One could look to the World Cup as a corrollary to the Republican campaign machine of 2006. Republicans, desperate to energize their base, were torn between which fear to exploit, xenophobia of Middle Easterns or xenophobia of Mexicans.

Seeing as how the 9/11 thing is sooooo 2001, they opted to exploit people's fear of Mexicans. This battle took to the soccer fields yesterday, in an evil on evil matchup between Mexico and Iran. This base voter excitement fest ultimately ended with Mexico prevailing, just as we saw with last week's Republican convention.

Mexico now advances to play the gays to decide who will get beat up on the most this summer.

(By the way, I think this is the first time we've linked to ESPN. Look at us, all butch and shit!)