Two elaborate spectacles are taking place in different worlds this week — sports and politics — but they're more alike than you might think.
Dan Snyder, the Washington football team owner who, as a minority himself, should know better, has launched a ridiculous "foundation" to support Native Americans so that he can weasel out of changing his club's ethnic slur of a name. Two problems: Not only does the "foundation" do nothing to correct the outrage of a moniker that many news organizations now refuse to use, but Snyder's managed to hire a crook to run it.
Meanwhile, up the road a piece in New Jersey, Chris Christie — desperate to reboot before he gets on a plane to go kiss Sheldon Adelson's ring — is touting an exculpatory "investigation" into the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge. Again, two problems: The "investigators" (i.e., Christie's legal team) didn't talk to any of the principal players in the scandal, and they succeeded in making Bridget Kelly, Bill Stepian and, we presume, David Wildstein very very mad.
Will either of these transparently self-serving campaigns work? Maybe with the folks who populate the insular realms that Snyder and Christie live in: the moneybags and minions, corporate sponsors, credulous reporters, Bill Kristol and FOX "News." But with everyone else? We don't think so.
Nevertheless, the shows go on. Depending on whom they're amusing or enraging, we can debate whether they're comedy or drama. But each one, in its own way, is surely a farce.
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