I don't particularly like blogging about politics. I realize that no one really cares what I think, and I sincerely hope that I do not have a chance of convincing any of my readers to change their minds about a given candidate. But I am sick and tired of the Obama supporters calling for Senator Clinton to step down from the Democratic nomination process. Basically, this is another mini-Festivus Airing of Grievances. I have a lot of problems with you people, and you're going to hear them.

This entire process has been a bad joke on the American people. Could it be possible that I am the only person in America who appreciates the irony of the Democratic Party becoming less democratic by the minute in this election? Why is Howard Dean not drawing more criticism for this mockery of a campaign? Andrew Jackson must be rolling over in his grave seeing this farce (he's probably rolling seeing an African-American and a woman running for the highest office in the land, as he was somewhat of a reactionary, even by 1820s standards, but he was a man of his time).

I do admire Dean's slavish adherence to the principles under which this nation was established. The Founding Fathers clearly intended political party appartus which formed after the Constitution separated powers between the branches of the Federal Government and between the Federal Government itself and the several states to trump the authority of a state government to conduct its business in its own way, like say holding elections. Where does the Democratic National Committee get of telling a state like Michigan or Florida that they won't accept the votes of the citizens of those states because the states want to move their primaries? That doesn't strike me as a very democratic thing to do.

As for this election, it's not as though Senator Obama's march to the nomination is a fait accompli at the moment. According to CNN, Obama is leading by 180 delegates with 400 some odd still unpledged. This could shape up to be the first real, honest to goodness, no foolin' interesting political convention of my life (I was born in 1979). More than that, it might actually be relevant for a change.

Not that long ago, I saw a film titled The Best Man. It starred Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson, and it was about the behind the scenes machinations at a political convention where candidates are still vying for the party's nomination. Even though Gore Vidal wrote it, it was quite good. And it got me thinking that there's no real reason (except the fact that both parties are gutless and need to stage manage the fragile buffoons they nominate) conventions can't matter even now.

I imagine that if you were to make a film about the political convention process now, the most dramatic moments would likely come from the candidates' handlers fretting about how to sprinkle their speeches with enough big words and small, complicated words to prevent the American people from realizing that the candidates are all too scared to offend to even think of addressing a real issue. Either that or the drama would come from the hair stylists struggling to find the right blend of feathering and hair product usage to make their candidate appear more presidential, whatever that means.

Back to the real world...

I remember when I was a kid in school, quite a few people told me that I was lucky to live in a free country. I realize now that I am older and, quite frankly, more than a little bit bitter, that most of what I was taught in school boils down to little more than a pack of convenient lies, but the illusion that Americans are free is still out there, or at least it was.

If we want to keep pretending that we live in a free country, then maybe people ought to shut up now and then. What right does any observer have to tell Hillary Clinton that it's time to close up shop? This isn't a match-play golf tournament, and even if it were, she isn't trailing by more delegates than remain unpledged. If being President of the USA is her dream, then she ought to be able to pursue it.

I am reliably informed that Senator Obama's appeal stems from his fresh approach, that his ideas, policies and style aren't that of a typical Beltway insider. That he and his minions bring a renewed spirit of populism and optimism that we haven't seen in many a year. Reading the impassioned appeals asking Senator Clinton to step aside on the part of his supporters remind me a hell of a lot more of business, much more something old and something borrowed than something new. And that makes me something blue.

After all, if the Obama people are so concerned that this nomination process is paving Senator McCain's way to Pennsylvania Avenue, then he could just as easily step down as Senator Clinton. Provided, of course, that the imperative is to put a Democrat back into the Oval Office and not to put one's self there. This strange effort at bullying by whining and imploring smacks too much of the European left for my taste. For the love of God, if you want to push someone around, have the good manners to push them, don't whine at them.

In case you care, I am not endorsing Senator McCain, but I am all set to vote for him. I'm sure that fine distinction will escape the average Red Sox fan. As I understand it, endorsement means I'd be telling you to vote for him, and that's not how I roll. But whatever else you do, and whatever you take from this post, make up your own damn mind.

I am still in shock that the Patriots who managed to survive so many negative stories and stave off a few big upsets in the making this season haven't found a way to reverse the outcome of Super Bowl XLII. I am also in shock that I managed to walk the tightrope between implying that the Giants could actually win the game without harnessing the awesome power of this blog's jinx.

