Now George Dubya done gone and pissed off a whole new constituency: soccer players (and, of course, their moms). Today's Los Angeles Times takes issue with something the president told Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper for its Sunday editions. "As a boy, I never even saw a soccer ball," the president said. "Where I'm from, soccer wasn't played. The sport just didn't exist." Writer Grahame Jones don't buy it:
"As for his Texas upbringing, Bush most surely during his climb up the political ladder must have run into Lamar Hunt, whose Dallas Tornado played in the NASL from 1967 to 1981 and whose FC Dallas (nee Dallas Burn) has played in Major League Soccer since the league was founded in 1996. And Bush did live in Houston, where the NASL's Houston Hurricane played from 1978 to 1980 and where MLS' Houston Dynamo now plays. Then there is the Dallas Cup, one of the world's top youth tournaments. It has been in existence since 1980 and has drawn teams to Texas each year from almost 100 countries."
Makes that whole Michael Hayden thing seem so minor by comparison. --Robert Wilonsky
