Pros

Vanessa Bryant

Lately, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about Kobe Bryant's wife, ever since the Lakers won the title and she was on TV, at center court, taking part in the celebration.  Some people say it's kind of weird that Kobe married her when he was just 21, that he should have stayed a "free agent" and "played the field" for awhile, but I can sort of see why he'd feel like they were soul mates. 

They both went pro straight out of high school, he as a basketball player, she as a layabout.  Also, they're both arguably the best in the world at what they do, although they're probably each on the downside of their respective primes.  That is all.

Perfect Match

Nicolas Mahut (France) and John Isner (USA) played a match at Wimbledon that lasted for 11 hours and 5 minutes.  Wimbledon does not have 5th set tiebreakers, and you have to win by two, so they ended up playing 138 games in the fifth set before Isner finally established himself as the winner. The match started two days ago, and actually had to be suspended due to darkness twice.  Commentators have called it an epic battle, and have lauded the two for their incredible competitiveness and sportsmanship. 

This is a case in point that sports aren't always a zero-sum game; sometimes, like with Ali and Frasier, the two competitors elevate each other such that even the loser is remembered as having the heart of a champion.  In the case of Mahut and Isner, the match was historic not because they both possessed an incredible will to win, but because neither had the willingness to finish the fucking match.  I watched some of this thing, and in terms of quality, it was the tennis equivalent of buffet food.  It seemed like neither of them was trying, at all, when the other was serving.

But then again, can you blame them?  They had every perverse incentive to drag this thing on hour after hour; neither of these guys is a real contender at Wimbledon- Isner had only won one match on grass prior to this - but now, by refusing to win, they'll be remembered by the record books as having legendary grit and determination.  The record will only be broken by the chance meeting of two guys with an even greater willingness to debase the sport.  This match was incredible in the same sense as those Guinness entries for "Most Hours Spent Square Dancing", only those square dancers probably went about ten days on their feet.  Mahut and Isner have been rewarded for dicking around on the lawn for 11 hours, with numerous breaks for water, and they actually twice went home to sleep.

Of course, ESPN is broadcasting Wimbledon, so no one on that network questioned whether the whole thing was a sham.

Your proudest moment was your lack of shame.

Slip of the tongue

ESPN Commentator John Harkes during the US-Slovenia match:  "Well it's mouthwatering to see that opening..."

Go and get them.

Tiger Woods got a lot of guff for sleeping with average looking women who had normal day-jobs; why would he bother with them when he could be getting models and porn stars?  Well, maybe what Tiger was doing was just the champion's version of amateur porn.

Keepin' It Real

Fake tits should be illegal.

Libertarians will protest, saying a person should have the right to do stupid things to their own body, as long as they're not harming anyone else.  I couldn't agree with them more:  fake tits should be illegal because they ruin real tits for everyone else.

There's no such thing as a perfect pair, because a perfect pair immediately falls under suspicion of being fake.  The better a set of tits, the more tainted they become, and the victims are not just the woman who has them, but society as a whole.

Meanwhile, women with small tits also fall victim, as the inflated size of fake breasts create artificial standards that the small-titted women cannot live up to (unless they themselves want to get breast implants).  Fake tits have created a cold-war escalation, with rivals wasting valuable resources (and taking unnecessary risks) just to keep up with one another.

In this way, fake tits are like steroids in baseball.  Back before PEDs became outlawed, players were under enormous pressure to pump themselves up with these drugs, so they were forced to spend money and take major health risks in order to compete.  As a result, it will be a long time before someone can have a miracle, 62-home run season without clouds of suspicion shading its glory.  This is a tragedy, but at least baseball has moved towards a solution; its time for tits to do the same, and get back on the right rack.

This is the woman who sued Citibank, saying they fired her for being too hot.  She should sue fake-tits for defamation; either that or real tits should sue her for the same.

Smile Like You Mean It

We're finally starting to see the real Kobe Bryant.  People have long said that everything he does is contrived, that he modeled all of his behaviors off Jordan, even down to his fist pumps and his steely-eyed look of determination.  But now, Kobe seems to have learned to drop that facade, because there's no way in hell anyone would consciously do the following in an effort to look cool:

Vicious underbite.  This is what he looks like when he's happy.  He does this after making a huge shot in someone's face.

