I need to get this out of the way right off the top. My wife is a Fighting Irish alumna. They lost to what many would consider a vastly inferior football team this past weekend. And because of that, their coach, Charlie Weis, should be fired. Not because I believe he is any more to blame than the players on the field. Not even because of an inexcusable loss to a pathetic Syracuse team - Notre Dame has lost to bad teams before. But that’s just the way it works in South Bend. If you fail, you get fired. Charlie Weis has failed. And in the same way his predecessors were unceremoniously dismissed, so should he be also. Anything less would be an embarrassment to the university. Yes, more of an embarrassment than the ten year 40 million dollar contract they gave him after one decent season.
Now that the important business is out of the way, on to the trivial.
Congratulations, you are now the proud owner of Citigroup. Can’t wait until this market rebounds so I can get rich.
In the midst of the madness President-Elect Obama is attempting to assemble his cabinet under what sometimes can only be described as breathless scrutiny. The biggest speculative non-appointment so far has been the rumors that Hillary Clinton may have been offered and might actually accept the position of Secretary of State. But that’s all still speculation. Back in the realm of things that have actually happened, Obama has named former U.S. Attorney and deputy Attorney General Eric Holder to head the Justice Department, and the president of the New York Federal Reserve, Timothy Geithner, as his Secretary of the Treasury. Geithner, a bright young student of former Treasury Secretaries Larry Summers and Robert Rubin seems to be well regarded in economic circles as knowledgeable, experienced and creative.
Of course, not everyone is happy with these appointments. There seems to be a view among some on the left that Obama’s cabinet appointments haven’t been radical enough. If one believed the accusations about Obama from the right during the campaign one might have expected him to appoint the ghost of Karl Marx to head the Treasury and Mahatma Ghandi as Secretary of Defense. Instead, Obama has done the wise thing in turbulent times and selected familiar-faced, centrist-leaning appointees to head key cabinet posts. While that may disturb the more liberal elements of the Democratic Party, it’s a pretty solid strategy for the current political and economic uncertainty. If there was a lesson to be learned from John McCain’s implosion during the campaign, it is that lurching, erratic behavior in a crisis will destroy whatever faith the public may have had in their leaders. Before the economic meltdown hit in mid-September, McCain was viewed by many - if not a majority of Americans as the stronger leader of the two men. Less than a week later, after he had declared the fundamentals of the economy sound, rescinded that statement four hours later, partially suspended his campaign, rushed back to Washington to fix the problem while not actually doing anything, taking credit for a bailout package that subsequently failed and refusing to appear at a scheduled debate which he then appeared at without explanation, public opinion of his leadership had completely inverted itself. If Obama were to bring in the liberal equivalent of Joe the Plumber to fill his cabinet positions, his credibility would evaporate the moment any decision by any of those newbies went awry. And if there truly were elements of left who voted for Obama because they thought he would usher in some sort of socialist worker’s paradise, you really should have voted for the Socialist Party candidate. You’re going to be disappointed.
Following a plea for clemency from none other than the President-elect himself, Senator Joe Lieberman was allowed to retain his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee, despite his aggressive opposition to Obama’s candidacy. Following last week’s vote, a befuddled Senate majority leader Harry Reid addressed the media saying that there is a chapter of Lieberman’s political career he will never understand, but in the interest of the country the party is willing to put that aside and work with him. I have to admit I’m more than a little amused by the Lieberman saga. A month ago he was implying that Obama - who supported Lieberman in his Senate re-election campaign against Democrat Ned Lamont - was some sort of closet socialist just waiting to assume power so that he could sell out the country to Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro. Now he claims he is anxious to let bygones be bygones and get back to being buddies like nothing ever happened. I can’t help but wonder if Obama pulled Liberman’s cookies out of the fire some reason other than the goodness of his heart. I’d love to get ahold of that Christmas card.
When I say the word ‘pirate’, what image comes to your mind? Blackbeard? Captain Hook? Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom? You’ll have to forgive my ignorance, but until last week I had no idea that piracy was still a serious issue in the year 2008. Apparently the problem stems from the East African failed state of Somalia. Somalia hasn’t had a functional, non-military dictatorial government in 40 years, poverty is ubiquitous and crime is out of control. Decades of war have left the infrastructure in shambles, the currency virtually worthless and the economy unable to support its citizens. So, many former fisherman have figured out that storming aboard freighters and oil tankers and holding them for ransom is a much more lucrative career path than trolling the coast for a couple pounds of fish they may or may not be able to sell at the market. Reportedly the United States, Britain and other allies have warships in the area and routinely patrol the waters off the Somali coast, but so far they’ve decided not to intervene or attempt to retrieve property stolen by the pirates (with the exception of an Indian warship which sent a pirate “mother-ship” to the bottom in flames). I’m not sure I understand the refusal to act. These aren’t mysterious supernatural peg-legged demons sailing ghost ships through the night to capture the Crown’s gold and stash it on some treasure island somewhere. These are thugs with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. We know how to deal with them. And it’s not like they’re stealing Junior Mints and hiding them in the desert. If Google Earth can show me the fire pit in my back yard from space, surely the military can find something the size of an oil tanker. Get out there are do what you have to do to stop this foolishness!
Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapsed during a speech in which he was attempting to cast the record of the Bush Justice Department in a positive light. The jokes write themselves with this one.
There is some discussion among experts, pundits and close advisors as to whether or not a President Obama would have to give up the use of his Blackberry. During the campaign Obama was rarely - if ever - seen without it, constantly e-mailing or texting or talking to someone. The worries are two-fold. First, so people believe that communication via Blackberry just isn’t secure enough to be used by the President. And second, all e-mails to and from the President must be recorded. The fear is that Obama might simply e-mail or text things he doesn’t want people to know. But there are inherent flaws with both of those suppositions. Wireless communications don’t have to be insecure. There is technology available - especially to the President of the United States - capable of securing cellphone communications. And at some point, you just have to trust that the President will be smart enough not to text stupid things over his Blackberry. Besides, it’s 2008. We are eventually going to have to get used to the idea of a wireless executive. In an age where six-year-olds carry cellphones to school, we can’t expect the leader of the free world to have to conduct the people’s business on two Dixie cups joined with a string. It’s just something we’re going to have to deal with.
My NFL Thoughts for Week 12:
I fully expect the New York Giants to repeat as Superbowl champions. No one else is capable of beating this team. The loss to Cleveland was a fluke, and will not be repeated.
Thanks to the New York Jets, there are no remaining undefeated teams in the league. But, thanks to the Buccaneers, the Lions are still winless going into their Thanksgiving Day meeting with Tennessee. If we can’t have perfection we can at least have complete and utter incompetence, can’t we?
If the Atlanta Falcons make it to the playoffs, Matt Ryan is the league MVP. Period. Michael who?
Donovan McNabb is playing his final season in Philadelphia. There have been rumblings for years now, especially since the Eagles recently burned a high-round draft pick on a “quarterback of the future.” But his abysmal performance this past Sunday on the heels of his abysmal performance the Sunday before should be enough to cost him his job. It’s not entirely his fault. With the exception of the Terrell Owens experiment, the management in Philly has consistently refused to provide McNabb with quality receivers and a short-yardage back, but that just seems to be the way things work in Philadelphia. High expectations, questionable executive support and the worst fans in sports.
I’m also a little peeved at the sports media’s fake outrage at McNabb’s statement after last week’s game that he was unaware that regular season games could end in a tie. No one accused him of mailing it in at the end of overtime in anticipation of getting another chance in double overtime. In fact, he attempted a hail mary pass to the endzone in a futile attempt to beat the one-win Bengals. So the fact that he didn’t know the game could end in a tie is completely irrelevant. A tie occurs in the NFL about once every fifteen years. There are players who have played their entire careers without every experiencing one. The Eagles lost the game because they aren’t very good, not because the quarterback didn’t know the tie rule.
Stick a fork in the Chargers, they’re done. It figures that the first year I’m fortunate enough to draft high enough to select the top-performing running back in football, he has one of the worst seasons in recent memory. Sigh. At least I won’t finish last this year.
Brett Favre doesn’t look 39. Neither does Kurt Warner.
The New Orleans Saints hung 51 points on a pretty good football team Monday night. How is this team only one game above .500?
My Superbowl picks for Week 12; New York Giants vs. New York Jets.
Ashley Dupre, the call girl that former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer spent $15,000 on to improve his mood has issued an apology to Spitzer’s wife. Yeah. I’m sure she was waiting with baited breath for that little piece of closure. Why do people who aren’t sorry, insist on apologizing anyway?
