Who are the adults in this mess?

If Congressman Joe Wilson's ill-tempered and badly-timed rant last night did nothing else, it reinforced the idea that this country is headed over a cliff, driven by partisans by both sides of the aisle.

Wilson, who scrambled to apologize and save face, has drawn predictable scorn and outrage from Democrats and Republicans. But really now, people: How was his conduct last night any different than what we hear on a daily basis around this country?

From talk shows to cable news programs to town hall meetings, the concepts of civility, respect and tolerance have gone right out the window. No sooner had Wilson tried to extract his foot from his mouth than Congressman Barney Frank was going from show to show insulting the intelligence of Republicans. And on and on it goes.

The result? Our system of government is dragged through the mud, and no one seems capable or willing to turn off the garden hose and to end the supply of water that causes the mud in the first place.

We've become far more interested in taking score and pointing fingers than getting things done.

At this point, it really doesn't much matter who started the food fight that marks what passes for political discourse in the U.S. The questioning of Reagan's understanding of government became the attacks on Clinton's character, which gave way to hits on George W. Bush's intelligence, which bring us to where we are today, with a significant number of Americans openly challenging the authority of Obama to lead.

And the way things stand, whomever follows Obama, whether it's in 2013 or 2017, will take control of the government with a substantial bloc of Americans mocking his or her legitimacy as a leader.

My fear is that it will take the occurrence of something cataclysmic (and you can figure out what that is) before people on both sides realize they've gone too far.

The question is what person(s) command enough respect from liberals and conservatives to lead the nation through a dialogue where all of our significant differences are laid out on the table and hashed out, so that at the end, we can agree to disagree without going at each other's throats.

We desperately need some adults in the room before the kids throw so much food that the mess can't be cleaned up.

Usually, the drugs are better when you suffer a blackout

Here's the script for this week's "Sports at Large," which, as always, airs live each Monday at 5:30 p.m. on WYPR, 88.1 FM in Baltimore. If you live outside the state of Maryland, you can catch the streaming broadcast of the show at WYPR.org.

By this time next week, the first week of the NFL season will be nearly complete.

By then, you'll probably have had your fill of those warm and fuzzy public service spots in which football players wander through the community, roughhousing with kids, all to remind us how much the NFL family gives to your family.

That family portrait gets marred when you peek inside the cameras to see what's really on the negative.

As the Sports Business Daily reported last week, as many as 12 of the 32 NFL teams are facing the prospect that some of their home games this season will not be televised.

That's because those teams may not be able to sell those games out in time to lift the league's television blackout.

Jim Steeg, the chief operating officer of the San Diego Chargers told USA Today that blackouts are likely there this season. Miami, Oakland and St. Louis may also see blackouts this year, while Cleveland and Kansas City have yet to sellout all their games for the coming season.

The issue is most acute in Detroit and Jacksonville, where a combination of the deep recession and bad play on the field may keep the fans away from the stadiums in droves.

The Lions, who lost all 16 games last year, may need divine intervention to beat last year's mark of five blackouts, while in Jacksonville, all eight Jaguars home games might be kept off local television.

Now, here's where that generosity of the NFL spirit should kick in. The league has for more than 30 years had a hard and fast rule that unless a game is sold out 72 hours before kickoff, it will not be shown on local television.

With thousands of fans not currently having the means to pay for pricey football seats, the NFL could relax the blackout rule in a variety of ways.

They could cut the deadline for sellout down to 48 or 24 hours. They could cut the percentage of tickets sold needed to waive the blackout to 75 or 80 percent, rather than a full 100.

Better yet, the league should have scrapped the entire blackout policy years ago. The NFL is the only sports organization, college or professional, that puts this kind of stipulation on when and how its fans can see games.

Imagine the goodwill the league would engender if Commissioner Roger Goodell said the blackout policy would go away for a year, if not for good?

Instead, a league spokesman told the Sports Business Daily that there is no consideration being given to changing blackout policy, that keeping the blackout is quote important to supporting the ability of the clubs to sell tickets and keeping our games attractive as television programming with large crowds unquote.

And that, my friends, is the real NFL family portrait. It may look like the Waltons are posing for the shot, but when the picture's developed, you find you're really looking at the Corleones.