Intense finger point.  He often does this after a teammate gives him a good pass or finishes off one of his (Kobe's) assists.  Its more like he's accusing them of something than actually celebrating their efforts, but at least he's acknowledging them.

By acting like a mildly-sociopathic weirdo, he's finally learning how to be himself, but he can only act "natural" after making a good play.  For example, last night's brutal hugging of Ron Artest smacked of fakeness.  Artest won the game on a put-back after Kobe air-balled the potential game-winner, then Bryant hugged him for way too long.  A few weeks ago, Pau Gasol made a similar game-winning play off a Kobe miss, and Kobe didn't celebrate at all, instead he acted like he was depressed, and this did not go unnoticed by the media. Perhaps Kobe's handlers told him to show more affection towards his teammates; let's hope no one tells him to start kissing babies.

This became a little unnatural after the first five seconds, then it went on for another minute.

The Better Man

I was riding my bike (a bicycle, not a Harley) alongside Blackhawk Country Club, when a golf ball came out of the sky, and almost hit me in the head (helmet).  Assuming someone must suck at golf, I chuckled a little and rode along.

About a hundred feet later, another ball comes out of nowhere, almost hitting me again, and this time it was a line drive.  I slam on the brakes, look behind me, and a couple hundred feet back, there are three fat, middle-aged fucks standing on the tee.

"WHAT!?  TWO FUCKING TIMES!?  ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?"

One of the guys raises his hand in acknowledgement, not apparently of any wrongdoing, but almost as though he's waving from the prow of a passing boat.  For all I know, this fat-fuck is taking credit, not blame.

"THAT'S ALL!?  THAT'S ALL YOU'RE GONNA GIVE ME!? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING!?"

These douchebags do nothing, which is hard to interpret, but I can definitively say that there's no additional apology.  Still, I feel like I've fulfilled the requirements of manhood, so I start riding away, but not without a few parting shots.

"THE FIRST TIME I CAN LAUGH IT OFF, BUT TWO FUCKING TIMES?  YOU SUCK!"

The tee box is on the left, the green is to the right; the X on the left is the first shot, the X on the right is the second.

I feel pretty good about my performance, like I'd shown myself to be the better man, but that only lasts a couple seconds.  Then I start worrying that I didn't do enough.  It was like when you leave a tip, then pause with your wallet in your hand, and try to decide if you should have left more.  I worry that cussing someone out from 150 feet away is maybe not that manly after all.

I also worry that yelling "You suck!" was a bad idea, because if these are some tough-guys who tried to hit me on purpose, they'd find it hilarious that the dumbass thought it was an accident, and that his idea of a comeback was "you suck".  Meanwhile, if he does suck, and it was accidental, then maybe I'm an asshole (although the dipshit should still owe me an apology).  Which is worse, being a pussy or an asshole?  It's a difficult question, and due to my great fear of looking like a coward, my answer is to stop and stare them down.  Again, this would have been really macho, if they weren't 200 feet away.

These fucking douche-bags are still just standing on the tee; in my mind, they're probably having a laugh.  This makes me even more pissed off, so I decide to escalate things, to get gangster on them.  I wait on the side of road, which is just 20 feet from the fairway, straddling my bicycle.  If they want to act tough, they can come on down.

My strategy is to let one of these assholes hit his next shot, then to steal the ball and ride away as fast as possible.  I wait for a couple minutes, still staring at them, but they're all too scared to leave the tee box.  These fucking pussies have no idea who they just lost to.

Outing Steve Nash

He's been living a lie for too long, its time to out Steve Nash - as a man who's secretly gray.  Not that there's anything wrong with it, after all, it isn't exactly a choice.  But as a gray man myself, what offends me is his hypocrisy and the fact that he's trying to hide it.

He spent so many years cultivating an image as a blue-blooded Canadian male, a masculine man with traditional values, a rugged guy who could care less what his fucking hair looks like; he rode this image to success at the ballot box, winning two MVP awards.  Now all of a sudden, he's fagging it up at the salon, getting dye jobs with Demi Moore.

What's my evidence?  I don't need proof, a gray man can just tell.  But if you look closely in these NBA Cares commercials, his mane is strangely uniform in color, and it seems to be unnaturally stiff, like its been treated with harsh chemicals.  And if you catch him in the right lighting, you'll see little clear Favre-like specks on his chin, which may be signs of greying whiskers. 