Two months after its original three month mission was supposed to have expired, NASA scientists finally lost contact with the Mars Phoenix Lander and declared the mission over. NASA claims the mission was a success, as the lander returned evidence of water ice in the Martian soil. And all that is well and good, but frankly, it’s a little boring. I’m sure it’s exciting to astrophysicists, but I need something more... flashy. When do we get to send the trained monkeys to bring back Mars rocks?
This Tony Romo character is driving me crazy with his little random acts of kindness. Last month, on his way back from the airport after a late night flight, the superstar quarterback pulled over to the side of the freeway to change a flat tire for an unfortunate elderly couple. This month, a homeless man was making change at a theater ticket booth when a young man tapped him on the shoulder and asked him if he was interested in seeing a movie. The homeless man thanked him for the offer but declined, saying he had agreed to distribute newspapers for a local homeless outfit that day and had to get started. But as the young man and his friend entered the theater, the homeless guy realized whom he had been talking to. He ran across the street to the homeless outfit he was supposed to deliver papers for, told them what happened and asked for the day off. He then headed back to the theater to find a ticket waiting for him at the window. As he entered, Romo waved him over to sit next to him and offered him popcorn. When homeless dude mentioned that he had not showered in a couple days, Tony replied, “No problem. I’ve been around locker rooms.” And for the next ninety minutes, a superstar and a homeless man shared some cheap laughs together before returning to vastly different lives. As a Packers fan, crap like this makes it really difficult to hate Tony Romo.
Finally, from the desk of You’ve Got to Be Kidding, TIVO will soon begin offering a new service to subscribers. As of November 17, 2008, TIVO subscribers will be able to order Domino’s Pizza through their television sets. I know that at first that seems like a cool idea. But think about it for a minute. TIVO already provides you with everything you need to facilitate the ordering of a pizza. Part of the reason the thing was invented is so that you can pause the show (so that you don’t miss anything), and pick up the damn phone to call for the pizza! Was it really too much work to pick up the phone? Or visit Dominos.com? On your mobile phone none-the-less? You know you still have to pause the show and get up to answer the door for the delivery guy, right?
11.18.2008
Down Time
Slow week. Well, slow in comparison. I guess this is the crash after the election season high. Kinda like shooting heroin for twenty-two months straight, then quitting cold turkey. I think I have the shivers.
This is Lando. Sort of.
Some of you may recognize him from a popular science-fiction film trilogy. My wife thinks I resemble him. My wife is also sleep deprived.
As I mentioned before, the 2008 Presidential campaign is finally, mercifully over. No more periodic checking of polls, no more fact-checking campaign statements, no more wooing of undecided voters, no more bald plumbers riding coat-tails to D-list fame and misfortune. Understandably, cable news is suffering withdrawal. They've decided to fill the vacuum with speculation on cabinet positions and stories about the potential First Dog. The most interesting nugget to come out of all the supposition is the idea that the President-elect may be considering former rival Senator Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. The idea is intriguing, and has apparently been met with near-universal (Democratic) acclaim. Clinton seems fairly well-suited for the job. She comes prepackaged with an international persona and global connections from both her own work and that of her husband. Secretary of State is the most prestigious cabinet appointment, and would go some distance toward mending fences with the former First Family of the Democratic Party. However, it is not without its demerits. Unfortunately for Senator Clinton, most of these demerits stem from her relationship with one husband and former President, Bill Clinton. Obama's pledge of openness requires him to rout through every nook and cranny of the Clinton's lives to ensure there are no surprises that might come back to haunt him later on. That might include revealing the list of donors to the Clinton Presidential Library and to all the other charitable organizations run by the former President. No word yet on whether or not Senator Clinton will take the job. As a matter of fact, there has been no confirmation that she has actually been offered the job. The Obama campaign has been frustratingly leak-free to this point, so the fact that this suggestion has even seen the light of day and then not been denied by either Clinton or Obama suggests that it might have some merit.
President Bush hosted the leaders of the G-20 (leading economic nations) this past weekend in Washington D.C. Yes, it was pretty much exactly as boring as it sounds. Twenty world leaders standing around snapping photographs and agreeing to agree to do something about the global economic crunch, while not actually doing anything about the global economic crunch. I wonder if I could talk my boss into paying me to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Ted Kennedy returned to the Senate today, months after being diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumor. In talking to reporters, Kennedy looked pretty good, all things considered. Best wishes to the senator for a full recovery.
President-elect Obama met with John McCain today in Chicago for the first time since the election. As previously noted, the Obama transition has been virtually leak-proof, so there is no word as to what was discuss, aside from a generic joint statement indicating their desire to work together to solve the nation's problems, blah, blah, blah. My guess is there was some discussion of bipartisanship, perhaps working together on immigration and ethics reform, and maybe a cup of hot cocoa and some reminiscing about old times and the way things were. Okay, maybe not the hot cocoa.
Governor Sarah Palin stole the show at the meeting of Republican Governors last week. Hey, don't we put thieves in prison in this country? Oh, that's right, she's already in prison, she's Governor of Alaska. My bad. But seriously, for someone who refused to give interviews to the "liberal media" in the eight weeks she was running for vice president, she certainly is chatty now. It's always amusing to hear people criticize the unfairness and inequity of the "liberal media" while appearing on the "liberal media". Over and over again.
California is burning again. Nothing new really, this sort of this happens every year - albeit earlier in the season. I guess when you live in a state covered by forests and you build you million dollar homes in the middle of the trees, bad things are going to happen every now and then. Good luck to the firefighters and I hope everyone makes it home in one piece.
The domestic automakers have been working Capitol Hill for weeks now, trying to drum up support for a $25 billion bailout package - in addition to the $25 billion Congress has already approved to help them retool. The hubris of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler grates on my last nerve like fingernails on a chalkboard. I lived in town with a GM manufacturing plant for ten years, I understand that millions of jobs depend on a healthy automotive industry. But why does the public have to prop up these clowns when times are bad only to get our wallets gouged out when times are good? Detroit has spent years making money hand over fist on the consumer selling these monstrous sport utility vehicles to people whose idea of sport is trying to navigate the mall parking lot while texting to order a pizza, all the while claiming they are only fulfilling market demand. Really? What's the market demanding now? It seems to be demanding that some of you go out of business. If market demand was good enough justification when you were making money, it should be good enough now that you're losing it. As for the "market demand" argument, there is such a thing as innovation for innovation's sake. There was no market for an impeccably designed, ridiculously overpriced MP3 player before Apple invented one. There was no market for legal online music sales before Apple created one. There was no demand for cheese stuffed crust pizza until Pizza Hut baked one up. If Detroit had spent 10% of the time working on making smaller vehicles more profitable that they spent on making larger vehicles even bigger, they might not be in the situation they're in. Besides, General Motors and Ford already manufacture smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles which they sell - for profit - Europe, Asia and South America. Can't they fill the holes in the fleet by importing those vehicles? There must be something else we can try before we hand over fistfuls of taxpayer money to companies who obviously incapable of handling their own affairs.
A South Carolina Catholic priest has instructed his parishioners to repent for voting for Barack Obama. It's not clear what gave him the impression that members of his congregation voted for Obama, or why that is any of his business, but he seems to feel that due to his pro-choice stance, Obama is a baby-killer, and any Catholic (and I guess any other religious person) who voted for Obama must be a baby-killer as well and must repent. I mention this story only to raise the issue of the single issue voter. I happen to believe that one should vote on the totality of the candidate's platform. There are others, like the afore-mentioned South Carolina priest, who would disagree with me. But if you allow your vote to be held hostage by a single issue, you lose your ability to influence the democracy - your only power as a voter. As long as one candidate supports your pet issue, they can abuse you and your vote in whatever manner they please and never be held accountable for their actions. That's damaging to the republic and not something I'm comfortable with as a voter. By the way, I don't remember hearing this priest instructing his parishioners to repent for voting for John Kerry in the 2004 election. Is it only a sin to vote for a pro-choice candidate if the pro-choice candidate wins? Or maybe he did call for repentance last time and I just missed the story. It's been four years, I'm old and my memory's not what it used to be.
My NFL Thoughts for Week 11:
The New York Giants have the best committee running game I have ever seen. Brandon Jacobs simply cannot be tackled. He outweighs most of the linebackers trying to tackle him by 20 or 30 pounds and just runs over anyone who gets in his way. Even the great Ray Lewis and the rest of the vaunted Baltimore defense were humbled by the Giants ground game.
Carolina is the most dubious 8-2 team I can remember. They played Detroit yesterday - so they essentially had the day off. Yet somehow they came within a failed two-point conversion of giving the Lions a chance to dash my hopes for a perfect 0-16 season from them. Usually when a team gains 250+ yards rushing in one game you can sagely make the assumption that they dominated the game. But this one was much much closer than the 31-22 score would indicate.
