But you know me; I’m just a merry rankster:

Eliminated: Nate/Priscilla

We hardly knew ye…

12) Dustin/Heather: These two rookies lucked out to not get thrown in last night, but that luck probably won’t last.

11) Tyrie/Jasmine: These two are so bad at challenges that it wouldn’t surprise me if they went home before the rookies.

10) Aneesa/Rachel: I’ll need to see a few weeks of performance before I buy this whole “two girls competing with guys” thing. Call me sexist…

9) Vinny/Sarah: Vinny has never been a particularly strong player, and he appears to have put on the weight of Buick.

8) Wes/Mandi: The fact that Wes is already getting sent into the Dome is not a good sign.

7) Dunbar/Paula: Paula is coming off her first win, but I’ve never been totally sold on Dunbar as a performer.

6) Ty/Emily: This is possibly too high to rank Ty, but I really like Emily. I want her to stick around longer.

5) Leroy/Naomi: As I said above, I was very impressed by Leroy by Leroy on Rivals. But, man, Naomi seems nuts…

4) C.T./Diem: Look, C.T. is amazing at these challenges. But his capacity to blow up is only magnified by Diem’s presence. Still, I hope these two crazy kids make up…

3) Abram/Cara Maria: Like C.T./Diem Lite, I think Abram’s craziness may be amplified by Cara Maria, but they have a greater shot at peaceful coexistence.

2) Mark/Robin: Always bet on experience….

1) Johnny/Camila: …Unless you can bet on Johnny Bananas. Johnny is coming off a big win in Rivals, and Camila finally has a teammate who won’t hold her back.

• The Giants are going to the Super Bowl! Get ready to see this play a thousand times (which still isn’t enough).

• Etta James passed away at the age of 73. Though known primarily for her song “At Last”, she released an album last November. She was a prominent figure in the West Coast R&B scene, and if you are wondering what will.i.am or Hayley Williams thought about her, click here.

• So Wednesday’s Internet blackout, which included Wikipedia and a long list of other sites, in protest of the SOPA and PIPA bills was largely successful. Several lawmakers withdrew support and the bills have been put on hold. Nevertheless, Democrats remain committed to some version of the laws, and the MPAA is threatening lawmakers who oppose it, despite the benefits of online piracy. The government did go after Megaupload last week, shutting it down in an uncomfortably draconian manner. There is hardly an anti-copyright/intellectual property trend about it.

• A terrifying story about female infanticide. Though, on the plus side for women, Jay-Z is going to stop saying “bitch” in his songs!

• Andrew Sullivan wrote an impassioned defense of President Obama for The Daily Beast. It’s somewhat compelling, but many liberal critics are quick to point out Sullivan’s omissions, like an atrocious record on civil liberties.

• In other political news, Chuck Todd criticized Stephen Colbert’s Super PAC, while  Molly Ball wondered how serious Colbert is.

• A fascinating account of how Apple makes iPhones, and how it relates to American manufacturing.

• Bill James lists the 100 best pitchers’ duels of 2011.

• Dane Cook had a rough set last week…

• The Onion was catering to Josh’s interests this week, with articles on the Supreme Court and Miranda July.

• NPI-favorite John Mulaney will be doing a Comedy Central special next week and he accordingly gets a Big Profile.

#2 BALTIMORE AT #1 NEW ENGLAND

You ready to get Gronked? That sounds disgusting.

What percentage of Patriots fans have worked the verb “Gronk” into their regular vocabulary? I haven’t heard it yet, but I assume 100. “Gronk,” interestingly enough, is almost always modified by the adverb “totally” and takes the direct object “workout.”

Now seriously, can the Ravens stop Rob Gronkowski? I wouldn’t frame the question that way. Stopping the Patriots isn’t about stopping any one of their wide receivers/tight ends (and like, what’s the difference; we can even throw running back into that slash line) so much as it is about stopping Tom Brady. How does one stop Tom Brady? You get pressure on him, obviously.

You stole my question: And the Ravens haven’t been getting pressure of late. But if Terrell Suggs can have one of his occasional dominant three-sack kind of games, well then, the Pats won’t be running no-huddle empty sets too often, will they?

At this point, why doesn’t every moderately good offense run a no-huddle? You know, everybody always says how the no-huddle tires a defense, preventing substitutions. But nobody ever talks about how tired the offensive linemen, who never sub out, get during the no-huddle. Seems unfair.

But: It really does neutralize the pass rush, doesn’t it? Especially when you get the ball out as quick as Brady and the Patriots typically do.

So, since you’re focusing on the other game, what does this one come down to? Besides the pressure thing I already mentioned? Flacco.

How insightful: “This is just a banal platitude, but the fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life or death importance.” —DFW

Snooze: This is all to say that there’s a reason everyone says this game will come down to how Joe Flacco plays. This is because this game will come down to how Joe Flacco plays. New England isn’t going to let Ray Rice beat it on the ground, and its defensive flaws are in the secondary more than anywhere else. Further, Baltimore’s going to need to score 20+ to win in Foxboro. Flacco’s going to have to make some plays to do it.

How might he? Anquan Boldin is still really good, and Torrey Smith can probably beat a Pats corner deep at some point. Flacco has to hit him.

How might he not? He might play like he has for most of this season, which has ranged from very poor to adequate.

Who does a Giants fan want to win this game? Probably Baltimore. The Giants would have a better shot of beating the Ravens, I think, plus it would allow for Super Bowl XXXV vengeance.

At the same time, beating the Patriots a second time in the Super Bowl would be really cool.

Who does a Niners fan want to win this game? The Patriots, so we can focus on football instead of an individual family for the next fortnight.

Does Flacco play well? I think he plays better than usual, and that the Ravens are in the game.

But: But he doesn’t make enough big plays to keep up with Brady. Patriots 24-17.

#4 NEW YORK AT #2 SAN FRANCISCO

How about this? Man, this is nuts.

What do Giants fans think about this team? We love this team. Like LOVE love. Of course, we hated them a month ago when they predictably lost to the Redskins. Let me try to explain this briefly.

Please do: In the fourth quarter of the Giants’ November game with the 49ers, I was sitting on my recliner as Eli Manning attempted to lead a second consecutive touchdown drive to tie the game. The Giants had just come back the week before to beat the Patriots at Foxboro, they were 6-2, and so I’m thinking to myself, “You know what? No matter what happens here, I can’t complain. This team is really fun to watch.”

Fast forward only a week from then, when the Giants came out sluggishly and lost late to Vince Young and the Eagles at home, and all I could think about was how much I was dreading having to watch them play the Saints and Packers each of the next two weeks.

This has been the back-and-forth nature of this franchise for quite a few years. They often play up to top competition and when they’re on the road, and down to poor competition and when at home. This year seemed to exacerbate that to an even greater degree. They have lost twice to the Redskins, at home to the Seahawks, and at home to Young and the Eagles. But they swept the Cowboys, beat Vick and the Eagles on the road, and won in New England. They are very difficult to read.

What’s your read on them now? They are playing fantastic football. This is about as good as the Giants have looked in my fandom, which stretches to about 1992. This team is better than the 2000 team, better than the ’02 team was down the stretch (I want to make a point about them later), and right now, playing even better than the ’07 team did during the playoffs. The best analogue is probably when the ’08 team was 11-1 and regularly crushing good football teams.

Better than ’07? The 2007 team won its three NFC playoff games by a grand total of 17 points against teams that went 9-7, 13-3, and 13-3, and that came on the heels of an ugly road win in Buffalo and the inspiring home loss to New England to finish the season. The idea of the Giants being hot going into that postseason is entirely revisionist. Every member of the Fox pregame show predicted they would lose to Tampa Bay.

This year’s team won its final two games of the season—against talented but flawed teams yearning for the postseason themselves—by 15 and 17 points. They then beat a 10-6 team by 22 and a 15-1 team on the road by 17 (and probably deserved to be more). That’s a pretty nice stretch of football.

But: The Jets and Cowboys each went 8-8, and they weren’t as good as we all thought they were. The Falcons were within eight, driving in Giants territory midway through the third quarter. And the Packers played really poorly last Sunday.

Let’s forget about anomalous losses to the Redskins and things like that and look at numbers. This team was outscored in the regular season. How can a team go from being outscored in the regular season to looking this dominant in the postseason? If you want to go Bill Barnwell and compare them to last year’s Packers, you’ll have to overlook that 2010 GB had a +148 scoring differential, which was second-best in all of football. The ’07 Giants were +22. Hell, the ’08 Cardinals were +1. How does this happen??? You’re throwing a lot of stuff at me there. So we need to break this down into a list, I think.

