A few years ago in the NFL, the league resorted to stopping beer sales in the fourth quarter to keep rabid fans in places like the Cleveland Brown's Dawg Pound calm. Short of taking away obsessed political junkies' cable TV and cable modem access, I'm not sure what the solution is to this week's burgeoning fourth quarter political lunacy. It's much like what occurred during the endgame of the 2004 election:

Yesterday, a crazed nut tried to rush George Allen's campaign staffers. And Karl Rove's mind control rays somehow caused the attorney and former Democratic candidate for governor of Maine who was behind the November Surprise of 2000 to wear an Osama bin Laden mask and toy guns and hand grenades on the side of the road in Maine, where he was promptly arrested. (Halloween prank gone awry? No, I don't get it either. But I guess it's better than the weird duck-billed fishing hat he was photographed wearing in 2000.)

But they all pale into significance when compared to The Fresca Smear.

Update: Speaking of the one fourth quarter incident that probably could have been avoided through judicious Fresca banning, these fellows have a response that's well worth reading.