Maureen Dowd, in yesterday's New York Times column, "Boy, Oh Boy," on Joe Wilson's outburst during Barack Obama's speech to Congress: "Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it."

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Wemple's sports post previewing the Redskins-Giants game was so popular yesterday, let's do another. But on tennis this time.

So everyone knows that 17-year-old Melanie Oudin made one hell of a run at the U.S. Open this year; the No. 70 seed dispensed with Elena Dementieva, Maria Sharapova, and Nadia Petrova, before being defeated last night by Caroline Wozniacki. The accolades have just streamed in.

But some in the blogosphere are wondering if there isn't some reason other than her talent that she has been so readily embraced by the media: namely, her physique (petite) and her skin color (white).

Read More "America’s Next Sweetheart: We Have a (White) Winner!" »

The Grio published an opinion column yesterday asking this: "Do black men prefer their women larger?"

Weighing in was Milton Kent, a former sportswriter at the Baltimore Sun who hosts "Sports at Large" on WYPR in Baltimore and is, as it happens, a friend of mine. Kent, for the record, is black. And the Grio is a news site aimed at an African-American audience.

Before he started writing - setting out, impossibly, to speak for everyone of his race and his gender on the question of what constitutes beauty - Kent floated the question on his Facebook page, saying he needed help with a "sensitive subject." Sensitive is one word! As he recounted in his post, "the aftermath was like watching people running from a burning building as if their hair were on fire."

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D.C. United's pride, but little else, is on the line again in a U.S. Open Cup match tonight at the Maryland SoccerPlex. Fresh off vanquishing the amateur Ocean City (N.J.) Barons, otherwise known as "the Real Madrid of Ocean City (N.J.)," United now has to take on the Harrisburg City Islanders, known around their hometown as, you know it: "the Real Madrid of Harrisburg."

Again, no matter how old this U.S. Open Cup tournament is, and United's crack PR staff keeps telling everybody it's really, really old, all these games against no-name teams in the suburbs ain't good for the brand.

***

The Washington Times' Thom Loverro tells the story of gangster John Dillinger's flair on the baseball diamond before he went bad, and gives some ink to a latter-day John Dillinger who stuck with baseball but probably would have made more money if he'd taken up crime.

Johnny Depp's only going to play one of 'em in "Public Enemies," a megamillion dollar feature film that explains the timing of Loverro's piece.

But revisiting the tale of the first John Dillinger is worthy: It reminds all DC fans that Austin Kearns, he of the $8 million 2009 salary and sub-Mendoza batting average, isn't the first guy to use baseball as a path to robbery.

AFTER THE JUMP: Venus, the star, is aligned for tonight? How do you sign up for trapeze school? Just one more crystal meth bust and we've got a story?

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: DC United Faces Another David?" »