1. Nobody’s going all Bill Barnwell on you!

2. They’re healthy. You cannot overstate how much a healthy Osi Umenyiora alters this defense. Just look at that forced fumble he had last week, which was the difference between a 20-17 game in the third quarter and the Giants salting it away. Having Umenyiora amps up that pass rush tremendously and compensates for the occasional lapses in the secondary. Furthermore, the return of Michael Boley gives the Giants their most athletic linebacker and someone who can hang in coverage. He’s also the signal-caller defensively, and New York has made far fewer assignment mistakes since he’s been back.

On offense, having a healthy Ahmad Bradshaw means as much to the passing game as it does to the running game, since Bradshaw is a lot better than Brandon Jacobs both at checkdown passes and at picking up blitzers. Watching Ahmad Bradshaw picking up blitzers is one of my 15 favorite things about this team.

The other 14? We’re still getting through my first list here.

3. The offensive line has come together. Everyone is touting the return of the running game, and yes, Jacobs is running with more conviction than we’ve seen from him since the ’08 season. But a lot of that is the O-line opening up more holes than it had been. The difference is even more apparent in the passing game. If you watch the film of the Giants’ win in Dallas in Week 14, you’ll notice how little time Manning had all night. What made his performance so remarkable was how well he played in spite of a lack of protection—how he knew when to throw it away and how he avoided a sack all night despite constant hurries. Well now, he’s not getting hurried, and if you give Eli Manning time, he’s going to pick you apart.

4. Eli Manning is picking apart teams. It’s been a topic of discussion all season—at least in these parts—but Manning is really having a tremendous year—almost certainly the best in franchise history. And he’s playing better now than he has all year, limiting his mistakes and converting third downs with vicious efficiency.

What was the point you wanted to make about the ’02 team? At the end of that 2002 season, and in particular after the Giants went to Indianapolis in Week 16 and won 44-27, I realized that I was watching the best offense in franchise history. And that offense doesn’t even compare to this offense.

That team scored 20 points per game. Are you cuckoobananas? Nice, Manny Santos. They averaged over 30 in the last six, if you count the Wild Card debacle in SF. That offense rounded into form, which is why so many fans—or maybe just me—were pretty confident that after beating the 49ers, we’d go to Tampa Bay and dispose of the Bucs.

Do you want to talk about that so-called debacle? You know, I was able to write a bit about the ’99 Mets losing to the Braves on that Kenny Rogers walk some time back. But I don’t think I’m ready yet to discuss that game. It’s been nine years and it still pisses me off more than any other sporting event.

Is that just because they missed the call at the end? Not just, but largely. It’s also that that was third down, and if Matt Allen throws the ball away right away, they’d have had another shot.

Fun postseason rivalry between these two, eh? Oh yeah. As Dan Graziano pointed out, this will be the eighth meeting between the two teams in the postseason, tied for the most all-time. San Francisco has won four of them, including the last two.

Which was the best? While I’m obviously tempted to say the 49-3 thrashing in ’86, everyone knows the ’90 NFC Championship was the best. One of the great games of the 1990s really. So good, in fact, that I watched it this week on YouTube.

SOPA!!!! I don’t really know if that applies.

What’d you learn? Aside from how much I miss Pat Summerall and that pads used to be comically large? The interesting thing, to me, about that game in relation to this week’s game, is how much the identity of these two franchises has flipped. Now it’s the Niners that are the defensive stalwarts who run the ball, don’t turn it over, and control time of possession, and it’s the Giants who throw the ball over the field to their big-play receivers and rely on a pass rush defensively. It’s very strange as a Giants fan to root for an offense this good, and I imagine it’s very strange for a Niners fan to root for a team built on defense.

Where does Leonard Marshall’s hit on Joe Montana rank all-time?

I know I’m biased here, but I think it’s the standard by which all QB hits are judged. LT on Theismann is disgusting and unorthodox. Hits like that don’t usually happen. But Marshall’s was as good a blindside hit as you’ll ever see, and it’s an example of an amazing hustle play by a defensive lineman. The hit was so devastating that the camera stayed with Montana instead of focusing on who recovered the fumble.

You know what’s crazy? Joe Montana missed most of the next TWO years from that hit! You know what the sideline report was on him after that hit?

“The report we get on Montana is the doctors want him to stay right where he is because the report from the 49er bench is that everything hurts.”

You ready to talk at all about this year’s 49ers? Let’s go. I think my pick last week was pretty spot-on, no? The Niners created turnovers, didn’t give it away, and won the special teams battle. And oh yeah, Alex Smith led two game-winning drives.

I didn’t see that part of your prediction: It was edited it out. Blast these space restrictions. SOPA!!!!

What did A. Smith show you? That he can win a game against a bad secondary. And the Giants secondary isn’t a whole heck of a lot better, although I hope Perry Fewell has a better plan against Vernon Davis than Gregg Williams did.

Smith also showed me that he’s not as smart as everyone says he is, because any really smart football guy would have known to slide inbounds on that sweep play and just settle for the game-winning field goal.

You’re a Niners fan. What scares you about the Giants? That Eli Manning is playing better than anyone in the tournament, as they say, and this team is supremely confident and has found its stride.

Better than six-touchdown Brady? I’m sorry. When did he play a playoff team?

Ha. Hilarious but specious. We all know Denver’s D is still better than Green Bay’s: Touché.

You’re a Giants fan. What’s got you pulling the covers over your head about the Niners? Besides visions of Matt Allen rolling out? That this is a disciplined defensive team that won’t make the mistakes we’ve preyed on for weeks and which won’t allow the big plays our receivers have been making of late.

And Andy Lee and David Akers. They legitimately scare me.

Will Lawrence Tynes miss a key field goal? Lawrence has been a little shaky of late. I don’t feel 100 percent confident with him on any kick.

What kind of game do you expect? Let’s grant it’ll be close; that’s pretty reasonable, right? So is it high-scoring or low-scoring? Medium-scoring? It’s kind of funny to me that this game’s over/under is lower than an AFC title game featuring the Ravens, but I suppose people have a lot of respect for Tom Brady. I don’t expect to see the Giants offense move the ball up and down the field the way it did last week. It’s going to be about third-down conversions, and whether Eli can continue to excel in those spots, because the Giants will face their share of them. I don’t really think the Giants will do too much on the ground, especially early in the game. They haven’t run successfully early in a game like all season.

And I think the Niners can score on the Giants. Like last week, it’ll be a matter of converting in the red zone for San Francisco. If they score touchdowns, they’ll probably win. If they don’t, it’s a different story.

So what happens? I honestly don’t know. I’ve gone back and forth on this game all week, trying to temper my expectations like I did in ’07. But in the end, I simply have more faith in Eli than in San Francisco’s defense and special teams. Giants 23-20.

“What’s the fascination with this story?” The question was asked to no one in particular, just the whole room, really. It wasn’t asked in any pointed way, but just out of sincere curiosity. “It’s about football, right?”

I got the sense that most of the people in the room were not big sports fans. Of course, it wasn’t just about football. It was about football at Penn State, which was, as someone else in the room tried to explain, a well-respected institution, known for its “Grand Experiment” of emphasizing a higher ethical standard.

“Like the Catholic church?” he deadpanned, to general laughter.

“But wait,” someone else said, “isn’t Penn State like a huge party school?” It can’t really be about moral hypocrisy, or high standards, or even child abuse. We brush away stories about child abuse all the time. Really, it must be about football.

I didn’t say anything, because I wasn’t sure what exactly I disagreed with. Penn State was a party school; we had seen this all before with the Catholic Church; even the culture of cover-ups at athletic departments was old news.

But at least one thing seemed wrong to me: It’s not about football.

***

For six summers in a row, I went to a sleepaway camp in northern Pennsylvania. This is how most of my friends spent their summers, and I assumed it was the norm, only to find out later that it was only ubiquitous within a very specific demographic.

As such, my camp had its own subculture, which only seems strange in retrospect. Some of camp’s oddities were intentional—its emphasis on camp traditions and unity—but others were merely the by-product of spending almost all of your day around other males, almost none of whom were old enough to legally drink.

Some of it was, frankly, disgusting. People walked around with their hands in their pants constantly; some would masturbate while others were in the same room; once, a counselor walked into a bunk and, without thinking, spit right in the middle of the floor for no reason.

Of course, none of this would have been acceptable in any other context—and it arguably shouldn’t have been acceptable in any context—but that didn’t stop us from accepting it. These details may have repulsed an outsider, but they were mainly the type of idiosyncrasies that made insiders feel “inside” of something. The fact that others didn’t relate only proved that they didn’t “get” our camp’s culture.

