This column marks the debut of Oscar, TheHayride.com’s resident voracious rodent and all-around pestilential influence. We want it known from the beginning that any relationship between what the little guy says and the editorial position of TheHayride.com staff is completely coincidental – were it not for certain contractual and/or economic factors unfortunately in play we would have laughed derisively at the idea of a nutria offering commentary on a serious political site.

But, it is what it is. So don’t judge us too harshly for what Oscar says – for that matter, don’t judge Oscar too harshly. He is, after all, a rat…

OK, first of all, don’t call me a rat. I’m not a rat. I’m 20 pounds of hardbody Myocastor coypus – and you people definitely don’t know what that means, but what it doesn’t mean is “rat.” Got it? You call me a rat, and I’ll crap on your porch.

So anyways, the Super Bowl was terrific. Down here in Barataria where I stay at, even the mud-turtles were juiced up about it. I’m especially happy for Peyton Manning – from the time that cat was knee-high to a grasshopper he always wanted to throw a touchdown pass for the Saints to win a game and he finally got to do it. We all ripped him and his brudder for giving LSU the bah-fungu out of high school, but hey – bygones be bygones, right?

I even liked the commercials. Hell, why wouldn’t I? My nephew T-Bill, who went out to Hollywood looking for fame and fortune years ago, made his debut in a Super Bowl spot. T-Bill got mixed up in the L.A. scene too much, and he had plastic surgery and does high calonics and yoga and all that, but the boy has some talent. He showed it. Got himself a gig on stage in front of some old farts in black tie. We used to laugh at him for whitening his teeth when he was a kid, but now he’s livin’ da life.

Speaking of the spots, though, what’s up with all the commercials where guys don’t have pants on? Did these all come from the same ad agency, or what? Look, I’m a nutria, OK? I never wear pants, and I go commando at that. But because I’m a nutria nobody expects me to. You people expect your men to wear pants, and you should. Somebody needs to tell Madison Avenue – even the commercial for the company that makes pants had guys with no pants on.

Creepy.

Speaking of creepy, Tim Tebow tackles like a girl, and he wears gay-guy T-shirts. So I can understand why the ad he was in was controversial. Best I can tell, he didn’t have pants on, either. That’s why the heifers in the pro-choice gang had a problem with the ad, right? No? Oh – they don’t like the ad because it tells people they can’t have an abortion if they want one? Did the ad say that? No? Hey – it’s over my head. I’m a nutria, remember?

I did catch Obama on TV before the game. He wasn’t talking about the game. He was talking about himself.

Scintillating. Which is nutria for “I’m-so-friggin’-bored-I-could-slash-my-wrists-with-a-cut-up-beer-can.” 

Real tough questions from Katie Couric-Riefenstahl, too. And real honorable of CBS to put that puppet show on an hour and a half before game time. Like I said, I’m a nutria and I could still figure out what they were up to. Here’s a little piece of advice, guys – Katie’s ratings aren’t in the terlet because nobody’s seen what she can do. They’re in the terlet because we know exactly what she can do.

By the way, I hear hizzonna Mitch Landrieu is the new mayor in New Orleans. That’s nice. Mitch has done real well for himself since he gave up trying to have hair; for a while he had some of us a little worried down here we might end up as a toupee or two on the man with all the effort he was putting in. We were all hoping for our cou-zan John Georges to win – OK, he’s not really a cou-zan; he paid me to say that.

But if Mitch is the mayor of New Orleans, who’s gonna be Lt. Gov.? They say Jindal is picking somebody for the job soon – if he’s got a couple stones what he’ll do is appoint Jay Dardenne for the job since Dardenne’s gonna run for it anyway. If Dardenne moves up then Jindal can appoint somebody as Secretary of State and then he’ll have a whole ticket to work from next year when everybody’s up for re-election.

If he appoints Sammy Kershaw I’m gonna blow chunks.

All right, that’s all I got. I’m off to watch a little nutria porn – but do me a favor, wouldya? Tell Kip Holden if he wants to trade us off to the Chicoms in exchange for drywall or whatever he’s gotta ask nicely first.