What does the designated hitter rule have to do with the mid-terms?

So apparently the World Series between two teams with great pitching and compelling individual stories drew the lowest TV ratings EVER.

The Texas Rangers had never been to the World Series. Their best player is a recovering heroin addict who was out of baseball 4 years ago but has turned his life around, resulting in the curious spectacle of ginger ale showers instead of beer and champagne. Their best pitcher started for last year's champion but was traded to a team that missed the playoffs, then dealt to Texas in mid-season.

The Giants hadn't won a WS since the fifties and came out of the weakest Division in the National League. They've escaped the specter of Barry Bonds, baseball's poster boy for the steroid era. They boast the best closer in baseball, a guy with a fake beard and a flaky attitude.

But nobody watched. Because it's not the Yankees or Red Sox? Because the scores weren't expected to be 11-10? Because there were no prospects of Jose Mesa intentionally beaning players?

It's because of the DH rule and everything it represents; it's America's worst instincts on display. Our insistence on specialization; our creepy TMZ/People magazine voyeurism; and most of all, our absolute intolerance for delayed gratification.

A week later we held mid-term elections. Apparently "centrist" Democrats and all republicans interpret the mid-term defeats as a public groundswell against health care reform. The sad thing is that they're probably right.

Memo to the masses: MOST OF THE BILL HASN'T KICKED IN YET.

I'd like to bet that one year from now you see growing public appreciation for health care reform. In January, older offspring can remain on their parents health care as they get their careers started. Kids won't be left out of your new insurance plan because of a pre-existing condition. And very few people have a health care plan that will be a taxed benefit.

But the (m)asses don't understand that. They didn't get a check in the mail yesterday like the bribe they got from W.; we haven't bombed any developing countries in months, so country-pop singers don't have any fresh jingoistic songs; and the government that didn't respond to Katrina, consigns veterans to charity medical care, and allows mine and food safety to erode to Eastern European levels is too big. A guy can't even send the kids to McDonalds for dinner every night because taxes are too high.

What a freaking joke. We've become a country of cranky three-year-olds overdue for a nap that want everything, and we want it now.