when we - Americans in this case - do lose at something despite our cheating, we simply ignore it as best we can. We pretend it didn't happen. Lose the war to Vietnam? Destroy the city of Fallujah and kill hundreds of innocent people? Commit genocide to the millions of American Indians?

Lose to the Korean baseball team? Yep. The Koreans beat the best of American professional baseball on Monday night. Our Bellingham Herald simply did not report that - not Tuesday and not this morning. Didn't happen. Not a word - not a sentence. The Koreans did not just win - they trounced with a score of 7 to 3.

It was fun to watch - these guys of heights like 5'8" striking out 6'5" Major League all stars - big guys who looked stunned, confused and angry. Like these little guys weren't showing proper respect. Jeter, ARod, Chipper Jones and all the rest strutted, swaggered, stretched and glared - and the scrappy Koreans, with smiles, just whupped them.

So - how will we adjust in order to win the first-ever international baseball tournament? Cheat, of course. The big juicer, Barry Bonds will be brought in. Maybe some other changes. Watch the umpires be carefully selected to provide an edge. We will cheat - of that there should be no doubt. Good minds are at work on it now. We don't call it cheating - we call it gaining an edge. That is how Americans win.

Oh - one last observation. ESPN cut out innings of its delayed telecast - innings where all the Americans went down swinging in embarrassment. ESPN said they had to shorten the telecast due to scheduling problems. More like who wants to watch American superheroes go down swinging to a Korean team. Not Americans. Not the American way. Only show the full game when we are winning. No problem. Maybe it didn't happen.

Same reason we don't truthfully cover the Iraq war. We have lost it.