But if anything bad had ever happened, I’m sure all these details would have looked like unmistakable warning signs.

***

It’s easy to see why so many people latched on to the story of Mike McQueary walking in on Sandusky raping a boy in the shower. Of all the allegations, it’s the most vivid and gut-wrenching scene. Perhaps more importantly, it introduces a third party, who’s neither a victim nor the perpetrator, whose duty is debatable, and whose culpability is not clear.

What’s more surprising to me, though, is how people have latched on to the setting for this story. The shower has stood out in so many recollections of the events: What was Sandusky even doing in the shower with these boys? How could he think that was appropriate?

My first instinct is to condemn the very idea of showering with children, but then I remember that, at camp, I had counselors who would defecate with the door open. I had a very productive conversation with him about Splender’s first album, while he was on the commode. Would it have been so much worse if he had been in the shower? From an olfactory sense, at least, it would have been better.

A few months before the story broke, I was at a comedy show where the comic did a bit about showering with his friend’s dad and the rest of his Little League team when he was a kid. The story didn’t seem horrible, just absurd and funny.

Now, though, the image of an adult showering with children makes me recoil in horror. I have to remind myself: What’s horrific isn’t where Sandusky was—it’s what he was doing.

***

Almost immediately after, similar allegations emerged from another college campus. This one was certainly different—no criminal charges were filed; there was no cover-up; an accuser eventually recanted—but in many ways, it was exactly the same. Once again, there were allegations about a long-tenured assistant coach. Once again, the head coach came too strongly to his defense. Once again, people lost their jobs.

And so the Penn State story was less singular. Oddly, instead of making it harder to ignore, it was now easier. The possibility of child predators lurking on our college campuses suddenly seemed like a fact of life. As if it had always been this way, and we just hadn’t been paying attention.

***

I lied before when I was talking about camp. There were some people who could buy alcohol, and even rent cars. Though all of the campers and most of the counselors were under 21, there were a few slightly older, and a select few who were significantly older. These people were institutions. They had been at the camp for decades, through different owners even.

And, of course, they stuck out like sore thumbs. It takes a certain kind of person to work with kids his whole life, and the campers would joke about those people a lot. They were out of touch, and a little odd.

I’ve been thinking about one of them a lot recently. He was one of the nicest and most sincere people I ever met. He would remember virtually any conversation you had with him—he even had every camper’s home address memorized, and would disarmingly start conversations with “How’s everything on Elm Street?” or “What’s new on Cedar Way?” He was a shameless Mets fan who called Mike Piazza the greatest right-handed hitter of all-time, something we disagreed about vehemently.* In short, he was one of my favorite people at camp, but he was also very strange.

*I mean, seriously, of all-time?

Some of the things he said have come roaring back in my memory recently, like when he told me that I had “a beautiful smile,” or when he said another camper had “an amazing body.” These things creeped me out at the time, and seem even more disturbing now. At camp people would joke about it—everyone seemed to have a list of weird things he’d said—but nobody ever attributed anything nefarious to him.

Yet, looking back, there is now a trace of something sinister to everything he said. My instinct is to wonder if he was as nice and peaceful to everyone else as he was to me. And that’s not fair. I don’t know whether or not he had some inner demons that he was able to overcome, but that shouldn’t matter. What should matter is what he did: The decades he spent as a fixture of the camp, as one of the friendliest people there.

***

“Jerry Sandusky is a monster.”

It almost seemed like a contest to see who could say it louder, faster, most convincingly. As if there were anyone in the world who needed to be convinced.

But something got lost in the chorus of condemnations, and that’s this: There are no monsters; there are only people.

***

“It’s magical thinking, that somehow you can look in a person’s eyes and see into their soul, and it’s dangerous, because it encourages people to think they can identify sociopaths just by looking at them.” —Bill James

***

It’s scary to think, as many have suggested, that Jerry Sandusky set up his charity, The Second Mile, in order to lure children into his evil grasp. But it’s even scarier to think that he set it up because he sincerely wanted to help children, and he ended up using it as a vehicle to abuse children. The former is scary because it indicates that children are never safe from those who wish to harm them. The latter is scarier because it indicates that children are never safe even from those who want to help them.

Unfortunately, I think the scarier explanation is the far likelier one.

***

Before the news story could fade away, Sandusky tried to defend himself. His interview with Bob Costas on Rock Center with Brian Williams was truly the news story’s climax, and one moment stood out:

For many, Sandusky’s hesitant and stammered response to “Are you sexually attracted to young boys?” was tantamount to an admission of guilt. Dan Patrick played the audio on his radio show and said, “There was a pause in there. As I’m listening I’m thinking I don’t know if Jerry Sandusky knows what a pedophile is.” If you can’t answer that question with a definitive “No” then you might as well be saying, “Yes”—or so the thinking went. That moment seemed to annihilate any doubt of his guilt, if there was any remaining.

And yet, for me, the worst part was simply hearing Costas ask the question. Why was he asking a question about Sandusky’s sexual desires? Is that what’s really on trial? Is he in trouble for having perverted thoughts?

This is not only hypocritical, but also dangerous. It misses the central issue: The crime was what Sandusky DID, not what he felt. If we can’t make that distinction, then no progress will come out of this.

***

Suppose Sandusky were merely someone who was sexually attracted to young boys. Would that be criminal? Aren’t we all cursed with desires we don’t want? Impulses we would never act on?

Moral character is not about what you feel; it’s about what you do. And yet people who lust after young children—and they do exist, in numbers we’d probably never want to admit, if the last few months are any indication—are told that merely having those desires makes them monsters. And so they repress those desires, or they convince themselves they don’t exist. They tell themselves that their feelings are strictly wholesome, and that their behavior is merely “horseplay.”

They lie to themselves, which makes it easier to lie to others, which may explain why they’re so good at getting away with it.

***

“I should be dead.” According to the indictment, Sandusky confessed that to the mother of one of his victims, and I’ll bet part of him believes it. The guilt he must feel for so grievously hurting those he meant to help must be unbearable at times. It’s a torture he deserves, but one he likely began suffering before he started to deserve it.

This is all we get from classifying these people as Others or Monsters: We get them to feel ashamed of themselves, but we don’t protect the children they hurt behind closed doors. We tell ourselves that no decent person could have such desires, that it’s not something normal people have to deal with, and that it’s not a problem we need to concern ourselves with. So the problem stays hidden until it’s too late.

When the stories surface, we focus on the football coach implicated, or the gruesome details revealed, or on sympathizing with the victim and punishing the guilty. But we don’t ask ourselves How do we stop it?

That’s the most important question, but it’s the hardest to answer.

• It seems a little early to be at college basketball’s midway point (we’ve only had two Double Bonus podcasts, after all), but Seth Davis has written his midseason recap, and the rest of Sports Illustrated‘s staff are making predictions. As Duke fans, of course, we got a kick out of North Carolina’s drubbing at Florida State, which literally chased the Tar Heels off the floor and reminded us of this memorable game.

• From the darker side of the NCAA, the latest story of injustice for a student-athlete.

• Do The Black Keys represent a war on indie rock?

• At The Awl, Maria Bustillos has a problem with that study claiming better teachers equals higher income.

• Giancarlo Esposito, aka Gus Fring, took to Reddit to answer fans’ questions about Breaking Bad and other highlights of his career. In other AMC news, Mad Men got an official premiere date for the new season.

• Josh and Tim have spent all week debating which Met took the Wilpons to task.

• The New York Times was slightly embarrassed when its Public Editor, Arthur Bisbane, wondered if maybe newspaper should try reporting the truth, you know? As opposed to just printing whatever people say… He explained himself later on.

• Some Amazon movie reviews.

• Hey, what kid hasn’t gone through a urinating-on-corpses phase? Sebastian Junger blames…us.

• Some old year-end stuff that Tim was too lazy to link to in the past: humor-writing, sitcoms that haven’t been effusively praised, and broadcasting moments.

• Roger Ebert with some thoughts on the Oscars.

#3 HOUSTON AT #2 BALTIMORE

Does anybody care? Presumably the people in Baltimore and Houston.

And you are? Not there.

So let’s do this one quick: The Texans are the Ravens, just a little worse at everything (except running the ball, I suppose). Combine that with the home-field advantage for Baltimore, plus the fact that the Ravens have already beaten the Texans while playing a below-average game, and it all adds up to a Ravens win, right?