The Titans are for real. They can win 'em ugly, and they can make it look good. The undefeated season may still be in doubt, but we will be seeing this team deep into the playoffs.
The NFC North confuses me. Three teams with the same record, eleven weeks into the season. Following Sunday's 34-point taxidermy of the Bears, the Packers seem to have the upper hand in the division. But much like the weather in the upper Midwest, if you don't like the standings, just wait a minute.
My how the Eagles have fallen. Two weeks ago experts had this team competing for a Wild Card playoff slot. On Sunday afternoon they were given 15 additional minutes to defeat the pathetic Cincinnati Bengals, and failed to do so. Note to Eagles management; find yourself a top-tier receiver. It got you to the Superbowl once, it might do it again.
Dallas finally figured out how to win football games; hand Marion Barber the ball.
Steelers safety Troy Polamalu snagged the most beautiful interception I've seen since I've been watching professional football, soaring in from out-of-frame and laying out to cradle the nose of the ball as it brushed the tip of a blade of grass on snowy, soggy Heinz Field Sunday night. He was later robbed of an impressive touchdown by yet another blown call by the officials at the end of a game. As a result of the 11-10 final score (the rarest in NFL history), Vegas bookies were livid at the loss of about $66 million. Suckers. That's why they call it gambling.
Jeff Garcia is one tough S.O.B. There is no way a 185-pound quarterback should be able to survive in this league - let alone score with Playboy centerfolds.
My Superbowl picks for Week 11; New York Giants vs. Tennessee Titans
A Japanese professional baseball team signed a 16-year-old high school girl to pitch for them in their upcoming season beginning this coming April. This would make her the first woman to play professional baseball in Japan. To the best of my knowledge, women haven't played professional baseball in America since 1954, but if the Japanese experiment works out, it may not be too long before we see a little of that here. As far as I'm concerned, if she can throw strikes at the same rate as the guys, let her play. Somebody find Jeanie Finch and teach her how to throw overhand. I'd love to see her strike out Manny Ramirez.
Finally, a British woman divorced her husband when she discovered his avatar was having and affair with a "prostitute" in the online role-playing game "Second Life". Apparently the couple met and married on Second Life prior to doing so in real life, and spent as much time interacting through the game as they did in person. I guess I could be mistaken, but I thought the purpose of games like Second Life was to escape reality. If your Second Life is as real and as crappy as your first life, what's the point of having a second life? Get a (real) life people!
This is Lando. Sort of.
Some of you may recognize him from a popular science-fiction film trilogy. My wife thinks I resemble him. My wife is also sleep deprived.
As I mentioned before, the 2008 Presidential campaign is finally, mercifully over. No more periodic checking of polls, no more fact-checking campaign statements, no more wooing of undecided voters, no more bald plumbers riding coat-tails to D-list fame and misfortune. Understandably, cable news is suffering withdrawal. They've decided to fill the vacuum with speculation on cabinet positions and stories about the potential First Dog. The most interesting nugget to come out of all the supposition is the idea that the President-elect may be considering former rival Senator Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. The idea is intriguing, and has apparently been met with near-universal (Democratic) acclaim. Clinton seems fairly well-suited for the job. She comes prepackaged with an international persona and global connections from both her own work and that of her husband. Secretary of State is the most prestigious cabinet appointment, and would go some distance toward mending fences with the former First Family of the Democratic Party. However, it is not without its demerits. Unfortunately for Senator Clinton, most of these demerits stem from her relationship with one husband and former President, Bill Clinton. Obama's pledge of openness requires him to rout through every nook and cranny of the Clinton's lives to ensure there are no surprises that might come back to haunt him later on. That might include revealing the list of donors to the Clinton Presidential Library and to all the other charitable organizations run by the former President. No word yet on whether or not Senator Clinton will take the job. As a matter of fact, there has been no confirmation that she has actually been offered the job. The Obama campaign has been frustratingly leak-free to this point, so the fact that this suggestion has even seen the light of day and then not been denied by either Clinton or Obama suggests that it might have some merit.
President Bush hosted the leaders of the G-20 (leading economic nations) this past weekend in Washington D.C. Yes, it was pretty much exactly as boring as it sounds. Twenty world leaders standing around snapping photographs and agreeing to agree to do something about the global economic crunch, while not actually doing anything about the global economic crunch. I wonder if I could talk my boss into paying me to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Ted Kennedy returned to the Senate today, months after being diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumor. In talking to reporters, Kennedy looked pretty good, all things considered. Best wishes to the senator for a full recovery.
President-elect Obama met with John McCain today in Chicago for the first time since the election. As previously noted, the Obama transition has been virtually leak-proof, so there is no word as to what was discuss, aside from a generic joint statement indicating their desire to work together to solve the nation's problems, blah, blah, blah. My guess is there was some discussion of bipartisanship, perhaps working together on immigration and ethics reform, and maybe a cup of hot cocoa and some reminiscing about old times and the way things were. Okay, maybe not the hot cocoa.
Governor Sarah Palin stole the show at the meeting of Republican Governors last week. Hey, don't we put thieves in prison in this country? Oh, that's right, she's already in prison, she's Governor of Alaska. My bad. But seriously, for someone who refused to give interviews to the "liberal media" in the eight weeks she was running for vice president, she certainly is chatty now. It's always amusing to hear people criticize the unfairness and inequity of the "liberal media" while appearing on the "liberal media". Over and over again.
California is burning again. Nothing new really, this sort of this happens every year - albeit earlier in the season. I guess when you live in a state covered by forests and you build you million dollar homes in the middle of the trees, bad things are going to happen every now and then. Good luck to the firefighters and I hope everyone makes it home in one piece.
The domestic automakers have been working Capitol Hill for weeks now, trying to drum up support for a $25 billion bailout package - in addition to the $25 billion Congress has already approved to help them retool. The hubris of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler grates on my last nerve like fingernails on a chalkboard. I lived in town with a GM manufacturing plant for ten years, I understand that millions of jobs depend on a healthy automotive industry. But why does the public have to prop up these clowns when times are bad only to get our wallets gouged out when times are good? Detroit has spent years making money hand over fist on the consumer selling these monstrous sport utility vehicles to people whose idea of sport is trying to navigate the mall parking lot while texting to order a pizza, all the while claiming they are only fulfilling market demand. Really? What's the market demanding now? It seems to be demanding that some of you go out of business. If market demand was good enough justification when you were making money, it should be good enough now that you're losing it. As for the "market demand" argument, there is such a thing as innovation for innovation's sake. There was no market for an impeccably designed, ridiculously overpriced MP3 player before Apple invented one. There was no market for legal online music sales before Apple created one. There was no demand for cheese stuffed crust pizza until Pizza Hut baked one up. If Detroit had spent 10% of the time working on making smaller vehicles more profitable that they spent on making larger vehicles even bigger, they might not be in the situation they're in. Besides, General Motors and Ford already manufacture smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles which they sell - for profit - Europe, Asia and South America. Can't they fill the holes in the fleet by importing those vehicles? There must be something else we can try before we hand over fistfuls of taxpayer money to companies who obviously incapable of handling their own affairs.
A South Carolina Catholic priest has instructed his parishioners to repent for voting for Barack Obama. It's not clear what gave him the impression that members of his congregation voted for Obama, or why that is any of his business, but he seems to feel that due to his pro-choice stance, Obama is a baby-killer, and any Catholic (and I guess any other religious person) who voted for Obama must be a baby-killer as well and must repent. I mention this story only to raise the issue of the single issue voter. I happen to believe that one should vote on the totality of the candidate's platform. There are others, like the afore-mentioned South Carolina priest, who would disagree with me. But if you allow your vote to be held hostage by a single issue, you lose your ability to influence the democracy - your only power as a voter. As long as one candidate supports your pet issue, they can abuse you and your vote in whatever manner they please and never be held accountable for their actions. That's damaging to the republic and not something I'm comfortable with as a voter. By the way, I don't remember hearing this priest instructing his parishioners to repent for voting for John Kerry in the 2004 election. Is it only a sin to vote for a pro-choice candidate if the pro-choice candidate wins? Or maybe he did call for repentance last time and I just missed the story. It's been four years, I'm old and my memory's not what it used to be.
My NFL Thoughts for Week 11:
The New York Giants have the best committee running game I have ever seen. Brandon Jacobs simply cannot be tackled. He outweighs most of the linebackers trying to tackle him by 20 or 30 pounds and just runs over anyone who gets in his way. Even the great Ray Lewis and the rest of the vaunted Baltimore defense were humbled by the Giants ground game.
