NBC execs have either been watching a lot of Westerns, or have calculated that ridiculously overblown patriotism will get more viewers for the winter Olympics. In either case, two media-watchers are sick of the star-spangled blather.

The Boston Globe's Charles P Pierce, talking about last night's Ice Hockey, says he hates "to sound like less of an American than I am, but I'm a little Miracle-On-Ice'd out at this point, especially with Al Michaels, who seems to believe that he landed on Omaha Beach or something 30 years ago."

Alessandra Stanley, in the New York Times, devotes an entire article to the fawning, misty-eyed coverage of American success (and the downplaying of the rest of the world) that she describes as "the worst in network heavy breathing."

Matt Lauer, she says, treated skier Lindsey Vonn "as if he and Meredith Vieira had spent the last 15 years rising at dawn to drive her to training." And the network keeps over-packaging things. It has "cast female snowboarders as alpine Carrie Bradshaws," while caricaturing non-American competitors in much more, um, stereotyped ways. "Chinese snowboarders are overly "regimented," Austrians are "disciplined," and the Danes are moody," explains Stanley. "During the two-man bobsled races on Saturday one NBC announcer, searching for something to contribute about the German racer Karl Angerer, said knowingly, "he's got a Bavarian mentality," whatever that means,"

It means he's UNAMERICAN, Alessandra. You liberal media elites wouldn't understand what decent, old-fashioned, working-class sports like ski-ing and bobsled mean to the real 'merica. Just ask everyday folk on ski-jumps across Iowa how they feel about the coverage.