Ivan Maisel's not a Ranger

You may or may not remember that President Bush's major fundraisers were called Rangers. It is pretty clear that ESPN's Ivan Maisel is not one of them.

Maisel recently posted an article discussing the ongoing Arkansas coaching fiasco. This fiasco, which has led to the a series of amusing posts over at EDSBS, includes the cell phone records of Arkansas coach Houston Nutt being FOIA'd. These records showed a number of calls to a female television reporter, and insinuations were made that Nutt was committing adultery, which is all a setup for this beauty from Maisel:

Nutt's detractors have put him in the impossible position of proving a negative -- he must have cheated on his wife because there is no proof that he did not.

It is a maneuver borrowed from national politics, Rovian in style and execution. Karl Rove, the chief political advisor to President George W. Bush, made his career on attacking an opponent's strength. In the 2004 presidential election, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth eviscerated Sen. John Kerry's stature as a war hero. Kerry's candidacy never recovered.

Rove had no visible affiliation with the Swift Boat Veterans, except that a tactic he made famous benefited his candidate.

Given that the Nutt situation is in Arkansas and involves a charge of adultery I might have made a different presidential reference, but that's just me.