the beginning of the end...

pretty sure that a.i. and this guy are going to get along great



We do not make this stuff up (well, most of the time anyway). We could not make this stuff up. Tell me the New York Philharmonic has hired Snoop Dogg as its new creative director, and I might believe it. Tell me Paris Hilton was just inducted into Mensa. Tell me Neil Diamond is doing a new CD duet with Lil' Kim. But this one is just too strange to comprehend. In case you missed it, the National Basketball Association - arguably the edgiest, most urban, hip and totally un-red-state-like sport on the planet - has just hired a former Republican strategist as the front man for an image alteration.

According to Bloomberg news service, NBA commissioner David Stern has hired Republican media manipulator Mathew Dowd to "help repair (the league's) reputation among both fans and (business) partners." On the surface, this makes a lot of sense to hire one of the top image makers in the world to take on the daunting task of the NBA's make-over. But Dowd's last gig was with his more famous election campaign strategist partner, Karl Rove, when the pair helped create the media plan of attack for President Bush's successful re-election campaign in 2004.

As a blue-state kind of guy living in a red-state kind of world, I can clearly understand the "stranger in a strange land" journey Dowd is about to undertake. And oh, how the mind dances with curiosity at the prospect of what sort of plans a guy like this has in mind for attracting his Barry Manilow crowd to the tattooed, hip-hop festival that is pro basketball.