Wastes of space do not deserve to be "saved"

Hey, hey. Sorry if I don't blog as often as I should, dear reader. It's just that I get bogged down by other things during the week.
I made up the following joke, and if it turns out that you've heard it before, then I swear that is pure coincidence:
Q: If Barack wins the November election, what would that be?
A: An Obamanation. Get it: "abomination," "Obama-nation?"
It's no joke, though. The prospect of an Obama presidency frightens me, but I do doubt he'll get past McCain. Extreme liberals like McGovern and Mondale failed; so, I feel, will Barack Obama. It's not as if McCain is so right-wing that it will turn many moderate folks off. The middle-of-the-fence votes would have to go to McCain. The white, Asian, Jewish and Hispanic votes will nearly all go to McCain. Aside from the liberal East and West coasts, I'd say McCain will carry the vote by a significant margin.
Recently, Paul Gascoigne has been much in the news. Actually, he's been in the news regularly for a while. Gascoigne, better known by his nickname Gazza, is an English soccer player, regarded as one of the best English players of his generation. He soon gained a reputation as a hard drinker and it was an image that he was happy to play up.
For the past few years, Gazza has battled alcoholism and has been treated for several newsworthy incidents, not all of which have been violent but very strange nonetheless. This story sort of sums Gazza up none too succinctly.
All you ever hear on talk radio and read in the papers, with just a few exceptions, is "poor Gazza," "we must save Gazza," "Gazza needs our support."
Save Gazza? Give him "our" support? Why?!
Admittedly, it is hard to know how much of Gazza's troubles are the result of alcoholism versus genuine mental health problems. But I think it's entirely fair to say that his hard drinking hardly helped to alleviate his very unstable mental condition and just may have encouraged it. In the end it was up to Gascoigne to save himself, to know better. But, being a twit, he did no such thing. He allowed himself to party hardy with friends who—gee, guess what?—no longer associate with him.
In this, he is like a fellow soccer star, the late George Best. Best had an alcohol problem, had a liver transplant, kept drinking and died from it at 58 years of age. And all throughout Best's troubled years, all you ever heard was "we must save George" and "George needs our help."
Do you think, for one moment, that if these two weren't high profile, famous people, they'd have captured anyone's sympathy? I highly doubt it. The only reason the public clamored to "save" Best and are trying to do the same with Gascoigne is because they are considered national treasures, people who gave something to England, no matter how much of questionable importance that something is.
I don't feel sorry for Gazza and I don't feel any great need to "save" him. He did this to himself. He's a wife beater, and he's a selfish prick. I will sleep very comfortably if Gazza pegs it tomorrow. (And hopefully, when he does, Pete Doherty will soon follow.) I really do not care. He's got an evidently adoring nation behind him and all that money, yet all he can do is drink himself to death, just like Best did? Well, go for it, Gazza; please do just that.
The environment, the credit crunch, rising mortgage costs, crime & law and order. These are the things people should primarily concern themselves with. But, of course, in this celebrity-obsessed "culture," where people would much rather read People and OK! than National Review or The Spectator, it's hardly surprising that all some people can worry about is the fate of "poor" Paul Gascoigne.