Sports Illustrated has come out with a more in-depth article than I’ve seen to date on Hope Solo, Briana Scurry, and the USWNT’s World Cup Loss to Brazil. Basically, though, my response to this piece is, “Yada, yada, yada.”

Not articulate enough for you? Okay – well I still find the explication unsatisfying and demonizing of the shadowy-but-malicious “team leaders” who are not being quoted in the article. It will take more than what we have here to convince me that Lil and Christie Rampone and just about everyone else on that team behaved as badly as is being implied.

Overall, my sense is that there’s still a lot more to this episode than is being said. There’s unexplored back story, IMHO. Like Ryan (although not nearly as egregiously) Hope is still justifying herself in the press – and it’s still to the detriment of others’ involved. When I read her comments in the article about the “sorority-type atmosphere” on the team, my immediate thought (suspicious soul that I am!) was that she had probably perused the press and on-line commentary about the controversy. Finding that ubiquitous term, my guess is that she appropriated it as a way to explain things – maybe as much to herself as to anyone else.

On the other hand, I can definitely imagine that Hope was going through a very, very difficult time. She was dealing with her father’s death as well as the tragic passing of her friend, Elizabeth Duncan – something that I had never seen mentioned before. Here’s her profile from a Christian Athletes’ site – a group in which she was apparently heavily involved. Not to be petty – but when I think of “sorority atmospheres” – it’s generally groups such as these that spring to mind … not the USWNT!

At any rate, Pia’s got a lot to manage, going into the Olympics. If anyone can do it, she can. I loved her comment to the team, early on – bringing it all down to the basics:

“I had a choice,” says Sundhage . “I could just ignore it and say I wasn’t part of it. But I wanted to respect all the feelings that were flying around. The other thing I said [to the team] was, ‘Do you want to win?’ Yes. ‘Then we need goalkeepers.'”

On the political front, we have McCain making jokes about beating his wife (which I’m absolutely sure won’t bother his base) and a Lieberman-Must-Go campaign that has my vote! It goes on and on … with Karl Rove calling Obama uppity … errr … arrogant, and POTUS continuing to embarrass this country in mind-numbingly numberless ways (this time with the Filipino President, on a State visit to the White House.