Another giveaway is his smarminess, a surefire sign that he's hiding something.

Not Our Favorites

In this huge Slate article, Daniel Engber collates the academic research on why we tend to root for the underdog.  Here are a few additional points he missed.

1.  We cheer for the underdog because we want to see history made, and a big upset usually has more historical significance.  Support for this theory comes from the exceptions to the underdog rule:  sometimes its more historic for the favorite to win, and in those cases, public sentiment tends to shift towards the potential legend.  The main example for this is with Tiger Woods and Roger Federer - if some no-name underdog beats Tiger, it turns a Major event into just another golf tournament.

2.  Engber says "Maybe (the underdog) appeals instead to something deeper—a primal sense of fairness."
The "sense of fairness" seems innacurate, it suggests a meritocracy, which would be the opposite of cheering for the underdog.  Our support isn't merit-based, its need-based, and this is probably an artifact of our evolutionary past, specifically, the nurturing instinct.

During our caveman days, instead of supporting sports teams, we provided for tribe-mates, and if you're gonna help someone out, its not going to be the big, wealthy fuck with the huge power-belly, it's going to be the little guy who might not make it on his own.  There's already a vague consensus that rooting for the hometeam is a surrogate for the tribalism of our primitive past, but when we don't have a tribal preference for either team, we'll pull for the underdogs, in the same way a mother might give more attention to the runt of the litter.

 Sean Astin might be exception to the sympathy hypothesis.

3.  Engber says cheering for the underdog is a "global phenomenon", existing in almost every culture, but seemingly more prevalent in some than others.  There was a study where people were given the choice between a hypothetical sports underdog and a favorite, and the following preferences were found:

• Japan 72% preferred the underdog
• USA 67% preferred the underdog
• China 57% preferred the underdog
• Israel 52% preferred the underdog

Engber says its "not clear" why Israel would rank so low, although he says there's sociological data to suggest that Israelis (including those of lower-status) are unusually accepting of the reigning power structure in their country.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the Israelis interviewed in each case were Israeli citizens, and not members of the oppressed Palestinian minority.  Whether right or wrong, these Israelis may be conditioned to view underdogs as enemies and possibly as terrorists.

 In modern-day Israel, the stone-slinging David is an Arab, not a Jew.

You can counter that by saying that, in the greater context of the Middle East as a whole, the Israelis are the outnumbered and persecuted minority, with enemies on all sides trying to take their property, but isn't that also the way a lot of rich people view their position in society?  Maybe Israel is like Duke's basketball team:  wealthy, ethnically distinct, and held to a higher standard than those around them.

Eff for Effort

Dwight Howard is nearly a perfect physical specimen - a more athletic,7-foot version of Adonis.  His teammate, Vince Carter, was the most explosive athlete to come into the league in the past 20 years, and in his youth, he was the greatest dunker of all time.  Their team, the Orlando Magic, made the finals last year; this year, they had the second best record in the league, and are the only team to have swept through the first round of the Playoffs.   Despite all this, very few consider them a serious threat to win the title; in a way, this is because these two were born with such immense natural gifts.

There was a highly-publicized study a while back about the effects of praise on the performance of children.  The study's results suggested that kids who were praised for their effort came to value hard work and self-improvement, while kids who were praised for intelligence shied away from tasks they weren't good at:  "those told they were intelligent tended to choose assignments they knew they would do well on, while the second group chose tasks they thought they might learn something from."  Vince Carter and Dwight Howard have both been praised to the rafters for their innate physical talents, and thus far, both have shied away from developing the habits needed to win a Championship.

Howard was a number one draft pick straight out of high school, and he's been an awesome rebounder and defender since he came into the league, much of that owing to his size and athleticism, but he's always been an unskilled offensive player and a terrible free throw shooter.  Rather than focus on improving these weaknesses, he seems to have shifted all of his effort to making marginal gains at the things he was already good at:  "despite his continued struggles at the foul line and developing some big-time post moves in his sixth NBA season, he actually improved at the defensive end", NYdailynews.

