Columnist Scott Dickensheets: The Broncos and the prez

Being a Denver Broncos fan is a lot like being a Bill Clinton supporter, as I've been reminded by the twin spectacles of the NFL postseason and the Senate impeachment hearings. The sensations involved are identical: gut-wrenching, topsy-turvy emotions relieved only by the certainty that something will go suddenly, terribly wrong. I can't watch, but I can't not watch.

Sure, the Clinton scandal is ripe enough for comparisons to all sorts of Sunday TV viewing. "The X-Files," for instance: Hillary Clinton's "vast right-wing conspiracy." Or perhaps "The Simpsons," with Clinton as a Homer figure entirely responsive to his appetites: Mmmm, pork chops ... Mmmm, intern ...

But as a Broncos fan of long standing and a Clinton supporter of wildly fluctuating conviction (I'm currently at a low ebb), Sunday football seems about right, and not merely because so much of the terminology is hilariously interchangeable: "wide receiver," Ken Starr "spreading the defense" with his wide-open offense ("Whitewater ... Paula Jones ... Monica Lewinsky ... hut, HUT!").

"The Bronco Fan," journalist Andrew Corsello wrote after last year's Super Bowl, "is a thing conceived in yearning and in an inarticulate animal knowledge, felt in the bones, of ugliness, humiliation and shame." Somewhere, in the beleaguered corridors of the Democratic National Committee HQ, a frazzled, once-idealistic young staffer is going, Yes! Yes!

After seeing their team orange-crushed in four Super Bowls, Broncos people no longer trust the appearance of victory. Even the club's new status among the NFL elite is suspect; we're always waiting for the wheels to come off. Likewise, for all his vaunted survivability, Clinton hardly cuts a victorious figure.

Corsello nailed it perfectly: "The Bronco Fan believes, yet he does not believe." He could have easily been describing the mixed feelings of the Clinton supporter, whose delight at some things (seeing their man still in office, favorable poll numbers) is surely offset by dismay at others (the dress, the cigar, the stupid unnecessariness of it all). Will there be yet another miraculous, Elway-like comeback? The Clinton fan believes, yet he does not believe. And if Clinton does win, as the Broncos did last year, it won't fully redeem the past. Denver is still 1-5 in the game that matters most (now risking 1-6), a legacy as unsatisfactory in sporting terms as Clinton's much worried-over legacy will be in political ones.

And so the Broncos fan looks toward Super Sunday with the same goosey feeling with which the Clinton backer regards the Senate trial. What's going to go wrong? Will the normally reliable Davis fumble, or a pass wobble from Elway's fingers into the greedy hands of an Atlanta defender? Will normally reliable Senate Democrats fumble, or the evidence wobble from the fingers of ... well, you get the idea.

Of course, there are some crucial differences between the fans of the Denver Broncos and those of the president. For one, the former can revel unconditionally in an Elway & Co. victory, while for fans of Clinton, a victory will be tainted by the knowledge that he's almost certainly guilty -- it's like seeing your team win on a blown call. For another, you don't have to keep your eye on John Elway when he's over by the cheerleaders.

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