What if Bad Flacco shows up? He doesn’t really show up at home, does he? Outside of the Jets game, Flacco has played fairly well at home, and the Ravens are 8-0 at M&T Bank Stadium.

Baltimore gets a home game, eh? Amazing that the Ravens haven’t won a home playoff game since the 2001 season. This is the 16^th postseason game in franchise history, and only the fourth at home, where they’re 1-2.

What to watch for: The Texans have really nice road uniforms. In fact, Houston has really nice home uniforms, but they mess with those ones too often by going monochrome or wearing red.

Let’s rank the eight uniforms in this round! Pull my finger.

8. Denver

7. Baltimore

6. New England

5. New Orleans

4. New York

3. Houston

2. Green Bay

1. San Francisco

No commentary? And ruin a future full post? Come on.

So the final score: I do think it’s close, but that T.J. Yates can never lead the drive the Texans need. Ravens, 23-13. 

#4 NEW YORK AT #1 GREEN BAY

I heard you want some props: For correctly predicting the Falcons would become the first team to ever score exactly two points in a playoff game, yeah, I think I deserve some props.

You were, in that prediction, 39 points off the Giants’ final total: Two points! Who saw that coming?

Seemed pretty stab-in-the-dark to me: I amaze myself sometimes.

So you partyin’ like it’s 2007 yet! This isn’t the 2007 Giants. And even if it were, that’s a nearly impossible model to replicate.

Indulge me: Well they are going back to Green Bay after vanquishing an NFC South foe in the first round (with a particularly poor offensive start, just like in Tampa in ’07), and they’re playing a near-unbeatable team they lost to at home by the score of 38-35, and the pass rush is wreaking havoc, and the secondary is inexplicably playing well, and Ahmad Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs looked competent for the first time all season, and Eli Manning isn’t turning the ball over.

So why aren’t you buying the comparisons? Offensively, they’re very different teams. Manning is better, the wideouts are better if less consistent, and the O-line and running game is much worse. Eli has to do a lot more, and it’s much more of a big-play offense. Probably the best big-play offense in Giants history, or at least my experience of it.

Defensively there are more similarities, with the pass rush the obvious one. Osi Umenyiora’s return not only gives the Giants one of the best speed rushers in the league back, but it allows Justin Tuck to move inside at times, whence he destroyed the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. Jason Pierre-Paul is just a more athletic version of Michael Strahan in this comparison.

The secondary, though, isn’t as good behind Corey Webster, who’s really been playing some tremendous football most of the season. And the linebacking corps has picked it up but still isn’t as good as it was in ’07.

Is there perhaps some other historical comparison you want to make? How’d you know? Let’s go back to 2006, when the Colts entered the playoffs with one of the worst defenses in the league and, ostensibly, the worst possible first-round matchup for them. Indianapolis couldn’t stop the run, and it was going up against Larry Johnson and the Chiefs.

Remember Larry Johnson??? I know, I know.

But the Colts got Bob Sanders back in the playoffs, and suddenly their defense went from being terrible to being above-average. They held the Chiefs and Ravens to 14 combined points despite some generally poor play from Peyton Manning before the offense regrouped to beat New England and Chicago and win the Super Bowl.

The Giants getting Umenyiora back late in the season has energized a previously porous defense in a similar manner thus far.

So you DO think the Giants are going to win the Super Bowl? No.

You’re being frustratingly unbiased here: But the Giants WILL beat the Packers, 55-11!!!

Ooh, giving Green Bay 11: On four safeties and a field goal. Or a safety, a field goal, and a missed two-point conversion—’99 Rams style.

How little confidence do you have in the Giants offense deep in their own territory? Apparently none.

Aaron Rodgers, MVP? Self-evidently. For reasons discussed both last week and yesterday re: Drew Brees. Lest we forget, Aaron Rodgers is pretty awesome.

Does he do anything better than Drew Brees? He throws fewer interceptions, and he throws on the run better than anyone.

How is that latter part particularly significant in this game? Well, if people think the Giants’ Super Bowl XLII gameplan can be brought out of retirement for this game, it’ll have to acknowledge that Rodgers is much more mobile than Tom Brady.

But Brady had good pocket presence. He’s not a statue: Right, Brady could move in the pocket and avoid sacks. Rodgers can escape the pocket and hit a receiver on the run for a big play more consistently than even Brady.

Remember when Aaron Rodgers couldn’t win a playoff game? It’s ridiculous how quickly we bestow postseason reputations on guys. Dude loses a game 51-45 and he can’t win in the playoffs. Alex Smith can’t lose in the playoffs!

Rodgers-Smith would be quite the showdown: That is (hopefully not) a topic for next week.

Will this game be as good as the 2007 NFC Championship? That’s an interesting question, because the 2007 NFC Championship was kind of a sneaky good game, and its reputation received a huge boost when the Giants went on to beat the Patriots. At the time, it was kind of an afterthought since Super Bowl XLII was basically going to be New England’s coronation. So most just wanted the storyline of Brady v. Favre. The Giants, meanwhile, only offered the, ‘Hey, they came kinda close to beating them!’ story, which everyone assumed wouldn’t be replicated (including yours truly).

But the game itself was very good. I always view that game as one dominated by the Giants, but rewatching it a few times since (yeah, I get nostalgic), it’s notable how big a role penalties played in that contest. There were a lot of key penalties that sustained drives for both teams, but especially it seems for the Giants.

You knew that Tynes kick was good? Of course. Oh, you’re not talking about the 36-yarder at the end of regulation? I had a good feeling about that one.

The third Tynes kick, I think, is one of the most underrated in NFL history. A 47-yarder, in subzero temperatures, to send your team to the Super Bowl? Pretty amazing.

Don’t you think the choking had something to do with that? Yeah, it makes Tynes look worse. At the same time, it makes that individual kick look better, since he had to overcome the pressure created by the two prior missed kicks—in the same direction, no less.

So how does this one go down? It’s tight, but the Giants just can’t get the one stop they need to give themselves the final drive to win it. If you want to stick with the ’07 theme, I say this one goes like New York’s season-opening 45-35 loss to Dallas, where the Giants were in the game all the way but couldn’t get the ball with a chance to win. The lead consistently fluctuated between three and 10. I see this going a similar, if somewhat lower-scoring way. Packers, 30-24.

Man, we didn’t even critique Peter King today: I don’t have a vendetta against the guy. I certainly don’t want Peter Kingnerdness as a heading next week.

#3 NEW ORLEANS AT #2 SAN FRANCISCO

First off, what’s the best thing about this Divisional Playoff weekend? That the #1 seeds didn’t get screwed this year. As Pierre has mentioned before but probably won’t discuss at length this year for lack of relevant examples, the NFL’s second round has been hurt in recent years by improper seeding regulations. Now, as you know, the NFL rewards divisional winners with home games in the first round regardless of record (thus, 8-8 Denver hosting 12-4 Pittsburgh). I’m cool with this. The problem comes in the second round, when the NFL re-seeds (i.e. the top seed plays the worst remaining seed); however, the league does this based on seed instead of record, still for some reason rewarding division winners at the expense of top seeds. So most years, the #1 seed ends up playing a better team in the second round than the #2 seed.

Most years? Do you think the 13-3 Falcons—two games clear of anyone else in the NFC last season—would have preferred to take on the #6 Packers (10-6) or the #4 Seahawks (7-9)?

Most years? Or the ’08 Giants having to face the Eagles instead of the Cardinals in the second round? The ’08 Titans getting the Ravens instead of the 8-8 Chargers?

Most years? Okay, not most years. But often enough where it’s an issue that should be resolved by re-seeding based on record and not seed in the second round. But like I said, since all four home teams won last weekend, it’s not an issue this year.

Second off, what’s the second-best thing about this Divisional Playoff weekend? This game.

This game? I’ve been looking forward to this game—so long as it was going to be played in San Francisco—for about the last six weeks.

So you think the Niners have a shot? I think they have more than a shot.

Do explain: Well, it kind of goes back to something I said last week, which is that the extent of the Saints’ home-field advantage hasn’t been emphasized enough. On offense, New Orleans is 14 points better at home than on the road! On defense, they’re seven points better at home. (And again, I’ll use the same smaller-sample corrective I did last week to show this isn’t just based on opponent. In their NFC South home games, the Saints allowed 47 points; they allowed 76 in their NFC South road games.)

So New Orleans is three touchdowns better in the Superdome than on the road this season. The Saints’ current nine-game winning streak has included just three road wins: an overtime win in a dome in Atlanta aided and abetted by Mike Smith’s decision to go for it on fourth down deep in his own territory, a narrow escape in Tennessee, and a bludgeoning of Tampa Bay, who was being bludgeoned on a weekly basis at that point.