Carolina is the most dubious 8-2 team I can remember. They played Detroit yesterday - so they essentially had the day off. Yet somehow they came within a failed two-point conversion of giving the Lions a chance to dash my hopes for a perfect 0-16 season from them. Usually when a team gains 250+ yards rushing in one game you can sagely make the assumption that they dominated the game. But this one was much much closer than the 31-22 score would indicate.
The Titans are for real. They can win 'em ugly, and they can make it look good. The undefeated season may still be in doubt, but we will be seeing this team deep into the playoffs.
The NFC North confuses me. Three teams with the same record, eleven weeks into the season. Following Sunday's 34-point taxidermy of the Bears, the Packers seem to have the upper hand in the division. But much like the weather in the upper Midwest, if you don't like the standings, just wait a minute.
My how the Eagles have fallen. Two weeks ago experts had this team competing for a Wild Card playoff slot. On Sunday afternoon they were given 15 additional minutes to defeat the pathetic Cincinnati Bengals, and failed to do so. Note to Eagles management; find yourself a top-tier receiver. It got you to the Superbowl once, it might do it again.
Dallas finally figured out how to win football games; hand Marion Barber the ball.
Steelers safety Troy Polamalu snagged the most beautiful interception I've seen since I've been watching professional football, soaring in from out-of-frame and laying out to cradle the nose of the ball as it brushed the tip of a blade of grass on snowy, soggy Heinz Field Sunday night. He was later robbed of an impressive touchdown by yet another blown call by the officials at the end of a game. As a result of the 11-10 final score (the rarest in NFL history), Vegas bookies were livid at the loss of about $66 million. Suckers. That's why they call it gambling.
Jeff Garcia is one tough S.O.B. There is no way a 185-pound quarterback should be able to survive in this league - let alone score with Playboy centerfolds.
My Superbowl picks for Week 11; New York Giants vs. Tennessee Titans
A Japanese professional baseball team signed a 16-year-old high school girl to pitch for them in their upcoming season beginning this coming April. This would make her the first woman to play professional baseball in Japan. To the best of my knowledge, women haven't played professional baseball in America since 1954, but if the Japanese experiment works out, it may not be too long before we see a little of that here. As far as I'm concerned, if she can throw strikes at the same rate as the guys, let her play. Somebody find Jeanie Finch and teach her how to throw overhand. I'd love to see her strike out Manny Ramirez.
Finally, a British woman divorced her husband when she discovered his avatar was having and affair with a "prostitute" in the online role-playing game "Second Life". Apparently the couple met and married on Second Life prior to doing so in real life, and spent as much time interacting through the game as they did in person. I guess I could be mistaken, but I thought the purpose of games like Second Life was to escape reality. If your Second Life is as real and as crappy as your first life, what's the point of having a second life? Get a (real) life people!
11.11.2008
44
It’s been a week since Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States of America. Most of the media outlets and personality have packed up and moved on from the campaign and the significance of the moment, shifting their focus - as they should - to the transition period and the cabinet selection and the search for the new White House puppy. But before I join them, I need to take one last look back. A look back at the highs and lows of the longest presidential campaign in history. One last look back at what Obama has accomplished to this point and the enormity of the challenges ahead of him.
Four years ago, at the Democratic Convention, America was introduced to a skinny black guy with a funny name from Chicago, Illinois. At that time merely a local figure, no one knew anything about him, except that he gave one hell of a speech. Sometimes all you need is an opportunity. Obama was able to use the overwhelmingly positively response to that speech (as well as the gift he received of his opponent Jim Ryan’s admissions of strip club visits and messy divorce proceedings) into election to the U.S. Senate in 2004. Once he arrived there, no one gave him much thought or attention. He was a freshman senator from a state with a strong, well-known senior senator with apparently no higher political aspirations. But he used the first two years of his term to quietly build a network of support in Congress and to begin to develop a “grassroots” movement, heavily dependent upon the internet and the youth of the nation. Then, on a cold, crisp February day, on the steps of the State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, Barack Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States.
At that point in time, the nation barely noticed. Everybody knew that Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic presidential nominee. The primary process - still 11 months away was nothing more than a formality. She had spent decades preparing for this run, logging 12 years as the First Lady of Arkansas, eight years as the First Lady of the United States, then winning election to the U.S. Senate in 2000 and cementing her credentials with re-election in 2006. Together with her husband she had created a powerful political machine backed by numerous big money donors and powerful party insiders. There was no way she could lose the primary. Until she did.
Senator Clinton’s achilles heel turned out to be her Senate vote authorizing the invasion of Iraq. Not being a member of the Senate at the time, Obama escaped having to cast a vote on the issue. What initially looked like a successful military campaign dragged on to become a messy mishandled occupation, complicated by an insurgency which resulted in a religious-based civil war. Coupled with the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction - the selling point of the war to the American people - what had originally been viewed as a cake-walk to Baghdad was now deeply unpopular and being compared to the American experience in Vietnam. This was Obama’s opening. His opposition to the invasion made him the only major Democratic candidate untainted by the war, allowing him to build a small, yet vocal base of support. Then came Iowa.
Prior to the night of the Iowa caucuses, most black voters strongly supported Senator Clinton. Simply put, they didn’t believe white people would vote for a black man for president. They hadn’t before, why should this time be any different? But Obama was a different kind of candidate. Instead of emphasizing his blackness and and calling attention to racial and social injustice around every corner, Obama emphasized his Americanness and the plight of the middle class, careful to avoid ever appearing as the “angry black man.” Throughout both the primary and the general election campaigns his supporters frequently grow frustrated with Obama’s apparent reluctance to take the offensive against his opponents. But he well understood that nothing would sink his campaign faster than playing to the image of the angry black man. So he continued to give his audiences the benefit of the the doubt, and on a chilly January night, Iowa caucus voters returned the favor. Obama ran away with Iowa. All of a sudden, black voters realized that white America just might be ready to make history. The importance of Iowa cannot be over-stated. Same goes for New Hampshire.
Just four days later Obama rolled into New Hampshire riding high off the Iowa victory with a clear lead in the polls. But Senator Clinton wasn’t quite ready to disappear into that goodnight. Stunning the pollsters, Clinton easily wins the New Hampshire primary, setting the stage for the first fifty-state primary campaign many people can remember. At first, the mood in congenial, with most Democrats declaring that they would be perfectly happy to end up with either candidate. But as the primary wears on and the battle becomes more acrimonious, tempers begin to flare among supporters. The Clinton strategy was to defeat Obama on Super Tuesday, claiming victory in enough primaries to end the race. But Obama was able to win enough contests to play Super Tuesday to a stalemate. It was at this point that Senator Clinton’s campaign strategy broke down. It became evident that there was no plan to continue beyond Super Tuesday. From the beginning, Obama had developed a keen understanding of the Democratic primary and caucus proportional representation system, realizing that he didn’t need to win big states like New York and California, he only needed to remain competitive, while taking as many small states as he could. He had send teams of volunteers ahead into smaller states to set up for the coming caucuses. Senator Clinton had not done so. Due to that tactical error on her part, Senator Obama rattled off 11-straight virtually uncontested victories, building what would turn out to be an insurmountable pledged delegate lead. Wanting to go with a winner, the super delegates began to switch allegiances, and by the night of the final primary, Senator Obama had his Democratic primary victory all wrapped up.
But victory came at a price. The Democratic party was now fractured, one faction supporting Barack Obama, the other backing Hillary Clinton. And, five weeks prior to the Pennsylvania primary, Obama had been forced to confront the issue of race he had avoided so deftly when video of one of his Chicago pastor’s sermons found it’s way to television news. With a brilliantly insightful speech and several emphatic denouncements, he was largely able to put Jeremiah Wright behind him. But party unity was a different story. All the way up to and through the convention, the narrative would focus on whether or not Obama could win over Clinton supporters upset - even distraught over her defeat. The media devoted reams of copy and countless hours of airtime to the question of how Obama would appeal to this constituency. Several high-profile Clinton backers defected, publicly pledging to work to get John McCain elected. There was even some measure of doubt as to how Senator Clinton would respond at the convention. But in the end, it turned out to be a lot of wasted ink. A true class act, both Senator and President Clinton put their purpose ahead of their egos and threw their support behind the Democratic nominee. That Thursday night Senator Obama delivered his acceptance speech in front of eighty thousand people at Invesco Field in Denver, becoming the first black candidate to head a major party presidential ticket. He had a slim lead in the polls, and the support of most of his Party. Things were looking up Thursday night. But Friday was another day.
