Supporting BCS is cool if only to foil pandering pols

I am a voter in the Associated Press college football poll. It's not something I'm necessarily proud of -- like a guy with one arm who lost the other while juggling chainsaws, I get what I deserve.

But in exchange for being called an idiot by strangers because I vote Tulsa 25th instead of 24th, I get to see the idiocy of others, which is its own reward.

Registered voters from Utah will appreciate their politicians' efforts. The rest of the nation? Not so much. (US Presswire)

Example: I have received (as this is written) 277 e-mails from Utah fans and other provocateurs urging me to vote the Utes No. 1 in the final ballot Thursday evening. The reasons range from "They never lost" to "They beat Alabama" to "A vote for Utah is a vote against the system" to "Do it for the hell of it."

Well, I'll just say I'm considering it, so you can stop mauling my corneas, you hyper-polite loons.

But they're not the idiots, at least not for the most part. But we found some and, best of all, they are elected officials.

We already excoriated a couple of nitwits from Texas who jumped into the fray after Texas got hosed by the voter-computers in favor of Oklahoma, but now Utah's best public servants are feverishly involving themselves in the degradation of grandstanding.

Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah recently wrote President-Elect Barack (Bear) Obama a letter concerning the possibility of the BCS violating antitrust laws, and the state's attorney general, Mark Shurtleff, is allegedly in the process of reviewing the BCS to see if it operates in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Government officials fighting the good fight on a subject that affects only people who could vote for them or contribute to their future political aspirations ... perfect.

The unprincipled creepy swine.

Yeah, you, Matheson, and you, Shurtleff, and you Joe Barton, too. You, who wouldn't have given a forty-third of a damn if your team had benefited from the BCS, or if you'd come from North Dakota or Maine. You grandstanding brutes.

If you came from North Dakota or Maine, you slobs, we could get behind your play because we know you wouldn't be operating from a position of shameless self-interest. If you represented Alaska or Montana or Vermont, we would give your proposal the thorough and mostly supportive eye and ear it might deserve.

But no, you guys are pot-committed panderers, and nothing more. You're not trying to advance society, you're trying to help yourselves. As a result, what you have to say means nothing, has no value, and should be ignored -- while all the while you are humiliated in public as the unbearable attention whores you are.

You know who we'll listen to about federal intervention in the BCS? Mike Castle of Delaware. You know who else? Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota. And you know who after that? Paul Hodes of New Hampshire, Chellie Pingree of Maine and Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota. Also Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire, Peter Welch of Vermont, Dennis Rehberg of Montana and Don Young of Alaska.

And you know who we really want to hear on this issue? Madeleine Bordallo of Guam, and Donna Christian-Christensen of the Virgin Islands, and Eni F.H. Faleomavaega of American Samoa, and Gregorio Sablan, Northern Mariana Islands, and Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia. They have no horses in this race, none, and therefore don't sound like Rod Blagojevich wearing a beer hat and no shirt.

You other guys, you got nothing for us. Belt up and go away, and try to do something you were actually elected to do. If someone asks you about the BCS, say you'll have to refer them to a staffer. If you're asked about your favorite team, pick a high school in your district. Hell, pick all of the high schools in your district. A little pandering, we can get behind.

But this? Even by modern political standards, this is enough to make you hurl in the window box.

So here's a vote for the BCS, based solely on the voices of the opportunists trying to score a cheap point by coming out against it. When they can either prove purity of motive, or get Chellie Pingree or Stephanie Sandlin to lead the fight, then we'll listen. Until then, here's a vote not only for the BCS, but for shutting the hell up. If we need their help, we'll ask someone else first.

Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.