Politics is not a sport

  Yesterday I wrote that the Knicks season was over. Even if they were to miraculously win the next four games, it would still be over. Because the illusion of an all-for-one and one-for-all cause is broken. The bubble has burst. For me it wasn't the firing of the coach, or whether there was room for anyone on the court with Carmelo Anthony, though in retrospect, those were really clear signals that this was a mess, not a cause.
  What had attracted me to the Knicks was of course Linsanity. Because here, for a brief moment, it didn't seem to be entirely about money. The young man, overcoming prejudice, breaking through and shining bright through vision, talent and vitality -- that was hugely attractive.
  The image of Stoudemire sitting on the bench next to Lin killed all that was left of my enthusiasm for the Knicks. I don't care how much they are paying him. He doesn't belong there. The fans shouldn't have been booing the Heat players as much as the Knicks management who didn't have the good sense to keep Stoudemire out of view.
  Anyway, this connects nicely with a blog post published a few hours ago by Paul Krugman at the NY Times.
  He points out that facts aren't facts, according to some in politics, if they come from the wrong people.
  There, he put his finger on the problem.
  Many people see politics as I see sports. There are two teams, and my team is going to beat yours, and nothing else matters. Winning is everything. And that's a bad mistake. Because as we noted yesterday, while sports is a simulation of war -- it's harmless to project tribalism on the symbols of basketball or baseball -- it's not harmless to do that with politics. We're not manipuating symbols there. There are real armies and economies at stake. Nuclear weapons. The viability of the planet. The future of our species. If we see this as war, then it is war. How much do you know about war, and do you really want to usher it in so quickly, without thinking.
  That's the problem. Politics and sports are not the same thing. One is frivolous and the other is anything but.