The Friday morning following Obama’s acceptance speech, John McCain revealed his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. A fresh-faced conservative mother of five, she was an instant hit with the Republican base and a media sensation. The announcement of her vice-presidential candidacy completely erased Obama’s convention bounce, and vaulted McCain into a slim lead in the polls. Without even one day to savor his moment, he was playing catch-up to his opponent. But soon a curious thing began to happen. While conservative Republicans were enamored with the Palin selection, they weren’t John McCain’s constituency. And the more Independents learned about Sarah Palin, the less they cared for her. Their concerns were piqued when she faltered a little in her first nationally televised interview with Charles Gibson of ABC News, then confirmed when she completely floundered in an interview with CBS’s Katie Couric. Her approval numbers began to dip, and without ever addressing her directly, Obama once again pulled even in the opinion polls. Then the bottom fell out for John McCain.
Since the beginning of his campaign, McCain had been searching for a theme to run on. He survived the primary on the military success of “the surge” which he had advocated and supported. But by this time, that mantra was getting stale. So he turned toward more traditional Republican talking points. Reduction in capital gains taxes, school choice and smaller government became the new focus of the campaign. But the economy wasn’t cooperating. Suddenly, over a weekend, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were placed into conservatorship by the Treasury Department. Within a week, Lehman Brothers, a fixture on Wall Street for over a century, was forced to file for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch was purchased by Bank of America for less than half of its value. In the six months since the federal bailout of Bear Stearns and the country had been lulled into a false sense that the sub-prime mortgage crisis wasn’t quite as bad as people thought. But Lehman started the cascade. In the days that followed, several big name banks like Wachovia were taken over by the government to protect the assets of the depositors. Seemingly oblivious to what was happening, McCain told the assembled crowd at a Monday morning rally in Jacksonville that, “...the fundamentals of the economy are strong....” The Dow plummeted five hundred points that day, and by that afternoon McCain was scrambling to qualify and adjust his statements. He didn’t realize it at the time, but that statement signaled the death of his presidential campaign.
True to his “maverick” nature, McCain dove headlong into the problem, announcing he would “suspend his campaign” immediately, putting country before personal ambition and return to Washington to shepherd Congress through the necessary bailout negotiations. Only he gave several sit-down interviews before he returned to Washington, and when he got there, he did nothing. He then announced he would not attend the first presidential debate scheduled for that Friday evening if there was no agreement on a financial rescue package. On Thursday he took credit for the passage of a deal before it was voted on. Said deal went down in flames on the floor of the House and McCain blamed Senator Obama for its defeat. Except that the vote took place in the House of Representatives, so Obama had nothing to do with it. Then, without a deal in place, and without an explanation, McCain appeared at the debate as scheduled. But his performance was less than stellar. He appeared agitated and distracted, and dismissive of his opponent, refusing to look at Barack Obama during the entire 90 minute exchange. Over the course of one week, the battle-tested John McCain had gone from being viewed as the experienced, weathered, stoic President-in-waiting, to a confused, erratic, out-of-touch old man. Obama, derided by McCain throughout the entire campaign for his “poor judgement” and “lack of experience,” came across as the steady hand in a time of crisis. A majority of the public now viewed him as... presidential. The remainder of the campaign was academic.
The final two debates changed nothing. Down in the polls McCain resorted to the tried and true Lee Atwater designed, Karl Rove tested politics of personal destruction. His campaign trotted out issues put to rest during the Democratic primary, threw out every label they could think of, even attempted to turn a plumber into a mascot. Due in part to the afore-mentioned tactics the race tightened down the stretch. But in the end, the Democratic candidate’s significant monetary advantage and superior organization, (is it safe to assume the roll of community organizer will never again be ridiculed on national television by a Republican operative?), coupled with an over-riding concern for the economy and confidence in Obama’s ability to turn the country around trumped the politics of fear and loathing, and Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States. The first black President in U.S. history. The first black head of state in the Western World. The magnitude of that achievement cannot be overstated. There was a time in this country when those with Obama’s skin color were considered to be only three-fifth’s of a person. Merely forty years ago black people were forced to eat at separate lunch counters, drink from separate water fountains and ride at the back of the bus. I wasn’t born yesterday. I’m under no illusion that Obama’s victory instantly resolves the racial tensions and conflicts that have plagued this country for 400 years. But what it does signal is the willingness of Americans to try. I’m also not naive enough to believe the election of Barack Obama will magically undo the damage done to this country and its image by the current administration. He will inherit two unfinished wars, a Justice Department in tatters and a global economic meltdown. It’s difficult to understand why anyone would want the job at this point. Undoubtedly Obama will succeed in some areas and fail in others, just like every other leader to come before him. We would be wise to expect a bumpy ride in the beginning. But what we have done with this election is reject the insanity of repeating the same actions over and over again, expecting a different result, choosing instead a different path. One rich with the promise of possibility, with the belief that we can be more than the sum of our parts. Let’s not allow such an historic opportunity to go to waste.
Four years ago, at the Democratic Convention, America was introduced to a skinny black guy with a funny name from Chicago, Illinois. At that time merely a local figure, no one knew anything about him, except that he gave one hell of a speech. Sometimes all you need is an opportunity. Obama was able to use the overwhelmingly positively response to that speech (as well as the gift he received of his opponent Jim Ryan’s admissions of strip club visits and messy divorce proceedings) into election to the U.S. Senate in 2004. Once he arrived there, no one gave him much thought or attention. He was a freshman senator from a state with a strong, well-known senior senator with apparently no higher political aspirations. But he used the first two years of his term to quietly build a network of support in Congress and to begin to develop a “grassroots” movement, heavily dependent upon the internet and the youth of the nation. Then, on a cold, crisp February day, on the steps of the State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, Barack Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States.
At that point in time, the nation barely noticed. Everybody knew that Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic presidential nominee. The primary process - still 11 months away was nothing more than a formality. She had spent decades preparing for this run, logging 12 years as the First Lady of Arkansas, eight years as the First Lady of the United States, then winning election to the U.S. Senate in 2000 and cementing her credentials with re-election in 2006. Together with her husband she had created a powerful political machine backed by numerous big money donors and powerful party insiders. There was no way she could lose the primary. Until she did.
Senator Clinton’s achilles heel turned out to be her Senate vote authorizing the invasion of Iraq. Not being a member of the Senate at the time, Obama escaped having to cast a vote on the issue. What initially looked like a successful military campaign dragged on to become a messy mishandled occupation, complicated by an insurgency which resulted in a religious-based civil war. Coupled with the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction - the selling point of the war to the American people - what had originally been viewed as a cake-walk to Baghdad was now deeply unpopular and being compared to the American experience in Vietnam. This was Obama’s opening. His opposition to the invasion made him the only major Democratic candidate untainted by the war, allowing him to build a small, yet vocal base of support. Then came Iowa.
Prior to the night of the Iowa caucuses, most black voters strongly supported Senator Clinton. Simply put, they didn’t believe white people would vote for a black man for president. They hadn’t before, why should this time be any different? But Obama was a different kind of candidate. Instead of emphasizing his blackness and and calling attention to racial and social injustice around every corner, Obama emphasized his Americanness and the plight of the middle class, careful to avoid ever appearing as the “angry black man.” Throughout both the primary and the general election campaigns his supporters frequently grow frustrated with Obama’s apparent reluctance to take the offensive against his opponents. But he well understood that nothing would sink his campaign faster than playing to the image of the angry black man. So he continued to give his audiences the benefit of the the doubt, and on a chilly January night, Iowa caucus voters returned the favor. Obama ran away with Iowa. All of a sudden, black voters realized that white America just might be ready to make history. The importance of Iowa cannot be over-stated. Same goes for New Hampshire.
Just four days later Obama rolled into New Hampshire riding high off the Iowa victory with a clear lead in the polls. But Senator Clinton wasn’t quite ready to disappear into that goodnight. Stunning the pollsters, Clinton easily wins the New Hampshire primary, setting the stage for the first fifty-state primary campaign many people can remember. At first, the mood in congenial, with most Democrats declaring that they would be perfectly happy to end up with either candidate. But as the primary wears on and the battle becomes more acrimonious, tempers begin to flare among supporters. The Clinton strategy was to defeat Obama on Super Tuesday, claiming victory in enough primaries to end the race. But Obama was able to win enough contests to play Super Tuesday to a stalemate. It was at this point that Senator Clinton’s campaign strategy broke down. It became evident that there was no plan to continue beyond Super Tuesday. From the beginning, Obama had developed a keen understanding of the Democratic primary and caucus proportional representation system, realizing that he didn’t need to win big states like New York and California, he only needed to remain competitive, while taking as many small states as he could. He had send teams of volunteers ahead into smaller states to set up for the coming caucuses. Senator Clinton had not done so. Due to that tactical error on her part, Senator Obama rattled off 11-straight virtually uncontested victories, building what would turn out to be an insurmountable pledged delegate lead. Wanting to go with a winner, the super delegates began to switch allegiances, and by the night of the final primary, Senator Obama had his Democratic primary victory all wrapped up.