Man, so the Saints just can’t beat anybody on the road now, right? I’m not saying the Saints are a bad team on the road; they’re just not nearly as good or as unstoppable as they are at home. If this game were in the Superdome, I’d take the Saints going away. But it’s not.

But it’s not even going to be rainy and muddy and generally unpleasant in San Francisco on Saturday! While bad weather would obviously benefit the 49ers, they don’t need it the way most have suggested. Playing outdoors on a natural grass surface represents a significant enough switch for the Saints.

Okay, so give me the home/road splits for San Fran: The 49ers had the fourth-best point differential in the league at +151. They were +134 at home, averaging about a 17-point win (27.6-10.9) in their eight home games—seven victories, one OT loss back in September to Dallas. Aside from the loss to the Cowboys, the Niners played only one other close home game, stopping the Giants on a final drive to beat New York by seven in November.

How much of that is based on schedule? The road slate was, I think, negligibly harder for San Francisco. They played the NFC East, getting the Giants and Cowboys at home and the Eagles and Redskins on the road (DAL and PHI basically even, NYG > WSH, except when they play each other). With the AFC North, they hosted the Steelers and Browns, went to Baltimore and Cincinnati (PIT = BAL, CIN > CLE). And then they went to DET and hosted TB, although their 45-point bludgeoning of the Bucs came early in the year and in fact immediately preceded Tampa’s victory over the Saints.

What was the point of this again? The Niners are better at home than on the road.

Is the location of this game the only reason you think the 49ers can win? Of course not. I wouldn’t be picking just any home team to beat a visiting Saints squad this weekend (for instance, I think the Saints would probably win in New England).

What are the other reasons? Last week I mentioned how Detroit was a team not built to beat New Orleans on the road. To wit:

“The problem for Detroit is that, as you could see last week, it doesn’t possess the attributes most necessary to stop or even slow a potent offensive attack. Namely, the Lions can’t run the ball and control the clock. They’re going to try to outscore the Saints, and I don’t know if even the 2007 Patriots can outscore the Saints in the Superdome.”

The 49ers, on the other hand, do possess those attributes. San Francisco runs the ball a lot—third-most in the NFL behind Denver and Houston. They hold the ball for an average of 32 minutes per game, fourth-best in the league. They have the lowest turnover rate in football.

Ooh, now I’m scared: San Francisco also has arguably the best special teams in the league. David Akers set a record for most field goals in a season (including 7-of-9 from beyond 50 yards), and Andy Lee led the league in both average and net punting. The 49ers start with the best average field position in the league.

Give me some caveats: These are all reasons why San Francisco can win. There are plenty of reasons why New Orleans can win, including that it has a way better offense, that the Niners run the ball a lot but not overwhelmingly well, and that the Saints aren’t as bad at special teams as they were a year ago.

You = Saints fan. What scares you about the Niners? Their ability to make our otherwise underrated rushing attack non-existent, therein making this a completely one-dimensional offense.

You = Niners fan. What frightens you? That our pass defense isn’t as good as our run defense, and I’d love for that to be flipped this week (and if we make it that far, next week as well).

How big is this rivalry from the good old NFC West days? Nobody outside San Francisco calls those the “good old days.” The Niners are 45-24 all-time against the Saints, and that’s despite six straight losses and nine of the last 11 in the series. They have never met in the playoffs.

What’s your take on 49ers vs. Niners? I like the versatility.

Critique Peter King’s take on this game, since you will disagree with his conclusion: The game the Saints want to play isn’t 23-19.

What’s your take on 49ers vs. Saints? The key to the game, beyond banalities such as not turning it over, will be whether San Francisco can finish off drives. There is, after all, a reason why Akers kicked so many field goals. The Niners offense is fine moving the ball between the 20s, but it will need to find the end zone multiple times to pull off the home upset.

And you know what? I think the 49ers do. I think they find Michael Crabtree and Vernon Davis when they need to, I think they don’t turn the ball over, I think they get at least one key takeaway from Drew Brees, and I think San Francisco gets its first playoff win since the worst day of my life, 27-24.

#4 DENVER AT #1 NEW ENGLAND

Tebow. Go: He played really well last week.

And…: But, the Steelers played to Tebow’s strengths by allowing Denver to run the ball and then throw it deep. Nobody’s ever accused Tim Tebow of not being able to throw the deep ball, and in Demaryius Thomas, he has a great go-route receiver. But if you keep Tebow in the pocket and make him throw underneath, he’s not accurate enough to matriculate the ball down the field with any consistency.

Yeah, I’ll take your word for it instead of Hall of Famer Dick LeBeau’s: I’ll grant that, theoretically, the Denver offense poses problems because the running game entices you to bring that safety up into the box. But you shouldn’t be playing no-deep coverage against this team ever, and certainly not when a touchdown ends the game and Tebow has killed you deep all game. That said, that wasn’t on LeBeau. Ryan Mundy, I believe, wasn’t properly positioned.

How much stock do you put in Denver’s win over Pittsburgh? I mean, it said a lot about where the Steelers are, what with age and the injuries. Ben Roethlisberger was clearly not himself in the first half, and the Pittsburgh defense couldn’t withstand the losses of Brett Keisel and Casey Hampton on top of playing without Ryan Clark. Ike Taylor had one of the worst games a cornerback as good as Ike Taylor has ever had. So I think it says more about Pittsburgh than it does about Denver.

You just can’t give this team any credit: You didn’t let me finish. It does say something about Denver, which is that the Broncos offense isn’t the worst in playoff history. This team can score when Tebow throws the ball accurately and when it runs it well. These things just don’t happen consistently for the Broncos.

Immediately after the Broncos victory, NY Times writer Pete Thamel tweeted that Saturday’s game would “transcend sports.” You agree? Look, it’s not Balboa-Drago. What is the extra-athletic meaning that is going to be derived from this game? It’s a cultural signifier of what exactly? What is this game going to “say”? For it to have any meaning beyond who plays next week, there has to be some sort of conflict. People will play the religion card, but it’s not like the Patriots are anti-religious. It’s not like Bill Belichick is starting off his press conferences by quoting Richard Dawkins. There’s nothing Manichean about this game.

You’re just being contrarian. People who don’t normally watch football will watch this game: I suppose that’s true. Last week’s Broncos-Steelers game got the biggest Wild Card rating in some lengthy period of time I’m too lazy to look up. Tebow has definitely created buzz and a larger audience for Broncos football. He’s been applauded for using his football platform to discuss religion, but I have seen little substantive conversation about religion. Most of it has boiled down to played-out Chuck Norris-type jokes on Twitter, of which I myself have been guilty of (to be fair, I said Tebow wasn’t God, but that he could make a compelling case for being Q. It was more clever).

So anyone sitting there watching this game and expecting some sort of religious epiphany, I don’t know what to tell you.

But you yourself said, some months ago, that the sports movie storyline you’d most like to see played out in real life is Angels in the Outfield. I’ll quote you:

“Regardless of the veracity of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s belief in angelic contributions, there is no doubt that the sudden rise of George Knox’s California Angels—from a 15-game losing streak to first-place with the help of several inexplicable plays—would be a national story. But add to that Knox’s final-day-of-the-season press conference—in which he turns on his owner and says he does believe in the angels’ intervention and the players, led by Mel Clark, perform a collective Jimmy Chitwood—and you get a story that would transcend sports. Knox’s press conference, followed by Angel Stadium urging Clark on by flapping their arms in the ninth inning to a division title, would likely merit front-page treatment in national newspapers.”

So you’ll excuse me if I’m a little confused by your flip-flopping when the closest thing we’ve got to Angels in the Outfield—and let’s be honest, the closest thing we’re ever going to get to Angels in the Outfield—is happening before your eyes: Psh, not until John Elway threatens to fire Tim Tebow for thanking God so much.

And there’s one play during this Broncos turnaround that can be described as “inexplicable,” and that’s Marion Barber running out of bounds.

Disagree. The Barber fumble, the Jets’ all-out blitz from Tebow’s right side, the Steelers’ lapse into no-deep coverage—these are all inexplicable, what-were-they-thinking moments that, while individually do not strike one as anything more than curious, collectively add up to intriguing evidence of divine intervention and, yes, eventual Tim Tebow sainthood: Is Matt Prater Mel Clark in this example?

Fine, run from your own idealistic notions of fandom and spirituality. Enjoy your cynicism: Oh no, I’m turning into John S!

