George O'Leary, Dan Issel, and Bobby Knight deserve to have a few beers together and tell their tales. What a week it has been!

O'Leary's entire coaching career was brought down by a tiny resume fib which had been lurking for 30 years in a file cabinet. Issel slung verbal garbage with a low-life fan and found out that the word "Mexican" is itself a slur. No word yet on whether "Canadian," "German" or "Polynesian" has made this list. And Knight was dragged back into the national headlines because a gym manager in Houston got his feelings hurt and called a TV station to cry about it.

Does anybody else out there think that our sports world is suffocating in the utterly trivial?

Issel's mistake was stooping to the drunken level of so called fans who make coach-baiting an Olympic caliber sport. It's pretty silly to think that the fact he called the fan a "piece of sh*t" was not an issue. The nationality modifier of "Mexican" was what tipped him into the realm of Adolf Hitler according to media pundits. The Nuggets created a sonic boom with the speed at which they handed down a four game suspension (without pay, a loss of $112,000). Issel did the requisite podium tearletting, and groups who felt aggrieved by the slur naturally called for Issel's firing.

Textbook political correctness from start to finish. Don't we all feel better now?

I dared to ask the silly questions of a man in search of common sense.

Like, what if the gentlemen was, indeed, Mexican? Can factual correctness trump political correctness? If he was Venezuelan instead, does the slur still apply? What if it was a white guy wearing a black mock turtleneck (I'm visualizing Mike Myers' "Dieter" of SNL fame)? Would a "shut up you drunken German pile of Hitler-loving monkey crap" blast from Issel warrant the same fine? Suppose the guy was actually from Holland?

Better yet, what if Issel had called him a "Hispanic-American piece of sh*t?" Politically correct label, but a dicey intent. Tough call, tough call. I simply don't own the piece of moral high ground from which to mete out correct punishment.

But no matter what, I hope Issel's coaching resume is squeaky clean. God forbid he should have an incorrect date on his internship at West Valley Junior High. Because it turns out that George O'Leary's impeccable seven-year tenure at Georgia Tech (52-33, four straight bowls, the NCAA's most prolific offense in 1999 with Heisman runner-up Joe Hamilton, no scandals, no probation) couldn't withstand the unfortunate fact that he lied about his playing career and academic credentials.

So let's get this straight.

A sitting president can lie under oath and ask his immediate subordinates to perjure themselves in his defense. All this while attempting to cover up a disgusting, wholly immoral violation of his marital vows with an intern young enough to be his own daughter. It was not a tryst with a waitress 30 years ago when he was just married, it was a current and direct abuse of the most powerful office in the world. Adding contempt to dishonesty, this President wags his finger in front of the country on TV, repeating his lie for the world to see.

He got to keep his job.

Meanwhile, George O'Leary's resume contains a fib about earning letters on a football team that nobody has ever seen play on TV, and a masters degree that never was and he's out the door in 48 hours.

How many letters you earned as a player ranks about 73rd on a list of qualifications for a D-I head coaching job. Right behind: "Do you own a clipboard and whistle?"

And before: "Have you ever seen the movie 'Rudy?'"

Cris Carter used to shove fistfuls of drugs up his snout. Bygones, I suppose, because he's now one the league's most hyped stars, appearing in all kinds of promos. Players can be recovering alcoholics, but apparently lying is terminal.