An article by National Review senior editor Jay Nordlinger called “Safe Zone Violation” highlights a growing problem in American society - the politicization of nearly everything, even spheres that are not often thought of as political.

Mr. Nordlinger’s thesis is that there are some areas of life where politics should basically be off limits. One obvious one, under most circumstances, is sports. (There are a few sports-related exceptions like drug use policy and public stadium financing). One virtue of sports is that the local teams have fans of all political persuasions, who at least can unite on the virtues of, say, ARod or Eli Manning.

But, as Mr. Nordlinger points out, numerous sportswriters obviously do not understand or believe this. He cites, for example, numerous articles in Sports Illustrated that bring in totally extraneous references to, of all people, Dick Cheney. As one of many examples, we have “The Jaguars’ front seven surrendered rushing yards as willingly as Dick Cheney admits to strategic errors in Iraq.” Or how about this one: “Is Dick Cheney a member of the BCS? That’s got to be the explanation for the latest load of nonsense to come out of the outfit that runs the system by which college football does not choose a legitimate champion.” Sarah Palin comes in for considerable irrelevant skewering as well.

And, of course, there are many other examples of life where politics should basically be out of the picture. Mr. Nordlinger points out some more pretty outrageous cases. The open air bus New York tour guide full of anti-Republican critiques who refers to the Fox News headquarters on Sixth Avenue as the “voice of evil”. Politically charged references in pieces on such seemingly apolitical subjects as cooking and chess. In a later piece, Mr. Nordlinger also reports some examples sent in by readers: the preacher at her uncle’s funeral making jokes about President Bush, the US Fish and Wildlife agency website promoting President Obama’s agenda and a helicopter pilot who insisted on running political talk throughout the flight (apparently this was conservative commentary).

Let’s be clear. Obviously the problem of too much political speech in extraneous situations does not call for government action or regulation. And not all of the unnecessary political speech comes from the left. (ESPN’s experiment in 2003 with Rush Limbaugh as a football commentator was quite appropriately terminated.) Politics is important and political commentary in appropriate forums helps to sharpen the debate. Indeed, this column frequently offers a form of political commentary, although I try to avoid “in your face” stridency.

Nevertheless, I do believe that Mr. Nordlinger is on the right track. We are in a very contentious political era, with Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama in turn each facing very vocal opposition and the country split almost down the middle. In this atmosphere, it is good for society to have some unifying spheres. Politically divided families instinctively understand this by eschewing political debates at, say, Thanksgiving dinner. Commentators in areas far afield from politics do not help the situation when they inject their own views in areas where partisan commentary simply does not belong.