Charles Pierce and Maureen Dowd's terrible, terrible RGIII column

Having run both a sports section and an opinion page in our time, we have always worked very, very hard to ensure that the twain shall never meet, for obvious reasons. But then someone has to do something like call Bryce Harper a conservative hero and everyone passes it around, and we all have a good laugh before we realize that some people might take this pre-digested cheese seriously, which means we have to agonize over whether we should let this maggoty carcass of thought bleed out of its own accord or kill it with a few shotgun blasts of our own rhetoric.

Luckily, Esquire's Charles Pierce took one for the team in writing this takedown of Maureen Dowd's headscratcher of a column comparing Robert Griffin III to Barack Obama because ... well, fill in your own nefarious reason.

We'll let you read the whole thing, but we will just pause here to co-sign Pierce's closing statement, directed at RGIII, with extreme prejudice.

Dude, you're playing football in a town full of crazy people who can ruin almost anything by wedging it into their galloping political neuroses. Try not to let it get to you or, the first chance you get, sign with the Jaguars or someone. And, for the love of god, stay away from this woman.

Amen. Now stop it at once, all of you.