Kids These Days

I went with Young Ezra Klein to the Wizards' unfortunate finale versus Orlando last night. All-too-typically for the rising generation of political bloggers, he's sadly unfamiliar with the NBA. Thus, at one point he queries about the constant jawboning with the officials -- wondering if this ever works, does an official ever say "hey, you're right, I'll change the call?" Obviously, it never happens. But how to explain it? Then it hits me. "You know," I ask him, "how they say conservative media critics are trying to 'work the refs?'" And then he gets it.

Which goes to show that I don't think we have enough basketball metaphors in our political discourse, which is so totally dominanted by football and bseball metaphors that people don't even recognize a hoops reference when it's sitting right there in front of them.