Glenn said he thinks sportswriters have higher standards - let’s take a look at how that might work coming to us from the booth. . .

Don: Hey, it’s another great day for political corruption, with beautiful weather for today’s rip-off of the American taxpayer.

Charlie: It sure is Don, hey. it’s great to have all you folks with us while we sit here and cover the play by play, and for you folks just tuning in, let’s take a look at the rosters for the two teams taking the field this afternoon, Don.

Don: Love to, Charlie. Taking the field first, with a lot of excitement and enthusiasm, is the blue team, led by (shuffles papers). . .well, it’s not really clear who’s running the show for them, but there are quite a few standouts that seem willing to step up to the mike. . .

Charlie: There sure are, Don, but let’s start with a few standouts that really helped set the stage for today’s contest - Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Barack Obama.

Don: Good choices, Charlie - lemme tell ya folks, this young kid Obama, he may seem like he just stepped up from the farm system last Tuesday, but make no mistake about it, the kid’s got game, and he came to play.

Charlie: Absolutely, Don. Obama has worked hard to get to this point, no doubt about it - those years in the trenches pushing for sub-prime opportunities on the South Side of Chicago gave us the feisty little scrapper we’re looking at in the game today -

Don: Not a story a lot of people are familiar with, Charlie, but it really gives you a sense of what this kid’s made of, and exactly where he’s coming from.

Charlie: You can say that again, Don. Speaking of coming from, let’s talk for a minute about your pick from the Big-Dig state - Barney Frank. I tell ya, he is a crowd favorite - even the youngsters seem to like him.

Don: Sure is Charlie, Barney’s been kept in the game by the friendly folks of the Massachusetts 4th District since 1980!

Charlie: They sure must like what they think he’s doing - although it’s likely only a few of them are aware that Barney lived with senior executive from Fannie Mae who likely directly benefitted while Barney was working to create the policy that led to the sub-prime mess, so he is vulnerable to a potential flag for unethical procedure on the play. . .

Don: Which is why, Charlie, all the fans out there need to be glad for the recently available YouTube instant replay rules.

Charlie: Couldn’t agree more, Don, those highlights and bloopers are indispensable. And since you brought up indispensable, who was more indespensable to our third All Star, Senator Chris Dodd, than his friend Angelo at Countrywide?

Don: Glad you pointed that out, Charlie, for Dodd, being a friend of Angelo has made all his hard work pay off, very handsomely, too!

(both laugh)

Charlie: It sure did, Don. But I gotta say, none of these guys would be where they are today without a great support team backing them up - running the distraction plays, like the classic race-card end around, and the timing of those cloture votes - I don’t think any of these guys would be near this level of game without the yoemen Team Blue’s got in the trenches - the work of Pelosi, Reed, Schumer, Durbin, Emmanuel - there’s just too many highlights to pick just one or two.

Don: Great observation Charlie, it really does call for a team effort, which you gotta admit, despite their skill, or perhaps because of their execution of the headless chicken dance play, these guys really do know where they want to move the ball - right over the taxpayer!

Charlie: They sure do, Don. On the other hand, when we consider the whole team, if we turn our attention to team Red, led by the irascible John McCain, with his fireball of a running mate Sarah Palin, well, you begin to wonder if they’ve got the necessary depth to run the plays a lot of the other sportswriters are saying they need to do to win the game.

Don: I was kind of wondering about that one myself, Charlie - not a lot of apparent depth on that team, and a lot of the time, their message comes across as pretty disjointed. It’s amazing they’ve stayed this competitive, as much trouble as Team Blue has given them the past few seasons.

Charlie: Tell ya what, let’s really get into a discussion about that, as we take a closer look at the Red team when we come back from this series of important announcements from our sponsors . . .