Daily Kos Week in Review: Offensive Line at the Super Bowl

We watch the Super Bowl for many reasons, one being that it gives us a break from political strife. One Kossack football fan, however, complained this week that politics -- specifically, recurring promotion of American militarism -- diminishes his enjoyment of the big game. 
 
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

tvdude: Super Bowl Sunday mixes football, imperialism

...I don't feel comfortable with the militaristic theme of the national anthem, usually accompanied by some military fly-over...

I feel uncomfortable becasue I know I'm being used...Corporate America takes advantage of its captive audience to expose us to a day-long worship of all things material...and military...There are always remotes from different military bases around the world ( and being American, we have them all over the world).  The usual narrative is: we salute our military men and women for keeping us safe...

Again, don't get my wrong, I support our military, if not the wars, but I think they are being used as well...

ProgressiveLiberal: Our long national Tea Party nightmare is ending

...When an ant mound is poisoned and the queen dies there are still worker ants running around. However for all practical purposes, the mound is dead. That is the current state of the Tea Party.

The con artists that used the fear and ignorance of the Tea Party following minions to make millions of dollars on books, shows, conventions, and rallies are scrambling for the next issues ripe for exploitation...

As the American population has begun to awaken to the misinformation and outright lies of the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, the voices that were too timid or cowardly to speak out will now not shut up. It is like an awakening out of the McCarthy era...

Captain Frogbert: You don't need a weatherman to know conservatives suck 
 
OK, so here in the Northeast, today, we’re going to have a snow and ice storm...
 
...[People] are afraid. Afraid of being stuck, stranded in another blackout, another unplowed nightmare, another failure of our society to do its most basic job and keep us safe and secure.

And that’s why this is conservatism’s fault...

...[D]ue to the right-wing destruction of our tax system, we are simply out of money as a nation and as individual towns and cities...

But there is a second way conservatism has hurt America: Hatred and Mistrust. Through their irrational and overwhelming hatred of their own government, the right has made America fearful of its own ability to achieve anything...

...Back in the 70s we had huge amounts of snow and yet we still went to school, still got to school because the nation worked...

Now, thanks to 40 years of Republican assault and destruction...[w]e can no longer count on our society to achieve even its most basic functions...

This all-out attack on America was perpetrated by a dedicated coalition of terrorists...

vickijean: Here, right-wing kitty-kitty

Republicans are house cats. They crouch behind the shower curtain all stealthy. But their tail is showing. We know they are up to something...Used to be [Republicans] could say all kinds of crazy things in private to their supporters and it was their little secret. Then along came the Fox News Network...Fox, more than any other source, has exposed the tail of the cat behind the shower curtain. Because they only listen to themselves they feel free to shout to the rooftops things that were once only whispered. In their self-satisfied way they believe that when the “truth” goes out hearts and minds change. The reality is that the more the public hears from the right the crazier they sound...

danisat: Obama, honorary president of the EU

...They do so like Obama in Europe. He seems to understand what America's relationship should be with other countries in the world...[Europeans wonder how] could only 51 per cent of Americans have voted for Obama when he should have a much higher number?  The real question they want to ask, but would not openly say, is: What is wrong with nearly half of all American voters?

Europeans followed the primaries closely and were stunned with the eight people that the Republican Party put forward for President.  How could America have actually considered those nutcases?  Then, when it came down to Mitt Romney and his foreign bank accounts, his unwillingness to produce tax returns, and his accusation that 47 per cent of Americans were lazy parasites, only an idiot would have voted for him...