But victory came at a price. The Democratic party was now fractured, one faction supporting Barack Obama, the other backing Hillary Clinton. And, five weeks prior to the Pennsylvania primary, Obama had been forced to confront the issue of race he had avoided so deftly when video of one of his Chicago pastor’s sermons found it’s way to television news. With a brilliantly insightful speech and several emphatic denouncements, he was largely able to put Jeremiah Wright behind him. But party unity was a different story. All the way up to and through the convention, the narrative would focus on whether or not Obama could win over Clinton supporters upset - even distraught over her defeat. The media devoted reams of copy and countless hours of airtime to the question of how Obama would appeal to this constituency. Several high-profile Clinton backers defected, publicly pledging to work to get John McCain elected. There was even some measure of doubt as to how Senator Clinton would respond at the convention. But in the end, it turned out to be a lot of wasted ink. A true class act, both Senator and President Clinton put their purpose ahead of their egos and threw their support behind the Democratic nominee. That Thursday night Senator Obama delivered his acceptance speech in front of eighty thousand people at Invesco Field in Denver, becoming the first black candidate to head a major party presidential ticket. He had a slim lead in the polls, and the support of most of his Party. Things were looking up Thursday night. But Friday was another day.
The Friday morning following Obama’s acceptance speech, John McCain revealed his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. A fresh-faced conservative mother of five, she was an instant hit with the Republican base and a media sensation. The announcement of her vice-presidential candidacy completely erased Obama’s convention bounce, and vaulted McCain into a slim lead in the polls. Without even one day to savor his moment, he was playing catch-up to his opponent. But soon a curious thing began to happen. While conservative Republicans were enamored with the Palin selection, they weren’t John McCain’s constituency. And the more Independents learned about Sarah Palin, the less they cared for her. Their concerns were piqued when she faltered a little in her first nationally televised interview with Charles Gibson of ABC News, then confirmed when she completely floundered in an interview with CBS’s Katie Couric. Her approval numbers began to dip, and without ever addressing her directly, Obama once again pulled even in the opinion polls. Then the bottom fell out for John McCain.
Since the beginning of his campaign, McCain had been searching for a theme to run on. He survived the primary on the military success of “the surge” which he had advocated and supported. But by this time, that mantra was getting stale. So he turned toward more traditional Republican talking points. Reduction in capital gains taxes, school choice and smaller government became the new focus of the campaign. But the economy wasn’t cooperating. Suddenly, over a weekend, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were placed into conservatorship by the Treasury Department. Within a week, Lehman Brothers, a fixture on Wall Street for over a century, was forced to file for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch was purchased by Bank of America for less than half of its value. In the six months since the federal bailout of Bear Stearns and the country had been lulled into a false sense that the sub-prime mortgage crisis wasn’t quite as bad as people thought. But Lehman started the cascade. In the days that followed, several big name banks like Wachovia were taken over by the government to protect the assets of the depositors. Seemingly oblivious to what was happening, McCain told the assembled crowd at a Monday morning rally in Jacksonville that, “...the fundamentals of the economy are strong....” The Dow plummeted five hundred points that day, and by that afternoon McCain was scrambling to qualify and adjust his statements. He didn’t realize it at the time, but that statement signaled the death of his presidential campaign.
True to his “maverick” nature, McCain dove headlong into the problem, announcing he would “suspend his campaign” immediately, putting country before personal ambition and return to Washington to shepherd Congress through the necessary bailout negotiations. Only he gave several sit-down interviews before he returned to Washington, and when he got there, he did nothing. He then announced he would not attend the first presidential debate scheduled for that Friday evening if there was no agreement on a financial rescue package. On Thursday he took credit for the passage of a deal before it was voted on. Said deal went down in flames on the floor of the House and McCain blamed Senator Obama for its defeat. Except that the vote took place in the House of Representatives, so Obama had nothing to do with it. Then, without a deal in place, and without an explanation, McCain appeared at the debate as scheduled. But his performance was less than stellar. He appeared agitated and distracted, and dismissive of his opponent, refusing to look at Barack Obama during the entire 90 minute exchange. Over the course of one week, the battle-tested John McCain had gone from being viewed as the experienced, weathered, stoic President-in-waiting, to a confused, erratic, out-of-touch old man. Obama, derided by McCain throughout the entire campaign for his “poor judgement” and “lack of experience,” came across as the steady hand in a time of crisis. A majority of the public now viewed him as... presidential. The remainder of the campaign was academic.
The final two debates changed nothing. Down in the polls McCain resorted to the tried and true Lee Atwater designed, Karl Rove tested politics of personal destruction. His campaign trotted out issues put to rest during the Democratic primary, threw out every label they could think of, even attempted to turn a plumber into a mascot. Due in part to the afore-mentioned tactics the race tightened down the stretch. But in the end, the Democratic candidate’s significant monetary advantage and superior organization, (is it safe to assume the roll of community organizer will never again be ridiculed on national television by a Republican operative?), coupled with an over-riding concern for the economy and confidence in Obama’s ability to turn the country around trumped the politics of fear and loathing, and Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States. The first black President in U.S. history. The first black head of state in the Western World. The magnitude of that achievement cannot be overstated. There was a time in this country when those with Obama’s skin color were considered to be only three-fifth’s of a person. Merely forty years ago black people were forced to eat at separate lunch counters, drink from separate water fountains and ride at the back of the bus. I wasn’t born yesterday. I’m under no illusion that Obama’s victory instantly resolves the racial tensions and conflicts that have plagued this country for 400 years. But what it does signal is the willingness of Americans to try. I’m also not naive enough to believe the election of Barack Obama will magically undo the damage done to this country and its image by the current administration. He will inherit two unfinished wars, a Justice Department in tatters and a global economic meltdown. It’s difficult to understand why anyone would want the job at this point. Undoubtedly Obama will succeed in some areas and fail in others, just like every other leader to come before him. We would be wise to expect a bumpy ride in the beginning. But what we have done with this election is reject the insanity of repeating the same actions over and over again, expecting a different result, choosing instead a different path. One rich with the promise of possibility, with the belief that we can be more than the sum of our parts. Let’s not allow such an historic opportunity to go to waste.
11.07.2008
Double Take
This may come as a surprise to a lot of people, but I like Bill O’Reilly. Well, I used to. Until about three hours ago.
I know, I know, Bill O’Reilly is the devil. He’s loud, he’s abrasive, he’s brash, he’s larger than life. He often speaks without thinking, substantiates arguments with dubious facts, cuts people off in conversation and intimidates people by sending camera crews to their homes and accosting them on their front porches to ask them questions they obviously have no desire to answer. Yes, there are so many things not to like about the man. But I’ve always respected a man who means what he says, and says what he means. Regardless of what you think about O’Reilly, you always know what he’s thinking. There’s nothing phony about the guy. What you see is what you get. Unfortunately, what you see isn’t always pretty.
Which brings me to this. I was trolling Politico.com for amusement this evening when I came across a clip from last night’s edition of the O’Reilly Factor. No need to watch the whole thing, the first couple minutes will suffice.
Let’s get this part out of the way first. If any of those leaks about Sarah Palin are true; that she didn’t know which countries signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, that she thought Africa was a country and not a continent, or that she refused to be prepped for the Katie Couric interview, then blamed he aides for not prepping her when the interview went... sour, thank God in Heaven she was not elected vice-president of the United States. At least Joe Biden only says stupid things.
But this is less about Sarah Palin and more about Bill O’Reilly. Although I can’t understand why Republican operatives would lie to the senior political correspondent of Fox News, I can’t verify whether or not the allegations made by nameless campaign sources are true. But in the following respect, it doesn’t really matter. When O’Reilly heard the anecdotes Carl Cameron was relaying to him, the correct response would have been, “...come on Carl, do you have any hard evidence for those allegations,” or perhaps, “...wow Carl, I had no idea Sarah Palin was so incredibly unprepared to even wake up in the morning,” or maybe even, “you know what Carl, I’m just going to pretend I didn’t hear you say any of those things and continue with my pre-determined line of questioning.” But no. What did Bill say? “...Well, she could be tutored on those things... there must be something more here...”
