Sorry, Wall Street Journal

It turns out the estate tax isn't quite the villian it's made out to be in the Steelers' ownership dispute:

On the surface, the estate tax seems daunting -- 45 percent on all estates above $2 million in value. With the Rooneys' 80 percent share of the franchise being valued at $800 million or more on the open market, that would seem to make the family liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in tax liabilities.

In reality, though, few estates pay the full estate tax rate, and there is almost no evidence that any family-owned enterprises have had to dissolve or sell out because of the federal tax, said Ben Harris, a senior research associate at the Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C., a joint operation of the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute.

The tax center estimates that 17,500 estates will pay about $23 billion in federal estate taxes this year, for an average payment of just $1.3 million. Even the wealthiest estates -- those worth more than $20 million -- will pay an average tax rate of about 22 percent, less than half the official rate, the center estimates.

"The destruction of family businesses is often used as a motivation for repealing the estate tax, but there is very little proof that many family businesses are devastated by the tax," said Samuel Donaldson, a law professor at the University of Washington and a nationally known expert on estate tax matters.

"There are very few ways to get around the tax entirely," he added, "but there are any number of ways to reduce the tax." (link)

"Wait -- which football team plays here?"

John McCain told Jon Delano that the Pittsburgh Steelers helped him endure torture at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors:

"When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the physical pressures that were on me, I named the starting lineup -- defensive line -- of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron-mates!"

There's just one problem with that story:

...the Steelers aren't the team whose defensive line McCain named for his Vietnamese tormentors. The Green Bay Packers are. At least according to every previous time McCain has told this story. And the McCain campaign just told ABC News that the senator made a mistake -- it was, indeed, the Packers.

In McCain's best-selling 1999 memoir “Faith of My Fathers,” McCain writes:

“Once my condition had stabilized, my interrogators resumed their work. Demands for military information were accompanied by threats to terminate my medical treatment if I did not cooperate. Eventually, I gave them my ship’s name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant. Pressed for more useful information, I gave the names of the Green Bay Packers offensive line, and said they were members of my squadron. When asked to identify future targets, I simply recited the names of a number of North Vietnamese cities that had already been bombed.”

In 2005, A&E ran a movie version of "Faith of My Fathers."

And McCain discussed that precise clip on CNN.

The actor playing McCain, asked to name the men in his squadron, says: "Starr; Greg; McGee; Davis; Adderly; Brown; Ringo; Wood."

Cut back to real life. The CNN anchor asks McCain: "For those who don't know the story, were those NFL football players?"

"That was the starting lineup of the Green Bay Packers, the first Super Bowl champions, yes," McCain responded. But it's -- it was the best I could think of at the time."

The movie actually shows this act of defiance twice.

INTERROGATOR: The names of your squadron...
MCCAIN: Starr, Gregg...McGee, Davis...Adderley, Brown, Ringo, Wood.
INTERROGATOR: Ten points, McCain.
MCCAIN: Ray Nitschke, our C.O.

The Packers anecdote is not only a key part of the McCain biography, it's part of his argument against torture.

Explaining why he thinks torture can result in erroneous information, McCain wrote in Newsweek in 2005, "In my experience, abuse of prisoners often produces bad intelligence because under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear--whether it is true or false--if he believes it will relieve his suffering. I was once physically coerced to provide my enemies with the names of the members of my flight squadron, information that had little if any value to my enemies as actionable intelligence. But I did not refuse, or repeat my insistence that I was required under the Geneva Conventions to provide my captors only with my name, rank and serial number. Instead, I gave them the names of the Green Bay Packers' offensive line, knowing that providing them false information was sufficient to suspend the abuse."

McCain's valor as a P.O.W. is beyond admirable, but this business of substituting the Steelers for the Packers is odd, though as I said, the McCain campaign says this was an honest mistake.

Yes, a mistake he just happened to make while he was in Pittsburgh, a town with a singular devotion to its football team and the second largest city in a critical swing state.

The honeymoon is over

I listened to about a half-hour's worth of sports radio this morning, and it sounded like more people were blaming Mike Tomlin's play calling than Ben Rothliesberger's poor first-half performance for the Steelers' heartbreaking loss to Jacksonville last night.

Two decisions stand out: The two-point conversion attempt from the 12 yard line following the holding penalty that wiped out Hines Ward's end zone reception, and the quarterback draw on 3rd-and-6 late in the fourth quarter with the Steelers protecting a one-point lead. A couple of callers accused Tomlin of "playing not to lose" rather than playing to win.

If that was the case, then Tomlin made what I would characterize as a Cowher-esque mistake. Wasn't one of the knocks on Cowher that he wasn't aggressive enough in putting games away? Then again, being overly conservative seems to be a characteristic of a lot of NFL coaches -- why else do so many punt on fourth down when the odds favor going for it?

During Super Bowl XXXVI, John Madden said that the Patriots, with 90 seconds left and no timeouts, should run out the clock and go into overtime. Instead, they drove down the field and got the game-winning field goal. For that matter, doesn't Bill Belichick go for it on fourth down even when he has a comfortable lead? Maybe that's why the Patriots are 16-0 and about to rendevous with history.

Yeah, that's a good idea

Well, I guess there is something to be said for swagger:

Safety Anthony Smith not only thinks the Steelers have a chance to beat the undefeated New England Patriots Sunday, he guarantees it.

"We're going to win,'' Smith said today after practice. "Yeah, I can guarantee a win.'' ...

Smith added a little more lumber to the fire when he said New England's receivers haven't been hit the way they will be hit on Sunday.

"They said Baltimore was their most physical game but I think we hit harder than Baltimore, so they haven't seen nothing like us yet.

Maybe they can call the arena team the Pittsburgh Corporate Lawyers

The Post-Gazette reminds the city's image-obsessed civic guardians to lighten up about the Steelers' new mascot:

Here's the observation: Perhaps those who care about the city's image -- ourselves included -- should put aside their branding concerns and lighten up. The Steelers are the Steelers and that won't change; they are not the Corporate Lawyers or the Health Care Managers or any other representatives of the "new" Pittsburgh. If they are going to have a mascot, he is going to look like Steely McBeam.

Who else would we have? After all, Sophie Masloff is saving herself for the cheerleaders.

I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.

But seriously, when will we stop being embarrassed by our industrial heritage? Our past--and alleged obsession with it--is not what holds us back, at least not nearly as much as some people think.

Mascot McStupid

Steely McBeam? I didn't know that the Steelers were looking for ironic mascot nicknames.