One more non-football question on Tebow: How do you think the media has handled this whole deal? Well so much of it has been driven by the media, and ESPN in particular. ESPN decides to go all-out on Tebow, making him a topic in virtually every show it has, and that then drives the national broadcasts of those games, the newspaper columns leading up to those games, and the backlash to the coverage. The backlash leads to backlash to the backlash, and so on and so forth. I mean, I can’t say I wasn’t tempted to write a post about Tebow much earlier in the season, but I didn’t have much interesting to say. All I’m talking about now is like backlash to the backlash to the nth degree.

So, on the football field: The Broncos can score points in this one. They were moving the ball at will against New England the last time these two teams met before they turned it over three times in the second quarter. Obviously, Denver can’t win this game if it loses the turnover battle, and it probably needs to win it by two.

And that’s because? New England’s offense is just too good for the Broncos defense. Aaron Hernandez torched Denver that last game, and Denver just doesn’t have the—see what I’m going to do here—horses to stick with all those options for Tom Brady.

How happy are the Patriots to be playing Denver and not Pittsburgh? The Texans win put New England on high alert; the Steelers are probably the AFC team the Pats least wanted to see. But even if Pittsburgh came back to win that game last week in overtime, it revealed way too many warts to go into Gillette and win, IMO.

Pretty one-sided history between these two? Denver has won 17 of the last 22, including that playoff meeting in 2005. Brady is just 2-6 against the Broncos, but that includes that 41-23 win last month.

What scares Broncos fan Tim about the Patriots? The tight ends. The Pats almost had two tight ends accumulate 1,000+ yards this season. At what point do we just stop regarding their statistics any differently from those of wide receivers?

Same question, fandom reversed: Our secondary has been so banged up, and you saw what Tebow can do deep against a team weak at safety. The Pats have had a revolving door at safety, though Patrick Chung is back healthy for this one.

Critique Peter King’s prediction of this game! I think he’s pretty on-target. New England seizes control in the second quarter again, and Denver of course can’t throw its way back into the game once it falls behind multiple scores. Patriots win it going away, 37-13.

• With so much military grandstanding in the Republican primary races, it’s worth wondering if a nuclear Iran would even be such a bad thing.

• A trio of comedy interviews: Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen talk about Portlandia; Louis C.K. talks about his show and other stuff; Nick Offerman (aka Ron Swanson) talks about writing his own episode.

• Speaking of Ron Swanson, the CEO of PBS defended public television’s funding model.

• It’s been 9 days since President Obama authorized indefinite detention without due process, so it’s worth paying attention to stories like this tragic case of wrongful imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay.

• Jodi Kantor’s new book about the Obamas analyzes the evolution of Michelle Obama as First Lady.

• Chuck Klosterman doesn’t mind drinking “mouse-dissolving acid.”

• A rare success story for 21st century journalism.

• Jorge Posada is retiring. John S made a Hall of Fame case for him a few years ago, but will it work?

• The greatest map you’ve ever seen.

• A profile of liberal pundit Dylan Ratigan.

• Woody Guthrie’s New Year’s resolutions.

#6 CINCINNATI AT #3 HOUSTON

Playoff time! As I’m fond of saying this time of year, the music’s changing…just like it used to in Tecmo Super Bowl.

Speaking of… Neither of these cities has seen a second-round playoff game since the year Tecmo Super Bowl came out, or 1991. Cincinnati hasn’t won a playoff game since a 1990 Wild Card Weekend win over—guess who—the Oilers. Houston hasn’t seen a playoff win since those Oilers won a year later on Wild Card Weekend against the Jets.

Those are long droughts: The longest in the league, along with Detroit (1991).

Quite a Saturday for moribund NFL cities: Well, to be fair, Houston didn’t have a team for several of those years, and they’ve still seen a playoff win more recently than Cincinnati. The Oilers, at least in their last gasp at relevance, were a team defined by playoff shortcomings.

Which city has had it tougher? You know I love these dilemmas. The Bengals are intriguing to me as a franchise because they’re so defined by about a 12-year stretch from 1991 to 2002. Like, if I just came out and said, “The Bengals are the Clippers of the NFL,” you’d probably agree with that statement.

Aside from not finding Mike Brown quite that detestable: But that really overstates the struggles Cincinnati has had. Prior to 1991, the Bengals had been around for 23 years and made seven playoff appearances. Obviously not great, but, accounting for the reduced number of playoff teams, not woeful (and certainly not Clippers-like. SD/LAC has made the postseason four times in 34 seasons since moving from Buffalo).

You would discount those Braves teams: Ernie DiGregorio!

So and then the Bengals have this legitimately God-awful stretch, where they don’t post a winning season and lose 12 or more games a ridiculous number of times (seven times in 12 years). This is a franchise that has been to the Super Bowl twice, and it’s been relatively competitive for much of the past decade.

Is there an analogue to this historical misperception? I think the Islanders are treading similar water in the NHL. Most people will tell you the Islanders are irrelevant, when in fact, up until 1993, they were as good as any franchise in the sport.

But isn’t that 12-year period — and let’s be honest, you’re being pretty nice cutting it off in 2002 before a series of 8-8 years — bad enough to affect the long-term historical perception of a franchise as young as the Bengals? Or are you going to sit here and argue that the Patriots aren’t that good a franchise, since they’ve only been successful for the last 12 years or so? Well…

Thank you: Well, maybe I should restate my point more clearly. It isn’t that the Bengals haven’t had a tough life as a franchise; it’s that they shouldn’t be considered this go-to awful franchise in the way the Clippers are in the NBA. The Lions have been worse. The Cardinals have been worse. The Falcons have probably been worse. Up until very recently, the Saints had been worse.

So your conclusion is…: Bengals bad, but not as bad as everyone thinks.

Makes for delicious AM radio fodder: Isn’t that what I’m here for?

Regarding the Texans: How wrong is it of me to conflate Texans and Oilers fans? Is it wrong to assume they jumped off the bandwagon to Nashville and got on the new one seven years later? I only knew one Oilers fan, and he wasn’t from Houston, so he had no qualms still loving Steve McNair in Tennessee. I imagine there’s a different emotion for those who saw the team move.

How about this game? Oh, does anybody really care about the game itself? I’m going to operate under the assumption that T.J. Yates will be under center for Houston, meaning this is the first postseason game started by two rookie quarterbacks since, well, they came up with this idea of a Super Bowl.

Which do you like better? Dalton. Obviously.

Such a sucker for red hair: And competency, I suppose.

Who’s the X-factor? Can Andre Johnson be an X-factor? I’ll be honest, I don’t really know what an X-factor is anymore. I think it’s a catch-all phrase for “What’s going to be important in this game besides the play of a star quarterback?” Anything else is apparently fair game for X-factor status. And in a game that lacks star quarterbacks, literally any individual player or strategy can be labeled an X-factor. So I’ll go with Andre Johnson. He’ll be the best player on the field on Saturday, and the Texans’ offense will need him to look like it.

More field goals or touchdowns in this one? Field goals. Obviously.

If you’re a Texans fan, what scares you most about the Bengals? That my quarterback is T.J. Yates.

If you’re a Bengals fan, what scares you most about the Texans? That the offense is pretty good at every position besides quarterback.

Can we even get into unfalsifiable historical comparisons for these teams? This is, pretty obviously, the best Texans team ever for a full season, although I’d venture that the 2009 team—as constructed at season’s end—would beat this one—as constructed at season’s end.

I don’t think this Bengals team is as good as the ’05 team that won the AFC North, and while I want to say it is better than the ’09 division champs, that’s because I only saw that team lay its two eggs against the Jets, and that probably wasn’t a representative sample.

So who wins? I’m going against the national consensus, provided that the national consensus is that the Bengals are going to win, and taking the Texans. In a tight game like this, I usually look at homefield, coaching and quarterbacking. But those last two seem irrelevant, because I don’t think either of the coaches or either of the QBs distinguishes himself from the other. So, you know, the Texans run the ball better than the Bengals do any one thing, and I trust Neil Rackers not to miss a field goal more than I do Mike Nugent. That’ll be the difference in a game that I believe with near metaphysical certainty will end with a score of 16-13.

#6 DETROIT AT #3 NEW ORLEANS

It’s a battle of 5,000-yard passers! I still don’t believe Matthew Stafford reached that plateau, too.

For the first time in any game…ever! Is breaking that record a big deal?

Is breaking that record a big deal? Not in the Joe Biden sense, no. Look, we’ve been closing in on this for some time. It reminds me of the home-run race in 1998. Not just because multiple people eventually broke Marino’s record, but because people coming close to breaking the record had become a nearly annual occurrence. Much like McGwire being so close to Maris in 1997 with his 58 homers, Brees had come within 100 yards of Marino back in 2008.