Excuse me? She could be tutored on those things? WHAT?!? Is Bill O’Reilly seriously trying to tell me that it’s not a big deal that the potential vice president doesn’t know which countries are involved in NAFTA and that Africa is actually a continent because she can learn that sort of thing on the job? I’ll check with my mom tomorrow, but I’m pretty sure I was about three years old when I learned that Africa was a continent and South Africa a country within it! I’d be willing to bet that the fifth graders she gave a “shout out” to during the vice presidential debate know which countries signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, seeing as how there are only three countries in North America! I’m sorry, but it is not okay that the V.P candidate the Republican Party tried to foist upon this nation may not be smarter than a fifth grader! And the fact that a man like O’Reilly would help perpetrate this fraud on the American people by espousing his sincere belief that deficiencies such as those just aren’t a big deal, is nothing short of ludicrous!
Bill, I feel sorry for you. And that’s no small feat considering you are about 6 inches taller and a hundred million dollars richer than I am. Obviously things didn’t turn out the way you would have preferred them to. But you have to accept the fact that the Republican Party was complicit in its own demise. Contrary to what you seem to believe, it does matter that a 44-year-old state governor may not know the difference between a continent and a country. It is evidence that the Republican leadership thought so little of the rest of us that they felt they could throw any old “real American” small town Joe six-pack pit-bull hockey mom on the ticket, tell us she was more qualified than the opposition and have us buy into it. Unfortunately, you did. I expected more of you. Maybe I shouldn’t have.
I know, I know, Bill O’Reilly is the devil. He’s loud, he’s abrasive, he’s brash, he’s larger than life. He often speaks without thinking, substantiates arguments with dubious facts, cuts people off in conversation and intimidates people by sending camera crews to their homes and accosting them on their front porches to ask them questions they obviously have no desire to answer. Yes, there are so many things not to like about the man. But I’ve always respected a man who means what he says, and says what he means. Regardless of what you think about O’Reilly, you always know what he’s thinking. There’s nothing phony about the guy. What you see is what you get. Unfortunately, what you see isn’t always pretty.
Which brings me to this. I was trolling Politico.com for amusement this evening when I came across a clip from last night’s edition of the O’Reilly Factor. No need to watch the whole thing, the first couple minutes will suffice.
Let’s get this part out of the way first. If any of those leaks about Sarah Palin are true; that she didn’t know which countries signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, that she thought Africa was a country and not a continent, or that she refused to be prepped for the Katie Couric interview, then blamed he aides for not prepping her when the interview went... sour, thank God in Heaven she was not elected vice-president of the United States. At least Joe Biden only says stupid things.
But this is less about Sarah Palin and more about Bill O’Reilly. Although I can’t understand why Republican operatives would lie to the senior political correspondent of Fox News, I can’t verify whether or not the allegations made by nameless campaign sources are true. But in the following respect, it doesn’t really matter. When O’Reilly heard the anecdotes Carl Cameron was relaying to him, the correct response would have been, “...come on Carl, do you have any hard evidence for those allegations,” or perhaps, “...wow Carl, I had no idea Sarah Palin was so incredibly unprepared to even wake up in the morning,” or maybe even, “you know what Carl, I’m just going to pretend I didn’t hear you say any of those things and continue with my pre-determined line of questioning.” But no. What did Bill say? “...Well, she could be tutored on those things... there must be something more here...”
Excuse me? She could be tutored on those things? WHAT?!? Is Bill O’Reilly seriously trying to tell me that it’s not a big deal that the potential vice president doesn’t know which countries are involved in NAFTA and that Africa is actually a continent because she can learn that sort of thing on the job? I’ll check with my mom tomorrow, but I’m pretty sure I was about three years old when I learned that Africa was a continent and South Africa a country within it! I’d be willing to bet that the fifth graders she gave a “shout out” to during the vice presidential debate know which countries signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, seeing as how there are only three countries in North America! I’m sorry, but it is not okay that the V.P candidate the Republican Party tried to foist upon this nation may not be smarter than a fifth grader! And the fact that a man like O’Reilly would help perpetrate this fraud on the American people by espousing his sincere belief that deficiencies such as those just aren’t a big deal, is nothing short of ludicrous!
Bill, I feel sorry for you. And that’s no small feat considering you are about 6 inches taller and a hundred million dollars richer than I am. Obviously things didn’t turn out the way you would have preferred them to. But you have to accept the fact that the Republican Party was complicit in its own demise. Contrary to what you seem to believe, it does matter that a 44-year-old state governor may not know the difference between a continent and a country. It is evidence that the Republican leadership thought so little of the rest of us that they felt they could throw any old “real American” small town Joe six-pack pit-bull hockey mom on the ticket, tell us she was more qualified than the opposition and have us buy into it. Unfortunately, you did. I expected more of you. Maybe I shouldn’t have.
11.06.2008
The Day After
For the past 24 hours I’ve been trying to think of something worthy to write. I’ve come up with nothing. It seems as though I lack the vocabulary necessary to express the magnitude of what happened Tuesday night. There were many things I planned to say in the event of an Obama victory, many more in the event of a McCain comeback. But very few of them now seem big enough for the moment.
So, instead of trying to cobble together something that may or may not resemble coherent writing, I’ve decided to try something else. In this post I’ll share some of my thoughts about the election and other items in the news this past week. Then on Friday, after I’ve had a chance to digest it, I’ll offer my thoughts on the meaning of this election.
First, to state the obvious. At 11:00 p.m. Tuesday, November 4th, 2008, Senator Barack Obama defeated Senator John McCain to become the 44th President Elect of the United States of America.
North Carolina and Missouri have still not completed counting their votes. But at this point, that doesn’t matter. Despite record voter turnout, both Florida and Ohio somehow managed to conduct an election cleanly and efficiently, without any major technical difficulties. That in and of itself has got to be some kind of miracle.
A mea culpa. I have always believed that America would elect a female president before a black president. Obviously, I was wrong. I apologize.
Many interesting images from Tuesday night that will remain with me for some time to come;
Kudos to John McCain for one of the classiest concession speeches I’ve ever heard. Obviously a difficult, emotional moment for him, handled with the stoicism and grace befitting a U.S. Senator and military man.
Contrast the crowd at the McCain rally with the crowd at the Obama rally. One of them resembled my neighborhood, one of them didn’t.
It was moving to see all the people in all the crowds nationwide who broke down in tears at the announcement of Obama’s victory. It was the first time I can remember seeing Jesse Jackson speechless. Oprah sounded about as delirious and incomprehensible as Kevin Garnett did the night the Celtics won the NBA title. In Times Square, a tall smiling black man turned to the two young white women standing beside him and embraced them, as they embraced him. But the image I think I will remember most was that of ABC News anchor Charles Gibson holding back tears as he watched the reaction around the world and tried to describe the emotions present in what he was seeing. Gibson is a hardened old news man. He’s covered wars and famines and celebrations and other presidential elections, all without betraying his emotions. The fact that he was unable to do so in this instance speaks volumes to the significance of that moment.
Kenya has declared November 4th, Obama Day.
Can we please, please, PLEASE get rid of this ridiculous electoral college? I'm told that the electoral college was originally conceived to prevent large urban population centers in certain regions of the country from dominating national politics. So instead, every four years, the rest of the country is held hostage for 10 months by six undecided yahoos in Ohio and the world shuffleboard champion retirement community in the southwest suburbs of Orlando. Why on earth can we not just send the candidate with the most votes to the White House? Why do we insist on making things so much more difficult than they need to be?
On Tuesday night the longest presidential campaign in history came to an end. I tried desperately to come up with a list of things I will miss about the campaign. I failed miserably. But I did find a few things I certainly WILL NOT miss.
1. Polls. I don’t want to hear about polls until 2012. Numbers, internals, sampling sizes, margins of error, I’m tired of it all and I want it to go away. For the next 3 1/2 years, I don’t want to hear the word mentioned unless it is preceded by the word telephone, or followed by the word vault.
2. Joe the Plumber. What did we do to deserve to have this fraud perpetrated upon us? You know what, on second thought, I don’t care. Joe is just trying to make a name for himself the good old-fashioned time-honored American way, by hiring and agent and attempting to parlay his fifteen seconds of fame and three weeks of campaign infamy into a book deal, Congressional run and country music recording contract. He is doing his best to ensure that he will ultimately be negatively affected by President-elect Obama’s tax plan. Who among us wouldn’t do the same?
3. The triumph of the ordinary over the extraordinary. This is intricately related to the previous item. There was nothing special about Joe Wurtzelbacher. He assembled pipes for a living. Nothing wrong with that. But nothing special either. Yet in his desperate search for a horse to hitch his campaign to, McCain elevated Joe to a stature greater than even that of his own. He became Joe the Symbol, the jingle for the absurd concept that if we simply eliminated taxes we could all wake up tomorrow in some capitalist utopia where everyone is a satisfied self-employed millionaire, and the rest of the world cowers in fear and grovels at our feet. The problem is that there was nothing special about Joe Wurtzelbacher. And when we elevated ordinary people to the status of heroes, we diminish real heroes - like John McCain. Heroes perform above and beyond the call of duty. John McCain chose to remain in captivity, rather than go home and leave his fellow soldiers to their fate in that Vietnamese prison. Yet for some reason, he allowed the non-story of some guy asking a question to overshadow the story of his own very real accomplishments.