At least showcasing his defensive prowess helps the team win, unfortunately he also likes to show off his strength and athleticism.  Bill Simmons often talks about how, when Dwight blocks a shot, he tries to block it into the 10th row, which shows people what a dominant athlete he is, but also gives the ball back to the other team.  A smart player, like Bill Russell, tips the ball to himself.  In round one of the playoffs, Dwight kept getting into foul trouble.  Charles Barkley said this was because Dwight's constantly trying to prove he's "the strongest guy in the room"; every time someone grabs Dwight's arm, he feels the need to throw the guy to the ground, like he's some sort of ogre in a cartoon.

 Dwight Howard doing his Superman dunk; Superman received his gifts as an infant.  The other guy who calls himself Superman is Shaq, a great player, but one who never gave anywhere near the effort you'd expect from a player of his caliber.

Here's how Simmons describes Vince Carter in The Book of Basketball:  "Vince got an enormous amount of respect from other players, not for what he delivered but for his gifts themselves.  Of anyone in the league over the past fifteen years, his peers felt like Vince Carter was the one who could do anything.  Well, except give a shit on a consistent basis."   Maybe if he hadn't gotten so much respect for his talent, he'd have more respect for the game.

Contrast these guys with the creation myth of Michael Jordan.  Sure, some people called him Superman too, but Jordan himself never took to the name, because unlike Superman, the Jordan-myth doesn't center around in-born physical gifts - how could it when he was cut from his own high school team.  Michael Jordan has been praised mostly for his competitive fire and his will to continually improve.

The Tyranny of Freedom

In last Saturday's WEC Featherweight Championship fight, Jose Aldo dismantled Urijah Faber almost entirely with leg kicks, methodically administered over the course of five rounds.  These kicks are some of the least exciting moves in Mixed Martial Arts; its just one guy kicking another in the the leg, which is the same move my little brother would use against me when we were kids.  But in the last few months, two UFC-sponsored title fights have been totally dictated by this move.

Shogun Rua picked Lyoto Machida apart using the leg kick, and although he lost a controversial decision, nearly all fight fans thought he dominated the fight, as Machida could barely stand by the end of Round 5.

MMA is a young sport, still in its early-adolescence, so it would be foolish to assume that its reached a strategic equilibrium, where the fighters all have a good understanding of which techniques should predominate.  As strategies evolve, exploitation of the front leg kick might emerge as the new dominant tactic, especially in title fights, where they can wear opponents down over five rounds (as opposed to the typical three rounds used in non-title fights).   Because the kick is so unspectacular, it could make the sport much less entertaining, turning explosive multidisciplinary fights into one-dimensional contests of attrition.

If you were in middle-school, and two kids "fought", but all that happened was one guy kicking the other in the leg, you'd say it "wasn't a real right".  This is probably why fans were booing at the end of Aldo-Faber, even though, tactically speaking, Aldo's performance was masterful.

In the evolution of most sports, a recurring pattern plays out:  a new strategy comes to dominate, its exploitation makes the sport less entertaining, then a new rule is created to weaken the strategy, making the sport fun to watch once again.

In the early 1950s, basketball teams who were ahead would hold the ball, refusing to shoot until they ran out the clock.  In one game, the Pistons beat the Lakers 19-18.  The shot clock was invented 1954 to force teams to actually play.

In hockey, during the early 2000s, teams began to abuse the neutral zone trap, which lowered scoring and fan interest in the sport.  The NHL instituted several rule changes in 2005, and scoring increased from 5.02 goals per game in '03-'04 to 5.53 in '09-'10.

The thing about MMA is that it prides itself on its lack of rules, and sells itself as the purest form of competition; a new rule to address the leg kick would undermine this whole concept.  Without any means to regulate strategy, a sport that's supposed to be an exciting anarchic brawl where "anything-goes" could end up in a tedious equilibrium ruled by a single tactic.

This is much like a state of anarchy, viewed by some as the purest form of society, but where the ultimate equilibrium is inevitably one in which power is aggregated in the hands of a single overlord.  This autocratic asshole, be it a gangster or a monopolistic corporation, ends up controlling everything in the same manner as a government-sanctioned dictator.

Unrealistic Expectations

Every once in a while, Joachim Noah takes the rubberband out of his hair so he can fuss around with his locks and rearrange his ponytail.  It's fucking disgusting.

