And at Some Point, Won’t the Networks Just Go Ahead and Replace the President?

The NFL announced that it will be instituting a 10-second tape delay for the network broadcast of its Opening Kickoff 2005, the concert-event-multisponsor-clusterfuck slated to be broadcast this year from Giants stadium. Among the performers will be Green Day, which casitgates President Bush’s “redneck agenda” on American Idiot; the Rolling Stones, which calls our leader “a crock of shit” on A Bigger Bang; and Kanye West, who questions the sincerity of Bush’s compassionate conservatism for the other-than-white complexioned. The West and Rolling Stones performances will be taped, in any event, so what this appears to boil down to is that the leaders of America’s most proudly macho sports pastime are afraid of what Billie Joe Armstrong might say. This leaves us wondering a couple of things. Aren’t the Dixie Chicks and Janet Jackson now owed a big apology from some girly-man or other? And which is now more officially dead: Punk rock or pro football? — HOLLY MARTINS

NFL Ready to Kick Off Political Statements [USA Today]