Be a sport Tom Brooker News-Chronicle What a wonderful week this has been for sports fans. Packers training camp was in full swing. The world's greatest golfers trekked to Whistling Straits. Politics entered a furious medal round - namely those of John Kerry. Who could ask for more? Well, someone can. Namely ... Carl S. of Green Bay takes us to the launchpad of Western Civilization, Athens: "I see they've added a whole bunch of new 'sports'to this go-round of the Olympics. Why can't they focus on the true athletic events, namely the track and field contests? What's with all these goofy, so-called sports? Aquatic polo? Give me a break." Answer: I couldn't disagree with you more, Carl. I know purists like you want to limit Olympic competition to the tried-and-true categories, like Greco-Roman wrestling. But, come on. Get real. Ever since they allowed professional basketball players to compete, they opened the door to every pro. And why not? Why not see the best there is? Who cares about some sawed-off Europeans grabbing each other's legs and wedging their opponents with their heads, putting them in places where human heads were never intended to go? Give me the Undertaker delivering a swift powerbomb to Booker T's gut in a smackdown. Show me Rene Dupree doing his French Tickler Dance over the out-cold bod of Randy Orton. Throw John Cena in there and have him use his devastating Five-Knuckle-Shuffle fistdrop on the cranium of the Dynamite Kid after the Kid's just done a split-leg moonsault to counteract a deftly applied corkscrew legdrop. Watch Rod Van Dam monkey flip out of a head scissors and then execute a back suplex, chucking Triple H over the ropes, out of the ring, onto the judges'table and into the stands where they both start denting folding chairs over each other's knob. Whoah! Now THAT is sport, Carl, and you gotta believe the world is just dying to see it as another wonderful export from America the Beautiful. June M. of Fish Creek has, I think, a very poignant question: "I don't understand why an election for the most powerful person in the world has to be so soiled by these political ads that properly belong in the gutter where they came from rather than on TV. I think President Bush and Sen. Kerry are both dedicated people who truly want to do good for their country, truly want to be high-minded public servants. Why has the presidential campaign become one of the worst displays of mudslinging I've ever seen? I really yearn for the 'good old days'when things were much more wholesome." Answer: Oh, June ... be careful what you wish for. Your "good old days" of campaigning make the mudbath that's going on today look like a tent revival. I encourage you to pick up a new book by Johnson & Johnson (no relation to the baby-oil guys in Racine) titled, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the White House." It's a real education. Here are some of the barbs thrown at earlier presidents: Teddy Roosevelt was "as sweet a gentleman as ever scuttled a ship or cut a throat." Andrew Jackson was "a barbarian and a savage who can scarcely spell his own name." Grover Cleveland was "a course debauchee who would bring his harlots with him to Washington and hire lodgings for them convenient to the White House." Andrew Johnson was "dirty as cart-wheel grease." William Harrison, who died in office after one year as president, made William Cullen Bryant regret his death "only because he did not live long enough to prove his incapacity for the office." U.S. Grant said James Garfield was "not possessed of the backbone of an angle-worm," while one of Grant's generals said Grant's election gave Americans a chance to "see if there is any difference between a drunken tailor (Andrew Johnson) and a drunken tanner (Grant)." Clarence Darrow said Calvin Coolidge was "the greatest man ever to come out of Plymouth Notch, Vermont," while Brigham Young paid his respects to Zachary Taylor's passing with this fond pronouncement: "Dead and in hell, and I'm glad of it." Woodrow Wilson said Chester Arthur was "a nonentity with side whiskers," and France's premier Georges Clemenceau said Wilson "talked like Jesus Christ but acted like Lloyd George." Abraham Lincoln was a "low-bred obscene clown;" George Washington was "the man who is the source of all the misfortunes of our country;" Franklin Roosevelt thought the government was "a milk cow with 125 million teats" and Thomas Jefferson was described by Alexander Hamilton as "a contemptible hypocrite" with "pretensions to character." Ah, yes, June - those were the days. I'm Tom Brooker, and I approve this column. Brooker is a recovering writer and editor of The Green Bay News-Chronicle. You can ask him anything through e-mail ([email protected]), or write to him at P.O. Box 2467, Green Bay, 54306.