The Confluence at Jollybengali.net

There’s been some mild controversy regarding former NSA Advisor Condoleeza Rice’s appointment to the college football playoff selection committee. Some of that is sexist. Some legitimately calls into question her experience and therefore standing to be on the committee. Here’s one I hadn’t considered from SBNation’s weekly Alphabetical column:

Zubaydah. As in Abu Zubaydah, waterboarded 83 times in the month of August 2002 with the consent of the Secretary of State National Security Advisor at the time, Condoleezza Rice.

Here is a non-sexist case to be made against the selection of Condoleezza Rice as a member of the new College Football Playoff committee: she endorsed the use of torture. Note: not “enhanced interrogation techniques,” or “extreme cuddling,” but torture, a practice whose ultimate end is simply more torture.

This is a sport of unpaid labor working under sketchy contracts beneath the auspices of coaches and athletic directors taking an insane chunk of available wages. This is a sport in the throes of denial over a number of health and safety issues, including the idea that your brain might not work properly after even a limited amount of time spent playing it.

But even this filthy marketplace of confidence men and shell non-profits running profitable black market businesses has lines it won’t cross. There are some who will even laugh at you for mentioning the committee candidacy of a rogue’s choice like Barry Switzer, someone who giddily trampled the rules of amateurism during his tenure at Oklahoma. (That feels weak. Switzer ran a monster truck over them, then hit reverse, and then ran them over one more time before pouring gasoline on them while yelling “WORLDSTAAAAARRRRR” and pointing at the camera.)

Those same people will smile and applaud the bold choice of Rice without an ounce of irony, because this sport has so warped their brains that one minute they will side with the rules of the NCAA and the next minute against those of human decency, the Geneva Convention, and every tenet of even the loosest definition of human rights. I hate it when the stink of politics wafts over into college football, but some stenches should follow you wherever you go for the rest of your life, if only to warn others.

In closing: I’d rather have Jackie Sherrill on this committee than Condoleeza Rice. At least Sherrill limited his torture to livestock, and apologized afterwards.

I wasn’t particularly excised about Rice’s inclusion in the CFB playoff committee when I heard about it. I don’t know about her level of knowledge about college football but I’ve always read that she’s bright and I figure she’ll do a diligent job. But if someone objects to her appointment based on the above reasoning, well, I can’t say that I find fault with that.