Go team go!

Sports analogies in politics are always a shaky proposition. They can alienate voters who aren't sports fans with jargon, and they can also betray the fact that the speaker doesn't know a thing about sports but is trying to speak down to the "everyman." In his concession speech last night, Joe Lieberman somehow managed to do both with one of most strained and awkward sports analogies I've ever heard:

I'’m a sports fan, so I'’m going to use a sports comparison, and as I see it in this campaign, we've just finished the first half and the Lamont team is ahead. But in the second half, our team --— Team Connecticut -- is going to surge forward to victory in November.

Yikes! I like the way he apologizes for the analogy before launching into it by proclaiming himself a sports fan. (Though of which sport isn't clear. It's probably not baseball or hockey. I don't think they have halves in cricket, either. Maybe soccer?) I doubt that leaving the Democratic party and running as an independent is going to be a very effective game plan for your team, Joe, but you're the coach. Perhaps you shouldn't have kissed the president in the preseason.

Update: Imagine my glee when I came home and discovered that toady's Bad Reporter covered the infamous kiss at the State of the Union. Do you think I qualify as an "eagle-eyed liberal blogger?"