But aren't those little caps cute? Several days late, the Times has taken notice of the controversy over ownership of the Washington Nationals—specifically, over barely-veiled threats from Tom Davis (R-Protection Racket) that some of baseball's stuff (like its antitrust exemption) might get, ya know, broke if an investor group including George Soros as a junior partner were to win the bidding. And on A1 no less: which makes it all the more bizarre that Sheryl Gay Stolberg should be reporting it as a lifestyle piece.

You know things are primed to go south when the first few grafs set the story up as a wry slice-of-Washington about how not even a winning ballclub can dispel partisan rancor among those nutty, politically obsessed D.C.-tonians:

In a city where politics course through the veins of the inhabitants, where Republicans run the show and the man in the White House is himself a former baseball team owner, it was probably too much to expect the Washington Nationals to usher in a bipartisan era of peace, love and understanding.

Sure, James Carville, the Democratic political consultant, can be spotted at games sitting in the same row as Andrew H. Card Jr., President Bush's chief of staff. But now that George Soros, the financier and philanthropist who spent millions of dollars trying to defeat Mr. Bush last year, is competing for ownership of the team against bidders who include Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state, and Peter Fitzgerald, a former Republican senator, the mood on Capitol Hill isn't exactly Mom and apple pie.

" Where Baseball Has Become a Political Football "

Nevertheless, for a few grafs, right around the jump, it looks almost as if a story might break out here:

Mr. Davis and other Republicans did not back down from their criticism of Mr. Soros, who, they took pains to note, has been convicted of insider trading in France - a ruling he is appealing - and has supported ballot initiatives to legalize medical marijuana.

"We finally got a winning team," Representative Davis said. "Now they're going to hand it over to a convicted felon who wants to legalize drugs and who lives in New York and spent $5 million trying to defeat the president? How's he going to get him out to the opening game?" ...

At the same time, it was not lost on Democrats that another group of bidders - the one that includes General Powell - is led by a major Republican donor, Fred Malek, a former aide to President Richard M. Nixon who runs Thayer Capital Partners, a private equity investment firm.

"This is K Street run amok," complained Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, referring to the Republican "K Street Project," an effort to encourage businesses and trade associations to hire Republican lobbyists. "The message they're sending to baseball here is no different than the message they send to corporations: unless you play ball with us and our people, forget access to the halls of our democracy."

While this is certainly no more cogent than critique that's already appeared in the blogspace—and Stolberg misses the opportunity to rebut Davis with the case of another convicted felon and political spender who currently owns a team, ironically, in her paper's very own city—it does manage, somewhat unusually, to demonstrate an actual and balanced grasp of facts and issues.

Well, that can't last. Here's the very next graf, and watch how Sheryl segues out of the uncomfortable territory she finds herself in:

As if the feud over ownership is not enough, the Nationals appear to have created a sartorial quandary for some. Certain Democrats, it seems, feel queasy about wearing the team's signature "W" caps, which evoke a certain former part-owner of the Texas Rangers.

Not to mention that the caps the team wears at home games are red - as in red state.

And that's that, as far as any substantive joining of the issues goes. You can practically feel Stolberg's relief—so much pleasanter to talk about logos and freakin' cap colors than nasty ol' politics.

Now, I know from experience not to expect anything of a reporter like Stolberg—and I realize that, as long as the Times is going to employ her, they've got to give her stuff to do. But honestly, why bother paying any attention at all to a story like this if you're just going to go through these cretinous nothing-to-see-here motions? And play it (three days old) on the front page, no less?

posted by michael  2:22:01 PM  
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