Of course, comparing the breaking of this record to the home-run record implies a similar level of significance, when that’s not the case at all. The single-season home-run record was arguably the most cherished record in all of baseball, and yardage by a quarterback trails things like TDs by a quarterback and yardage for a running back and sacks in football, in my estimation.

Is Drew Brees on steroids? Probably not. Would they help a quarterback?

Steroids help everyone. Come on: Not if you don’t work out.

Do you consider sacks a sacred record largely because Michael Strahan illegitimately holds it? Well, not because he illegitimately holds it.

What’s the highest number of points for this game where you would still take the over? Well, the previous game between the two was only 31-17, and that was with Ndamukong Suh sitting out for Detroit. The tendency is to think this is going to be a ridiculously high-scoring game reminiscent of Cardinals-Packers or, if you can’t remember that far back, Baylor-Washington. But I’d say somewhere in the realm of 55-60 points is my cutoff on the over.

So, combined, these two offenses aren’t as good as West Virginia’s? Well, the thing is, West Virginia was playing a college team.

Lions-Saints playoff game. Who saw that coming six years ago? To be honest, six years ago, I believe I was predicting a long run of Cavs-Magic Eastern Conference Finals.

That was less than three years ago: Whatever. There’s no proof of it on the blog.

The point is, the NFL is so comparatively young that franchise identities can be altered by relatively brief stints of success or failure. When I was achieving sports consciousness in the 1990s, the Lions were a consistent Wild Card team,* and the Saints were a team Rodney Hampton destroyed. Kids ten years younger than me have entirely different perceptions of those franchises—and pretty much every franchise. The only franchise that has been consistently good for the duration of my lifetime has been the Steelers.

*As I believe I’ve mentioned before, one of my earliest sports memories is Barry Sanders’ epic run against the Cowboys in the 1991 divisional playoffs—the Lions’ last playoff win. You can see the run at the 1:50 mark here.

How happy are you that the Lions, your second favorite team growing up, are in the playoffs? Eh, they’re not the same sans Sanders. Although it does fulfill a prediction I made Week One last season.

Would you trade Drew Brees for Matthew Stafford straight-up, considering their respective ages? I wouldn’t hang up right away, but no. Stafford has had too many injury concerns.

Would you trade Matthew Stafford for Drew Brees straight-up, considering their respective ages? To be honest, I don’t know.

How do the Lions win this game? The problem for Detroit is that, as you could see last week, it doesn’t possess the attributes most necessary to stop or even slow a potent offensive attack. Namely, the Lions can’t run the ball and control the clock. They’re going to try to outscore the Saints, and I don’t know if even the 2007 Patriots can outscore the Saints in the Superdome.

The Mercedes Benz Superdome: Right. The Superdome.

How much better is the Saints offense in the dome? Two touchdowns. They averaged more than 41 points per game in the dome compared to 27 elsewhere. Think that’s based on opponent? New Orleans averaged 39 in three NFC South home games and 25.25 in three NFC South road games.

How much should we factor in domes when considering quarterback performance? I factor it in a lot, perhaps too much. Fact is, I honestly don’t know how Peyton Manning’s career plays out if Indianapolis is an outdoors team. I don’t know how much better Tom Brady could have been earlier if he played in a dome. When comparing Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees in the MVP race, I haven’t seen anyone point out that Brees is a different quarterback away from the confines of the dome, and that’s probably worth mentioning.

Yeah, Brees only threw for 2800 yards on the road. Dude sucks: I didn’t say he was terrible, and he did throw for more yards on the road than at home. He also had a higher interception rate and fewer touchdowns. Rodgers, on the other hand, threw two interceptions in eight road games.

Two? Two times.

So we know who your vote for MVP is: Matt Flynn!

You’re a Saints fan. What scares you about the Lions? That they’re going to score. That we’ve got nobody to stop Calvin Johnson, and Matthew Stafford on a roll can be as good as Brees.

Vice versa: That New Orleans is a rich man’s version of us, complete with a running game and home-field advantage.

Is this game close? I think it’s one of those games where you never really think the Saints are going to lose, but there will be a point in the second half, perhaps even the fourth quarter, where you realize, Hey, the Lions have a shot here.

Who ya got? Saints, 38-27.

#5 ATLANTA AT #4 NEW YORK

Let’s discuss this rationally: I can’t.

Who wins? Giants, 63-2.

A late Atlanta safety there? Yeah, Steve Weatherford runs it out of the back in the final seconds. Magnanimously.

Can we talk about this in a slightly less biased fashion? I can’t promise I’ll try, but I’ll try to try.

Your impressions of this Giants team: It’s been a season of extremes for the Giants, and I think part of that is due to the scheduling. They never really struck me as a 6-2 team through eight games, because those wins were against the likes of the Bills and Dolphins and Rams and Cardinals. Their four-game and five-out-of-six tailspin wasn’t necessarily surprising, given that it was against San Francisco and New Orleans and Philadelphia and Green Bay. So I think if those really tough games were scattered throughout the season, we’d all have a more accurate picture of who the Giants are: a pretty good, borderline playoff team. With a negative point differential.

Best team in the NFC East! According to the standings, yes. But the Cowboys and Eagles were probably better this season. New York just had a knack for pulling out close games late, while Dallas and Philly blew all those games.

What’s the one Victor Cruz play that sticks out most in altering the Giants season? Well, it depends how active you want this altering to be. The 99-yard touchdown against the Jets obviously changed everything. They lose the game without that. The 74-yard TD against Dallas as huge, as was the deep catch on 3^rd-and-7 in a seven-point game in the fourth quarter.

But the play I go back to with Cruz is against Arizona, when he probably should have been called for a fumble on what turned into a game-winning drive. If that play’s ruled differently, the Eagles are hosting Atlanta this week. And how would we all feel about Victor Cruz then?

How do you feel about Victor Cruz now? There’s a line in A Confederacy of Dunces where Sergeant Mancuso’s love for his motorcycle is described as “platonically intense.” That seems apt when it comes to Giants fans and Victor Cruz.

Can you just call him Cruz? Why always Victor? I never noticed it until now, but he’s got one of those names that works really well first and last. Or as Cruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuz.

Settle the “How good was Eli Manning this season” debate: Again, I’m biased, but Eli Manning was really, really good. If I had an MVP ballot—and we’ve established that I don’t—he’d probably finish fourth behind Rodgers, Brees and Brady.

Except that NFL MVP ballots don’t include any finishers past first: Yeah, it’s an oversight.

But Manning has managed to post huge numbers, including several late comebacks, despite playing behind a porous offensive line—for evidence, just go back and watch how many sacks he avoids himself in that first game at Dallas—and without much of a running attack. He also had to deal with talented but fickle wideouts that flash brilliance one minute and drop passes and run incorrect routes the next. After seeing him struggle so much last season when Steve Smith was hurt, it’s been amazing to see him work Cruz into that slot role and Jake Ballard into Kevin Boss’ old role as the tight end. I didn’t see that coming.

How different is he from Matthew Stafford, who’s faced a lot of the same obstacles? Again, I just haven’t seen enough of Stafford to honestly say. Eli doesn’t have Calvin Johnson, though, that’s for sure.

Lot of talk now comparing this team to the ’07 Giants. Your thoughts? I think there are definitely similarities. Those Giants weren’t all that impressive during the regular season, benefiting from a light AFC East and NFC West-infused schedule. They were flawed, with a mediocre linebacking corps and sketchy quarterback play. Overall, the running game and defense were much better, and that meant Eli didn’t have to go out and win games quite the same way he has to now. He couldn’t have done that at the time. If you’re asking me which team I felt better about going into the playoffs, I’d probably say this one, just because it gave Green Bay much more of a game than the ’07 team gave Dallas. But I never saw that run coming, and just because there are some surface similarities doesn’t mean we can expect anything resembling that again. You play that postseason 99 more times, and the Giants don’t win the Super Bowl more than once or twice.

How do you perceive the Falcons? Similarly to how I have the last several years. Atlanta does everything pretty well, and nothing outstanding. Matt Ryan is a very good quarterback, the Falcons run the ball well although not as well as in some years past, and the defense is pretty good (very good if you use Football Outsiders’ weighted metrics). All in all, Atlanta is probably a better team than the Giants.

Probably? I’m not going to say “definitely” or “certainly.” I was surprised New York is favored in Vegas.

Can you perhaps steal some analysis from Football Outsiders’ Aaron Schatz’s appearance on the B.S. Report? Atlanta was the most consistent team on a week-to-week basis in FO’s 20 years of statistical analysis.

