The Problem with Oxford

Chris Rose has another great column into today's T-P about the lingering resentment most of us feel about being from the sites of the 2008 Presidential Debates.

At the time locations were announced, New Orleans was told it didn't have the capability to handle such an event. Obviously, that's nonsense. In the past 5 weeks alone, we've successfully managed the New Orleans Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, and the BCS National Championship Game.

Evidently, though, tiny Oxford, MS, home of Ole Miss, is more than prepared to handle the deluge of candidates, campaign staff, security, media and interested bystanders.

Riiiight.

So...I call shenanigans. So does Chris Rose.

The whole thing strikes me as pretty creepy. And it just goes to show that Oxford is going to be flat out dysfunctional for the debate weekend, whereas New Orleans could easily host a couple of large conventions, a Hornets game and a monster truck show at the Superdome that same weekend with no trouble at all.

360 that, Mr. Anderson Cooper!

I mean, if you watch a football game on TV (or the VISA ads during time-outs) it's plain as day that New Orleans is on the mend, up and running, open for business and able to handle events of enormous magnitude. Still, somehow, nearly one-third of respondents to a national poll admitted that they thought most of New Orleans was still underwater.

Now, where could they have gotten that impression? Could it be from, let's see ... the Commission on Presidential Debates?

I don't have an answer for that. I cannot access that information. I'm just gonna watch the whole thing on TV. From a distance.