4. The CNN “Magic Wall”. If you’re going to construct a gigantic video screen on which to display pretty little graphics and flashing lights, make sure you can fit the whole thing on screen in a single shot. Poor design.
5. The “Bradley Effect”. Do some people tell pollsters they will vote for a black candidate, then do the opposite in the solace of the voting booth? I don’t know. But the day before the election, polling indicated that Obama held a less than one percent lead over McCain in my state of Indiana - a state which had not voted for a Democrat, let alone a black man, in almost half-a-century. Analysis of the numbers the day after the election shows that Obama carried Indiana by less that one percent. This is not the same country in which Tom Bradley ran for mayor 26 years ago.
Finally, one of the most important outcomes of this election is the repudiation of the politics of fear and personal destruction. Karl Rove was not the first political operative to engineer a presidential campaign based on the fear and loathing of one’s opponent. But his campaigns were arguably some of the most effective. Rick Davis attempted the same thing against Barack Obama on behalf of John McCain. And the result is confirmation of his utter failure. From day one of the general election campaign, McCain’s strategists looked at the political landscape and knew they had little to no substance to run on. So they designed a campaign that would spend much - if not most - of it’s time attempting to tear down the opponent. They threw every single frightening label at Obama hoping something would stick. They called him unpatriotic, elitist, mysterious and risky. They called him a Muslim, a socialist, a radical and a terrorist sympathizer. They accused him of associating with militants, bombers, racists and nationalists. They insinuated that he was unqualified, and dangerous, anti-American and simply “not like us.” They ran a a campaign filled with “we don’t know” and “he might be” and “there’s no evidence”. It would have been so easy for people to be overwhelmed by the negativity and run screaming at the sight of their own shadows. But at least 62 million people stood up and said to Karl Rove and Rick Davis that we may not know everything we want to know about Barack Obama, but we will not be coerced into loathing, or controlled by our fear of another American citizen. Not this time. To paraphrase Vice President-elect Joe Biden, for 22 months they called Barack Obama every name they could think of. Now they can call him President of the United States of America.
So, instead of trying to cobble together something that may or may not resemble coherent writing, I’ve decided to try something else. In this post I’ll share some of my thoughts about the election and other items in the news this past week. Then on Friday, after I’ve had a chance to digest it, I’ll offer my thoughts on the meaning of this election.
First, to state the obvious. At 11:00 p.m. Tuesday, November 4th, 2008, Senator Barack Obama defeated Senator John McCain to become the 44th President Elect of the United States of America.
North Carolina and Missouri have still not completed counting their votes. But at this point, that doesn’t matter. Despite record voter turnout, both Florida and Ohio somehow managed to conduct an election cleanly and efficiently, without any major technical difficulties. That in and of itself has got to be some kind of miracle.
A mea culpa. I have always believed that America would elect a female president before a black president. Obviously, I was wrong. I apologize.
Many interesting images from Tuesday night that will remain with me for some time to come;
Kudos to John McCain for one of the classiest concession speeches I’ve ever heard. Obviously a difficult, emotional moment for him, handled with the stoicism and grace befitting a U.S. Senator and military man.
Contrast the crowd at the McCain rally with the crowd at the Obama rally. One of them resembled my neighborhood, one of them didn’t.
It was moving to see all the people in all the crowds nationwide who broke down in tears at the announcement of Obama’s victory. It was the first time I can remember seeing Jesse Jackson speechless. Oprah sounded about as delirious and incomprehensible as Kevin Garnett did the night the Celtics won the NBA title. In Times Square, a tall smiling black man turned to the two young white women standing beside him and embraced them, as they embraced him. But the image I think I will remember most was that of ABC News anchor Charles Gibson holding back tears as he watched the reaction around the world and tried to describe the emotions present in what he was seeing. Gibson is a hardened old news man. He’s covered wars and famines and celebrations and other presidential elections, all without betraying his emotions. The fact that he was unable to do so in this instance speaks volumes to the significance of that moment.
Kenya has declared November 4th, Obama Day.
Can we please, please, PLEASE get rid of this ridiculous electoral college? I'm told that the electoral college was originally conceived to prevent large urban population centers in certain regions of the country from dominating national politics. So instead, every four years, the rest of the country is held hostage for 10 months by six undecided yahoos in Ohio and the world shuffleboard champion retirement community in the southwest suburbs of Orlando. Why on earth can we not just send the candidate with the most votes to the White House? Why do we insist on making things so much more difficult than they need to be?
On Tuesday night the longest presidential campaign in history came to an end. I tried desperately to come up with a list of things I will miss about the campaign. I failed miserably. But I did find a few things I certainly WILL NOT miss.
1. Polls. I don’t want to hear about polls until 2012. Numbers, internals, sampling sizes, margins of error, I’m tired of it all and I want it to go away. For the next 3 1/2 years, I don’t want to hear the word mentioned unless it is preceded by the word telephone, or followed by the word vault.
2. Joe the Plumber. What did we do to deserve to have this fraud perpetrated upon us? You know what, on second thought, I don’t care. Joe is just trying to make a name for himself the good old-fashioned time-honored American way, by hiring and agent and attempting to parlay his fifteen seconds of fame and three weeks of campaign infamy into a book deal, Congressional run and country music recording contract. He is doing his best to ensure that he will ultimately be negatively affected by President-elect Obama’s tax plan. Who among us wouldn’t do the same?
3. The triumph of the ordinary over the extraordinary. This is intricately related to the previous item. There was nothing special about Joe Wurtzelbacher. He assembled pipes for a living. Nothing wrong with that. But nothing special either. Yet in his desperate search for a horse to hitch his campaign to, McCain elevated Joe to a stature greater than even that of his own. He became Joe the Symbol, the jingle for the absurd concept that if we simply eliminated taxes we could all wake up tomorrow in some capitalist utopia where everyone is a satisfied self-employed millionaire, and the rest of the world cowers in fear and grovels at our feet. The problem is that there was nothing special about Joe Wurtzelbacher. And when we elevated ordinary people to the status of heroes, we diminish real heroes - like John McCain. Heroes perform above and beyond the call of duty. John McCain chose to remain in captivity, rather than go home and leave his fellow soldiers to their fate in that Vietnamese prison. Yet for some reason, he allowed the non-story of some guy asking a question to overshadow the story of his own very real accomplishments.
4. The CNN “Magic Wall”. If you’re going to construct a gigantic video screen on which to display pretty little graphics and flashing lights, make sure you can fit the whole thing on screen in a single shot. Poor design.
5. The “Bradley Effect”. Do some people tell pollsters they will vote for a black candidate, then do the opposite in the solace of the voting booth? I don’t know. But the day before the election, polling indicated that Obama held a less than one percent lead over McCain in my state of Indiana - a state which had not voted for a Democrat, let alone a black man, in almost half-a-century. Analysis of the numbers the day after the election shows that Obama carried Indiana by less that one percent. This is not the same country in which Tom Bradley ran for mayor 26 years ago.
Finally, one of the most important outcomes of this election is the repudiation of the politics of fear and personal destruction. Karl Rove was not the first political operative to engineer a presidential campaign based on the fear and loathing of one’s opponent. But his campaigns were arguably some of the most effective. Rick Davis attempted the same thing against Barack Obama on behalf of John McCain. And the result is confirmation of his utter failure. From day one of the general election campaign, McCain’s strategists looked at the political landscape and knew they had little to no substance to run on. So they designed a campaign that would spend much - if not most - of it’s time attempting to tear down the opponent. They threw every single frightening label at Obama hoping something would stick. They called him unpatriotic, elitist, mysterious and risky. They called him a Muslim, a socialist, a radical and a terrorist sympathizer. They accused him of associating with militants, bombers, racists and nationalists. They insinuated that he was unqualified, and dangerous, anti-American and simply “not like us.” They ran a a campaign filled with “we don’t know” and “he might be” and “there’s no evidence”. It would have been so easy for people to be overwhelmed by the negativity and run screaming at the sight of their own shadows. But at least 62 million people stood up and said to Karl Rove and Rick Davis that we may not know everything we want to know about Barack Obama, but we will not be coerced into loathing, or controlled by our fear of another American citizen. Not this time. To paraphrase Vice President-elect Joe Biden, for 22 months they called Barack Obama every name they could think of. Now they can call him President of the United States of America.
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