Sunday was a historic day of sorts, with more people tuning in to watch the Super Bowl than any other program in television history. What we were all treated to was a weird combination of football and politics. As ESPN columnist Jeff MacGregor put it: “Sunday night was not football in America, but football as America.” What else could be said for an event that gave us George W. Bush sitting next to John Madden?

Many of you may have been in another room, deciding which cheesy bit of goodness deserved the dip of your chip at about 4:55 p.m., so maybe you missed the reading of the Declaration of Independence – a seven minute farce led by Colin Powell of all people. Was Karl Rove too busy? We also got a 15-minute interview with the president of the United States, or put more aptly, Bill O’Reilly shouting down the leader of the free world with a self-satisfied smile on his face. All of it prefacing the biggest event of the year. And with the ratings as any indication, the NFL’s patriotic blitz was as effective as any designed by Dom Capers.

So throw out the Fourth of July, or at the very least Flag Day, because apparently Super Bowl Sunday can’t be enjoyed for the simple reasons. We can’t have just one day dedicated to caring about nothing more than whether the spicy or honey barbecue chicken wings tasted better. No, instead we have to hear Roger Goodell babble about how “freedom is common sense” and how patriotic the NFL is. Well, that was clear, and why not? The patriotism I saw being sold Sunday night was just that – a sale. Be patriotic, buy Coke; be patriotic, feel bad about Detroit and buy a Chrysler.

With all the patriotic fervor that seemed to be swirling around the game, it’s ironic Christina Aguilera, who the NFL found in the trash surrounded by all her music, couldn’t get through the national anthem without screwing it up. For the record, Jim Cornelison, the guy who sang the anthem at the Packers- Bears game, should be the only person allowed to sing before any sporting event, ever.

So, I don’t think there are any grand conclusions to draw from the pageantry we witnessed on Sunday, and I’m not trying to make a big deal out of video segments that were more background noise to our parties than anything else. But I don’t think you can argue away the significance of the Super Bowl as a unique cross section of America. What did we learn, then? Well, we learned patriotism pays, that any chance to wrap your company up in the flag is a good one, and that sometimes a football might be more than pigskin.

Sometimes it’s a tool, and some groups used it for more than just bolstering sales. One group, Blue America, put together a radio ad lauding the Packers while attacking one Paul Ryan. It’s a pretty amusing clip, complete with Vince Lombardi quotes. The thrust is that the Packers are owned by the people, unlike the other “greedy owners” who are like the insurance companies that Ryan is trying to protect with health care repeal.

Kind of a ridiculous analogy with undertones of awesome, but the message found a much wider audience within the football context, and that’s what the Super Bowl is all about. 

So one more time, I wonder what we learned on Sunday? We learned politics, football and commercials make for an unusual mix, where one second you’re being fed American excellence and the next Cameron Diaz is feeding popcorn to A-Rod. Such is the strange and interesting landscape of Super Bowl Sunday, when Go Pack Go can be turned into Go against Paul Ryan…Go.

The biggest house party day of the year has come and gone again, and the captive audience was prodded and pushed into everything from tires to tennis shoes. So with the call to patriotism ringing in your ears, remember, as you rush out to purchase an iPhone from Verizon, you are making your founding fathers proud, you are defending the armed forces and you are American…or something.

John Waters ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism