A
single anonymous message sent on the internet has threatened that seven NFL stadiums will be hit with dirty bombs this weekend. Despite the fact there's utterly no intelligence supporting this threat, Homeland Security officials have decided to alert the public "out of an abundance of caution."
I find myself pondering the question of whether the prospect of being irradiated might just perk up the NFL season a bit. I mean, who isn't sick of hearing about T.O., seeing Tuna on ESPN, or watching the spread evaporate in the fourth quarter? If the score is getting lopsided, maybe the crowd could amuse itself in watching the terror alert change from yellow to orange during the third quarter. And, was Jose Padilla a Bears season ticket holder? That might just be the damning evidence DoJ needs to convict him.
There's a touch of seriousness at the bottom of the snark here. The creation of false drama, a sense of a neck and neck race where the good guys just might not win, dead ends that lead to sudden surprises, that combination of pretending to be an underdog while flexing your muscles and smashing your opponents with glee - all that makes for a good football game, and seems to be behind the reasoning of a lot of "terror alerts". (Not even to mention your basic Hollywood action thriller plot. It's OK, Jack is really alive at the end of the second half!)
Every time I read about some whacky plot -- hobos from Miami plotting to blow up the Sears tower, the Liberty/Library tower being crushed under a pile of overdue books, somebody secretly replacing the barbecue sauce at the ranch with airplane glue -- my first reaction these days is, hmmm, the writers up at the DHS office must've gotten a memo from their executive producers to spice up the plot line a little bit because the focus group looks like they might flip the channel.
President Nixon used to send in plays to the Washington Redskins' coach during the game, and it strikes me that if NFL games are now the bleeding edge in the war on terror, we might benefit from President Bush taking a similar interest. We could redeploy our special forces to the Oakland Raiders' front line, set up Comms with Central Command, and simultaneously improve the football and have an instant response team already on the field -- just in case.