If you head on over to the District’s official website, you’d be faced with the usual fare — links for residents and visitors, the day’s news and press releases, and online services.

But starting today, the website took on a promotional attitude, featuring a banner with a picture of a baseball diamond and the logo for the Washington Nationals along with a title stating, “The Southeast Stadium Is a Home Run for DC.” Below that banner and title are links to news, public testimony, and webcasts on all things baseball.

By the look of it, one would fast get the impression that D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams was trying to sell his plan to build a publicly-financed stadium along South Capitol Street. One would also want to ask: Isn’t this effort a year too late?

It was last December that the D.C. Council demonstrated in a 7-6 vote in favor of a $535 million stadium that Williams hadn’t sold them on the plan. It was just this Monday that they once again sent Williams that message by threatening to vote down the stadium lease agreement. In that year worth of debates over the merits of a publicly-financed stadium, Williams rarely appeared before the council to address their concerns, much less bothered to fight the growing tide of skepticism that accompanied the stadium’s growing costs.

And now they’ve suddenly decided to try and court public opinion? It’s kind of like selling a war to a country two years after that war started.

Well, better late than never.