Things have gotten a bit tangled on the old electric television set these days. All sorts of strange critters seem to be wandering around inside the cathode's glass. Chris Matthews' political libido, for example. Last time I saw it, it was sitting in the Prospect Buffet, staring down at a spot between its hands, the second beer of the morning going flat in front of it, and mumbling, "All politics is ... " over and over again.
It lost its way badly during the decade in which Bill Clinton's actual libido had driven it crazy, forcing to look deep inside at the old Irish aunt residing therein. It fled Washington, finding a career stitching ladies' gloves like the spinster sisters in Brian Friel's play. It turned to drink and there it was in the buff-ette, as the Red Line buskers call it. But, lo and behold, it found new life and purpose this month -- muscular and potent, clear of eye and steady of hand, working out on some of the poolroom liars among the veterans, and on Michelle Malkin, who is a poor banished victim of history in that history keeps rising up and batting one of her four and a half ideas back onto her head.
(We pause here briefly to lend a helping hand to various television producers and the people who book guests for them. There was a reason why, back in the day, if you were a guy who juggled plates on really tall sticks, and all the plates fell off and buried Robert Goulet backstage, you never got invited back on The Ed Sullivan Show, OK? Watch the tape of Malkin on Hardball. Be honest. This is a woman whose plates fell off the sticks a long time ago. Thank you. We now continue with our regularly scheduled column.)
At the same time, of course, the Olympics were hopping, and spinning, and pommel horsing on all of the usual pundit pop-stands. There was boxing on CNBC, and wouldn't that liven up all those investment infomercials that usually run there? (My money's on Sugar Ray Bartiromo.) There was equestrian competition on MSNBC, on which can usually be found only 50 percent of a horse, especially at 10 weeknights, as well as beach volleyball, which has as much to do with the original Olympic Games as Jenna Jameson does with Aphrodite. But we digress.
The loving umbrella of NBC draped itself over the whole production like a great American comforter, and there wasn't a whole lot of toxicity from the announcers, although Tom Hammond really has to get over himself as regards the celebratory nature of track stars, and Al Trautwig is going to be awfully distraught the first time he watches the tape and realizes he was only broadcasting gymnastics, and not adding a few staves to The Iliad ("Sing to me, o Poet, of corn-fed pixies!").
However, it was amid Trautwig's earnest paeans to the luck, pluck, and rotations per minute of our guys and gals that I noticed something that might come in handy generally as we all stagger onward to November. A South Korean gymnast named Yang Tae Young was the victim of a scoring error that also helped hand the individual all-around gold medal to American gymnast Paul Hamm. This was treated as a kind of that's-the-way-it-goes by the broadcast crew. (And, yes, you are correct in your imaginings as to what would have happened has it been the American kid who was on the business end of this bungling.)
Yang ran afoul of something called the "start value" of one of his routines, which apparently is the assessment of the judges as to how hard the routine is to perform. The eventual score is calculated down from the start value. Due to an error by those mysterious folks in blazers who sit there like the politburo used to sit, Yang was given a start value that was too low. Great huffing and blowing ensued, and Trautwig -- who assuredly has a job at FOX whenever he needs it -- made sure to give the Korean an I-told-ya-so kick two nights later when Yang screwed up in the high-bar competition
Anyway, I like the start value. I think it's an interesting, charmingly egalitarian concept. For example, let's say you want to stay president of the United States. For most of the first 40 years of your life, you're a conspicuous ne'er-do-well, even in a family notable for them. (Hi, Neil! Back in the attic now. Be quick about it.) You are backed in several business ventures, all of which crater, but out of which you are helped from the wreckage by many of the people who were your stake horses to begin with. You do well selling your percentage of a baseball team to one of your family's best friends. You become governor of Texas and then, despite receiving half a million votes less than the other guy, you become president of the United States after nearly a decade of relative peace and prosperity.
For a year or so, you serve no apparent function in the office. However, a really bad thing happens, and the country and the world rally to your cause. Over the next three years, you squander almost all of that goodwill. A war into which you had to euchre the nation goes terribly bad. The economy remains narcoleptic. And then it's time to run for president again. You don't exactly stick the landing, but you throw your arms in the air and give the judges your best and biggest smile. But you know you have trouble.
Why?
Start values.
Start value on the life was only a 9.315. All that money. All that influence. Not a very complicated routine at all.
Start value on the business career was only about a 9.175. There's no such thing as a high-risk maneuver if you're not going to be allowed to fail.
Start value on the political career was a little higher, 9.58, but only because you never showed you wanted to do the routine at all. Still, though, low risk. You blew the landing in 2000, but the other guy did worse.
Start value on the presidency, well, here's where it gets tricky. The original one -- based on that decade of peace and prosperity -- was about a 9.0. Then the really bad thing happened, and the judges ratcheted it up to a 9.7, which came down gradually as almost everyone got behind you, and the judges adjusted it again to a 9.5. But the routine came apart in midair, and there's some ungainly flailing right now as the routine reaches its most critical elements, next week in New York, where an awful lot of people are going to wonder when in the hell all the plates fell off the sticks.
Charles P. Pierce is a staff writer for The Boston Globe Magazine and a contributing writer for Esquire. He also appears regularly on National Public Radio.