This means: They play the same, virtually every week.

Since you’ve stolen that nugget, how about criticizing something Schatz said on the podcast? Well, he pointed out how, even with their two wins to close the season, the Giants had the 26^th best pass defense in the NFL over the season’s last eight games, compared to ninth in their first eight. He did not qualify this with: “Of course, playing Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers and Tony Romo twice may have had something to do with this.”

Geez, someone’s defensive: And it ain’t the Giants! See what I did there.

It doesn’t really make sense. You were saying the defense was okay: Don’t misconstrue my critique of Schatz’s argument as disagreement with his basic premise. The Giants defense, particularly against the pass, is not good.

But you’re going to pick the Giants anyway: Part of this is me being optimistic, and the other part is rationalizing that optimism. Outside of the Superdome, the Giants play really well against good teams, and they have for a while now. Sure, they only went 1-3 against winning teams this season, but those four winning teams they played all won 13 or more games. They won in New England, they came a tipped ball away from tying it late in San Francisco, they gave up a late field goal to Green Bay, and they got shellacked by the Saints. The Falcons, while a good team, don’t fit the mold of the Saints or Eagles squads that have really handled the Giants the last few seasons, and New York has finally played a couple good games at MetLife Stadium.

You know, the Falcons did win TWO games against winning teams: The Titans and the Lions. I’ll take at New England over that.

How can you not mention playoff experience in picking the Giants? Eli Manning is 4-3 as a playoff quarterback. He’s not like Curt Schilling or anything. Matt Ryan is 0-2, and both teams he lost to went to the Super Bowl. That’s fine.

The final score? Already told you, 63-2. Or 23-20.

#5 PITTSBURGH AT #4 DENVER

Do we have to? You know, SportsCenter was doing this whole quarterback comparison thing—P.S. preemptively dubbing this the “Year of the Quarterback” has worked it, albeit in a non-programming sense, I think—and when they got to this game, Tedy Bruschi and Mark Schlereth just kind of laughed and moved on. So maybe we can do that.

Okay, does Denver have any chance? I mean, the Broncos aren’t as bad as the Seahawks were last year, and Seattle beat New Orleans. In a vacuum, Pittsburgh is better than that Saints team, but Ben Roethlisberger’s worrisome ankle changes that equation. Would it surprise me if Denver won? Sure. But it wouldn’t stun me.

How do the Broncos win? Look, I have a hard time seeing the Denver offense score more than like 10 points in this game. They need the defense and special teams to give them good field position, they need to control the clock and somehow run the ball effectively, and they need the Pittsburgh offense to stall completely.

Odds of those happening? Not high. I’d be more surprised by a Denver win than Denver being shut out.

So, Tebow, briefly: The thing that’s intrigued me the most about the Tebow coverage is the religious angle. Not anything specific about that angle, but rather that that’s been the prism Tebow is viewed through. I don’t hide from the fact that I disliked Tim Tebow in college, but his religion never had anything to do with my feelings toward him. I just thought he was overrated. (Dude played for a really good college team, he was a bench player for one of the two championships he’s often credited with, and his inspirational speech came after a home loss to Mississippi).

So I always thought the anti-Tebow vitriol was similar to the anti-Tyler Hansbrough sentiment. Religion never had anything to do with it for me. I find Tebow’s faith neither exemplary nor reproachable.

So you’re just indifferent to it? Pretty much. My understanding is that many players in the NFL are religious, and they simply don’t get the platform and/or attention Tebow does.

And Tebowing? It’s just called genuflecting.

Why did you use past tense when describing your dislike of Tebow? Because novelty has its perks, and while I doubt Tim Tebow will succeed in the NFL on any kind of long-term basis, any success he does achieve is bound to be interesting.

What will be more: the yardage of Matt Prater’s longest made field goal, or Tebow’s total passing yards in this game? If you count sacks as negative passing yards, Prater. If not, Tebow.

Final score: Steelers 16-3.

In his blog post about the Iowa caucuses, Taibbi yammers on about how contributions corrupt the campaigning process:

“[T]he ugly reality, as Dylan Ratigan continually points out, is that the candidate who raises the most money wins an astonishing 94% of the time in America.

“That damning statistic just confirms what everyone who spends any time on the campaign trail knows, which is that the presidential race is not at all about ideas, but entirely about raising money.”

This is so logically porous that it hardly needs explaining (but that won’t stop me). Implicit in Taibbi’s argument is the assumption that the contributions themselves cannot be a result of the candidate’s message—an assumption that is obviously false.

Ratigan’s statistic would be alarming if political candidates all started with a set amount of money and then someone yelled, “Go!” and they all began campaigning. But that’s not how campaigns work. Political contributions are usually the result of a candidate connecting with supporters, which is what candidates in a democracy are supposed to do. Raising a lot of money isn’t cheating—it’s succeeding.

Of course, when Taibbi uses a statistic like that, he’s conjuring up images of corrupt fat cats funding puppet candidates who kowtow to their every whim. The implication is that the rich pick the candidates:

“And what ends up happening there is that the candidate with the big stack of donor money always somehow manages to survive the inevitable scandals and tawdry revelations, while the one who’s depending on checks from grandma and $25 internet donations from college students always winds up mysteriously wiped out.

“Thus the guy like George W. Bush, who dodged the draft and lied about his National Guard Service, steams to re-election, while a guy like Howard Dean – really not any kind of real threat to the status quo, whose major crimes were being insufficiently pro-war and finding an alternative source of campaign funding on the net – magically falls off the map and is made a caricature after one loony scream before Iowa.”

This is nonsense, and the invocation of Howard Dean is particularly disingenuous. Dean had a lot of flaws as a candidate, but his ability to raise money was not one of them. He shattered fundraising records, and ultimately raised over $50 million, all before dropping out before Super Tuesday. And Dean’s contributions were primarily of the Internet-type that Taibbi assumes are insufficient. Dean didn’t lose because he didn’t have enough money—he lost because people didn’t vote for him.

Of course, not every contribution comes from small internet donations and checks from grandma, and Taibbi is quick to let you know who the big campaign spenders are:

“Obama’s list included all the major banks and bailout recipients, plus a smattering of high-dollar defense lawyers from firms like WilmerHale and Skadden Arps who make their money representing those same banks. McCain’s list included exactly the same banks and similar lists of law firms, the minor difference being that it was Gibson Dunn instead of WilmerHale, etc.

[…]

“Those numbers tell us that both parties rely upon the same core of major donors among the top law firms, the Wall Street companies, and business leaders – basically, the 1%.”

 Again, Taibbi’s implication is that both candidates are beholden to the same group, but the idea that there were no substantive differences between Obama and McCain in 2008 is silly. If you look at the complete list of major donors, you’ll see that Obama got several million dollars from university employees, while McCain got significant contributions from the Army and the Department of Defense—these are far more telling examples of the candidates’ contrastive constituencies than the fact that both got donations from lawyers and bankers.

The reason why the 1% is represented on both list is far simpler than the nefarious reasons Taibbi insinuates: Campaign contributions are essentially a luxury good. People who are unemployed, or who are burdened by student loans, or who have trouble meeting their existing bills, can’t afford to donate large sums of money to political candidates. On the other hand, becoming a major contributor to a politician is a sign of cultural status for the wealthy. It’s a trendy thing to do if you can afford it.

This fact—that certain voters can afford to contribute more to candidates than others—is certainly troubling, and when Taibbi focuses on that his points are more salient, but too often, and in this particular post, he implies that the sheer amount of money candidates raise is the problem.

Finally, the biggest problem with the way Taibbi conducts his argument is the misleading way he declares that “Citigroup gave” or that “Bank of America donated,” as if these banks have minds—and political donations—of their own. In fact, when Taibbi says this he is generally talking about employees of Citigroup or Bank of America. It’s one thing to say these employees are incompetent and overpaid, but it’s another to imply that the only political issues they care about are lower taxes for the rich.

Most of them care about that, sure, but some care about a woman’s right to choose, or ending foreign wars, or securing the borders, or funding public schools, or not funding public schools. In other words, they might have thoughts on the issues candidates actually disagree about. If that’s the case, then the reason employees donated to both candidates might not be because the banks want to keep tabs on all of them, but because some employees supported McCain, and others liked Obama.

Of course, the Citizens United decision will likely affect the way money influences politics, and Taibbi’s post also has a few interesting things to say about that. In general, Taibbi is great at exploring the corrupt implications of overlooked government policy. I wish he’d focus more on that and less on how much money candidates raise.