Miller, Harpoon and Bettman - do they come any dumber?

Four years ago a shining star, now an object of derision, David Miller need look no further than the Support Our Troops decal debacle at Toronto City Hall to understand why he will be a two-term mayor and no more.

In a breath-taking display of crass politics and weasel words that only Olivia and Jack could outdo, Miller turned 180 degrees in less than 24 hours from a determined decision to strip away the Support Our Troops decals from fire trucks and other city vehicles, to being the leader of the pack determined to maintain and sustain the decals. Shame on him and shame shame shame that it took an overloaded switchboard at city hall to get him to do the right thing. Deft David has become Daft David, a mayor without a vision, a mayor without an answer, and a mayor without support.

But Hark, there is Harpoon in Ottawa, who almost makes Miller look rational. The hair sprayed puppet preemie, controlled by Sandra Buckler (his erstwhile communications advisor who's digging his grave wide and deep), has decided that the Tories will sponsor a car competing on the NASCAR circuit.

I am not making this up. No one could make this up, except der Harpoon.

The "Green" Prime Minister is enthusiastically paying $20,000 a race to get the Tory logo pasted on a car that gets about 3 miles per gallon of gas, assaults the ear drums and fouls the air as it runs around in circles on race day. I know that's a good fit since the car is mimicking its Tory master, but don't you think this is all a tad too bizarre? The Tories have no money to help amateur athletes get proper funding leading to the Vancouver Olympics but they have money to slap a logo on a gas guzzling, smoke belching, tarted up race car? Miller, you don't deserve salvation like this but hair brained scheme of the week goes not to Miller but to Harpoon.

And finally Gary Bettman. The pathetic little puffed up twit who is the lead staff member of the NHL (they're called commissioners in professional leagues, but Bettman can only dream of reaching that strata), has decided to play hard ball with Jim Balsillie, the multi multi millionaire founder of the ubiquitous BlackBerry.

A press conference in New York yesterday was attended by one Canadian TV camera and three Canadian reporters. No crap - that's all they got covering an owner's meeting in New York. Big time Gary, standing on tippy toes to see over the podium, tried playing tough about Balsillie. When the small gaggle of press guys stopped laughing, the little staff member tried to pretend the sale of the Predators to Balsillie might take months to get to the front of the agenda.

The pouting, petulant little poofster of puckdom, in a fit of pique, is refusing to deal with Balsillie's offer to buy the Predators, who are losing money faster than Bettman is losing credibility. Balsillie, who didn't get rich by thinking like Bettman, knows the Predators have no future in Nashville and he has already had more people sign up in Hamilton for season tickets than they've sold in Nashville.

Hamilton makes sense - it wants hockey, it would support hockey, and the rivalry between Toronto and Hamilton and Ottawa and Buffalo and Detroit is exactly the kind of competition that makes marketers drool and fans empty their wallets. But Bettman doesn't want Canadian growth, he wants to grow up to be a big boy and play in the US of A. Trouble is, he has no clue how to market the game and no clue how to play with the big boys.

Well, let's hope if he keeps jacking around like this that the current owner of the Predators sues the ass off the NHL for every penny he loses by Bettman's posturing. And if Balsillie walks, as he is quite capable of doing, let's hope that he also sues the NHL.

Balsillie is exactly what the NHL needs. Now who will be the last to know - Bettman or the owners? Hmmmmm, not an easy question to answer.