As with all feelings, one can only speculate as to their real cause, but in this case it seems like what's happening is this:  I'm so used to seeing these primping motions performed by a female that I subconsciously expect him to be a woman.  He's a reasonably good-looking guy, but utterly repulsive as a chick.

 Joachim in his normal context.

Ghost-stache

Have you noticed how many of these NBA players have mustaches?  I hadn't, not for a while anyway.

 Chris Paul and mustache.

These black guys have been growing these things right under their noses, without us even realizing it; they're so subtle and tasteful as to be almost subliminal.

 Carmelo Anthony's mustache is like a woman's eye liner, where the aesthetic effect is greatest when  understated. 

Meanwhile, when a white guy does it, its so obvious and unsightly that he has to make a joke out of it, or he risks making a joke of himself.  The coolest white guy in the world is probably Brad Pitt, a guy who could probably sell his body odor to a mass market, but even he couldn't pull off the mustache. 

At least he can say he grew this thing to play a cartoon character.

I guess you can add this to the list of dancing, dunking, and wearing (non-baseball) hats; these are all things that black guys can do with style, but when a white guy tries, it just looks ridiculous.

I Believe We've Already Met

On this week's episode of Hang Up and Listen, the dudes mention the fact that there's much less fighting in the NHL playoffs than there is during the regular season.  This surprises the dudes in part because, in the playoffs, the refs call fewer penalties, meaning there should be more occasion for the players to self-police/get revenge.

This is what's known as a "teachable moment".

I don't know shit about hockey, but my ignorance has never kept me from piping up, and I've never been punished for popping off, so here's my theory:  the fighting during the regular season is used to send a message, that your team is not to be fucked with; its like shanking a guy on the first day of prison, which establishes your bonafides as a bad-ass, so that the other inmates won't mess with you.  By the time the playoffs roll around, your reputation should already be known, so you shouldn't have to show and prove; further, there are fewer games remaining, so adding to your rep will only pay dividends for a very short while, making it a poor investment.  In a way, fighting in the playoffs is like shanking a guy on the last day of prison, its just not worth it, unless the guy's really got it coming.

SNAFU

During yesterday's Bobcats-Magic game, the Marines Teamwork Play of The Game was when Gerald Wallace accidentally dove into the leg of his teammate Stephen Jackson, causing a hyperextended knee injury.  

What the fuck were they thinking when they chose this play?  After the fact, they seemed to have realized the error of their choice, so they changed it to say that they meant the training staff did the play of the game, what a half-assed cover-up.  Maybe they should call it the Pat Tillman award, but I guess he was an Army Ranger, not a Marine.

Admit You Have a Problem

Bill Simmons keeps talking about how Kevin Garnett has aged a decade in the past two years, and how "The Kid" won't admit it to himself.  Similarly, a lot of people say Michael Jordan tarnished his legacy by coming back; even though he was still good enough to be an All Star, they nonetheless think he was delusional.

The aging athlete who can't call it quits is such a common trope that its become a cliche, but if the guy can still earn a spot on the roster, why should he be forced to retire?  Maybe the problem isn't that the old jock is in denial, maybe its that the public wants to be shielded from the truth that everyone gets old. 
 
These washed-up NBA players should have the option to officially declare themselves old.  They'd go down to the league office and sign a document to register themselves; they wouldn't have to sacrifice any rights or legal standing, but they'd be admitting to the public (and themselves) that they're not the same as they used to be, proving they're not in denial.  By formally letting go of their pride, they could regain some dignity.

This is sort of like the whole celebrity rehab thing, where all they have to do is admit they have a problem, and then everyone forgives them.  Its a really advanced form of apology, where you acknowledge guilt while simultaneously painting yourself as a victim.  You accept the blame, but assign it all to a tiny little part of yourself (known as the addiction).  You then go into hiding for awhile, and when you emerge, you claim that the addiction has been excised, and your public image has magically been rehabilitated. 

 

In Japan, the Yakuza have to actually remove part of their pinky; in the US, taking eight weeks off at a luxury spa is considered an adequate penance.  The important thing, though, is acknowledging the problem.

If the athletes were allowed to formally accept that they have an aging problem, the public (out of the celebrity rehab social convention) would be forced to accept the athlete and therefore their own mortality.  The jocks would serve as positive role models for these middle-aged children, to show them that putting your head under the covers doesn't make the spectre of death disappear.

