As I write this column, I am immersed in World Cup Fever. My sports mania has been elevated to maximum levels, which for me means looking at headlines and catching the occasional game on Internet radio.

But it seems that most of the action is taking place off the field - and by that I mean the arguments about whether or not soccer is a “real sport” or a “good sport.”

The arguments, which are among the most pointless of the many disputes I hear or participate in every day, fall along political lines. The conservative Washington Examiner came down harshly on the anti-soccer side of the debate. The Examiner, which is owned by one of the world’s richest men, called it the “Third World Cup” and made fun of the fact that indoor plumbing is a rarity in some of the countries in which soccer is played.

Stay classy, Washington Examiner.

That’s the kind of sentiment that can make a vaguely liberal guy want to watch a soccer game if for no other reason than spite.

But there are good reasons for conservatives to like soccer too. Namely, schadenfreude.

By pooh-poohing soccer, the Examiner and its readers are missing out on a great opportunity to be jingoistic. Elsewhere in the world, soccer is accompanied by rabid, even violent nationalism, with fans waving flags and filling stadiums with xenophobic chants.

Yet we Americans miss all the fun by cheering for sports games that only pit bland cities against each other. It’s hard to be nationalistic about Cleveland playing Indianapolis at football; are they even different places?

And if you haven’t been following the World Cup, you may have missed this New York Times headline: “France’s Dishonor is Complete” when their team lost 2-1 to South Africa. I practically choked on my freedom fries when I read that one. Ha ha, France.

Come to think of it, the anti-soccer screeds are echoes of the hype and backlash surrounding the Winter Olympics and its schedule of pseudo sports. (Remember Lindsay Vonn? Does anyone care how her shin is feeling now?)

Every event at the Olympics can be dismissed as not-a-sport. Curling: too slow. Luge: too fast. Hockey: too cold. Bobsled: obviously ridiculous. Snowboarding: Too extreme. Biathlon: I don’t have anything bad to say about biathlon, because I am always polite to people with guns.

And although the Examiner hates soccer for all the wrong reasons, there are legitimate gripes about the sport. For one thing, there are ties. TIES. What kind of a sport has ties? There is a provision in the rules for drawing lots to see who advances in the tournament. Lame.

But even the most of our beloved American sports can be dismissed out of hand.

For example, football. I love football because it is exciting and entertaining, but sissy, train-riding Eurotrash socialists don’t like it because it has too many commercials and because the players are all genetically engineered.

Baseball is easy to make fun of because it is almost as slow and boring as soccer, and television coverage consists mostly of closeups of people lounging and spitting.

Every sport has its flaws. Fatal flaws, if you want to look for them. Or you could overlook them and enjoy the game. The only thing you really need to have a legitimately entertaining sporting event is a game where the outcome is based on skill and somewhat unpredictable.

Case in point: Bozo the Clown. On the Bozo the Clown show, there was a game called Bozo’s Bucket Bonanza Grand Prize Game, where kids tossed ping-pong balls into a series of six buckets, each farther away than the last, to get prizes. The farther away the bucket, the bigger the prize. If the kid missed, he or she was out. It was a simple game, but it was kind of exciting to watch, just to see if some kid could make it to that sixth bucket. Legend has it that in Chicago, men in bars bet on how far each kid would get.

And it was probably just as fun as watching a soccer game. Is Bozo’s Bucket Bonanza a sport? Who knows? Who cares.

As for the argument about whether or not soccer is a good sport: it’s a tie! Someone flip a coin.