I can't remember the last time I actually called something before hand and had it come to pass. It may never have happened, I just don't feel like going back and looking through my posts to find it, on the off chance that I was ever right. I get the feeling that I was right in picking Dallas to beat Indianapolis in Dallas last year the week before Thanksgiving. And I think I picked the Bears to win against Seattle and New Orleans last year in the playoffs. But since then, it's been a bad, bad, bad run.

Unfortunately, I think that the NFL will be forced to find a way to have this game replayed until the Patriots can find a way to win. If not, then so many of our most respected sports journalists will continue to look even more foolish than they ordinarily do. For instance, Bill Simmons compared these Giants to the 1985 Pats. The podcast is still up on his site at ESPN, in case you don't believe me. If Roger Goodell and the league office allow this to stand, it might bring down the sports media as we know it.

Meanwhile, I got an email on Saturday from the guy I go to for my Red Sox info. He was out in Arizona for the game. And he had his picture taken with Jim McMahon. It seems very funny in retrospect, to have him out there with the QB whose team devastated, humiliated and set the Patriots back ten years with the savage beating the Bears inflicted that day. And all the while, Simmons is out there comparing the Pats opponent to the Pats of yesteryear. Although, I have to say Tom Coughlin is a lot like the evolutionary Ray Berry in the sense that he's kind of a tool.

This retrospect on what it felt like to see the undefeated Patriots fall apart in Arizona has to be my favorite Simmons column of all time now. One thing I'm not entirely sure of, as I talk about this loss with my friends who root for the Patriots, is whose fingerprints are on this spectacularly offensive offensive collapse. It's easy to blame McDaniel, but didn't Belichick promote him because he was an unknown and could serve as a strawman enabling Belichick to have even more control over the team? It seems like the arrogant game plan that seemed to be governed by the premise that all the Pats had to do was show up would bear this out, but then I might just be blinded by my hatred for Belichick.

It wouldn't be a normal day for Sedition in Red Sox Nation if Jay Mariotti hadn't found his own way to taint what should otherwise be as nearly perfect as a moment can be in sports fandom. The notion that the Patriots should be further punished for the report that came out of Saturday's Boston Herald claiming that the Pats cheated by videotaping the Rams pregame walkthrough before the 2002 Super Bowl is absurd. If they did cheat, it was dirty, shameless and beat. But it's also fairly unprofessional to punish a team now for what they did six years ago.

Professional sports aren't the real world. In a sense, it's not that different from punishing baseball players who took performance enhancers that were banned by other sports but not banned by baseball at the time the players took them. The NFL came down hard on the Patriots when they were caught red handed this year. If it happens again, they ought to come down harder on them. But if six years intervene between that incident and when the story came out, then it's St. Louis' tough luck. Maybe they should have had a guy make sure the stadium was empty if they didn't want people checking out their walkthrough.

The one good thing about this whole episode is that it reminded all of us that Arlen Specter is still alive and kicking in the US Senate. But as for this silly little story, I have a pretty solid record for disliking and ripping the Patriots, their coach and their owner. That said, I have no empathy or sympathy for Kurt Warner and the 2001 Rams. They had every chance to beat a team that was markedly inferior on paper. Knowing the Dick Vermeil/Mike Martz offense, I'm sure they had practiced other plays enough over the season that they could have made adjustments.

The real story is that those Rams didn't treat the game as seriously as they ought to have. They came in as a big favorite, having beaten the Pats on the road earlier in the year and playing in a dome against an outdoor team. They were the greatest show on turf and they failed to show up. It's not Roger Goodell's problem. Nor is it the problem of Congress. Taping other teams' signals isn't right, but neither is a retroactive investigation that really can't culminate in an appropriate or effective punishment.

In general, I try to avoid commenting on specific political candidates in this space, mostly because I realize that none of you give a damn what I think about a particular candidate. But I think we need to throw a tool of note award in Mitt Romney's direction. Romeny's campaign came out today and claimed that John McCain and Mike Huckabee made some sort of illicit "backroom" deal to deny Romney the delegates from W Va. To me, it seemed like more than a little sour grapes from Romney. Or perhaps a sense of frustration because he didn't think of it first, if in fact anything untoward was done.

In case you care, in the interest of equal time, Sedition in Red Sox Nation is forced into an anti-McCain stance because he is supported by Curt Schilling. Mike Huckabee is out because he reminds me of the Homer Stokes character from O Brother Where Art Thou. Fred Thompson is out because he was in Die Hard 2. And Rudy was out because he has a bad comb-over, although I defy anyone to show me a good comb-over, and he did a terrible cameo in Anger Management. Kind of funny, isn't it, the thought process through which we here approach the democratic process.