Hammering Down the Tent Stakes ... Without Getting Hammered

The Belmont debate media tent will be a little larger than these.

The 25,000-square-foot media tent (which will look more like this and less like that shot above) is scheduled to start going up today at Belmont, which should give you an idea of what a project this thing is going to be. Crews at the school have been installing the necessary wiring to get power to all of us who'll be tap-tap-tapping away at our keyboards (and straining our eyes looking at the hundreds of TV monitors all over the place). The tent will go up on the soccer practice field at the school, which means the women's team will be playing its home games at Vanderbilt. (In case you were wondering, yes, the two teams played each other this season, with Vanderbilt -- the home team -- winning 1-0 in double overtime.)

The real story, however, is that the tent is supposedly sponsored by Anheuser-Busch, which creates interesting issues considering A. Cindy McCain is an A-B heiress (which gives only a slight sense of impropriety); B. the formerly American standby is now owned by a Belgian company (which is kinda sad); and C. Belmont is a Christian, formerly Southern Baptist campus (that one's just funny).

Now, debate officials said on a Belmont campus walkthrough in June that A-B (a national debates sponsor since 1996) was sponsoring the tent, and Ole Miss officials told me that the company is the sponsor for the tent at all of this year's debates, including theirs. (The CPD hasn't officially listed its 2008 national sponsors.) Then on Friday, Belmont officials said the company is not sponsoring the tent.

Maybe things have changed after Cindy's hubby got the nom -- or maybe after the CPD thought it might rub some folks the wrong way. Regardless, the country needs to know the answer to this pressing question, and I intend to find out. Stay tuned.