Ecosystem of Golf

Jim Nantz was on The BS Report, which was surprising because Simmons has been talking a lot of shit about him, making a lot of jokes about the golf announcer's sexual attraction to both Fred Couples and the Augusta National course.  Of course, Simmons himself has a bit of a boner for both Larry Bird and the Boston Red Sox, so these two are kindred spirits; rather than covering their subjects with journalistic indifference, they actually give a shit to an unhealthy degree, much to the amusement of the reading and viewing public.

There are probably worse religions than following the Red Sox.

During the podcast, they brought up the topic of Tiger Woods swearing during last weekend's Masters. After a bad shot off the tee, he said "Tiger Woods, you SUCK! God dammit!"  If you haven't seen it, you should check out the video here, its a revealing glimpse into what a gay nerd this guy really is.

Nantz was not pleased about Tiger desecrating the sacred game of golf, and on The BS Report, he went on a mini-tirade, with some real passion in his voice:  "I just don't need language that to me is unacceptable...and people say 'ah, you guys and golf, you don't get it man, have you ever been to a basketball or a football game?' Well of course I have!...but that's just not part of the decorum of the game (of golf)."

As an outside observer, I'm usually opposed to this type of media Puritanism, but Nantz expresses his indignation with such zeal that I have to give him a free pass.  He has such a vested emotional interest that he has actually become part of the game itself; in a way, he's part of the ecosystem of golf, and a viewer can appreciate both the existence and defilement of the rigid institutions of the game at the same time.

Without uptight people like Nantz, there can be no "you suck, goddammit" controversy.  Without the Augusta country club's racist history, there can be no black-man-who-overcomes narrative.  The traditions are golf's sacred ungulates, and Tiger is the beast that preys on the herd, feeding off it while keeping it from suffocating itself with its own stuffiness; if you don't have both, you can't have a Circle of Life, and we'd all miss out on a niece piece of entertainment.

 Look at Scar, what an aloof asshole, but still, without him there would be no Lion King.

Where you get into trouble is when you have outsiders coming in and interfering with the ecosystem, throwing everything out of balance.  In pioneer days, the white man came in and killed all the the buffalo, taking their hides and leaving the meat to rot; they didn't care about the ecosystem of the plains, they just wanted to make a quick buck.  In the sports world, the outsiders are guys like Skip Bayless, guys who don't actually give a shit, but who pretend to care just so they can get some quick ratings. 

Pile of buffalo skulls, 1870.  This is an Around The Horn level of overkill.

If you're a journalist, you need to either stay neutral and make your observations from a distance, or you need to go native like Simmons and Nantz, where any impact you might have is out of a personal investment in the sport.  Don't be like Bayless and stick your face in, just to advance your own self interest.

Share the Love

The logo invokes a pair of tits - two spherical orbs, between which lies a caring heart.  A savvy marketing strategy...my only criticism is that, by associating the tits with caring, it infantilizes the breast fetish.

Opening Day

It seems like they should change the idiom from "inside baseball" to just "baseball".

Then change the name of the show "Baseball Tonight" to "Baseball?  Not tonight..."

Head Fake

You know how basketball players complain after every call?  Do you think the reflexive lying and self-delusion becomes second nature, carrying over into day-to-day life?

 Ben Roethlisberger's got this move down.

You might say "its part of the game", or "all the other players do it", and that might excuse it in ethical terms, but they're still practiced in the act of dishonesty, and at some point it has to become easier.

If Bart were an adult, he wouldn't have that look of fear, instead it would be the holier-than-thou incredulity of the self-entitled American adult.

We assume that the constant sucking and fucking of a porn starlet somehow degrades her, makes her "easier" off-camera.  What she does is just "part of the show", and "all the other porn sluts do it", so we don't condemn her in moral terms, but we still assume she's going to be changed by it.

We also assume that an MMA fighter is changed by the violence he commits in the ring.  The other combatant has agreed to the fight, so its not like the beatings are evil, but we still assume that that guy is going to be a more brutal person in his day-to-day life.

I'm not trying to say basketball players are bad people.  Lying and self-delusion are the only way that most people can make it through the day, so in a way, being a basketball player might make you a better person.

45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president"  - Harris Poll, March 2010.

 A knowing wink, or an impression of Dick Cheney.