Who Dat!

Six inches of snow since noon today. Eat your heart out Washington DC.

Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints on their first Super Bowl victory in the 43 year history of the franchise! On Sunday night the Saints defeated the legendary Peyton Manning and the favored Indianapolis Colts 31-17 in front of the largest American television audience in history (106 million viewers) with a mixture of offensive efficiency, defensive opportunism and bold coaching maneuvers. New Orleans fell behind early after two ineffective offensive series’ to an Indianapolis team that seemed capable of moving up and down the field at will. But after about 15 minutes and a couple Colts miscues, the Saints settled down and began to battle back. The play of the game came at the start of the third quarter when New Orleans punter Thomas Morstead attempted the first on-side kick of his career - something he had never even attempted in practice until the week prior to the biggest game of his life - which was eventually recovered by the 45th man on the Saints depth chart (out of 45 active players), safety Chris Reis. New Orleans went on to score several plays later and take the lead. The teams traded scores until, with little over three minutes remaining, Manning was intercepted for a score by Saints cornerback Tracy Porter, which sealed the victory. To put the accomplishment in perspective, on the way to their Super Bowl 44 Championship, the Saints defeated (in consecutive playoff games) Kurt Warner’s Cardinals, Brett Favre’s Vikings, and Peyton Manning’s Colts, three men with Super Bowl rings who one day in the not-too-distant future will find themselves enshrined in the NFL Hall of Fame.

As much as the victory means to the players and an organization that has been so awful for so many years, the impact on the city of New Orleans cannot be overstated. Just four-and-a-half years ago, most of the city was underwater and no one knew whether or not it’s citizens would be able to return to their homes, never mind return to football. During the 2005 season the team was the vagabond of the NFL, playing their home games in New York, Baton Rouge and San Antonio, and wondering whether or not the city would be able to support a professional football franchise in the future with only about a third of the population it claimed only a year earlier. But, then commissioner Paul Tagliabue insisted - over the owner’s objections - that the Saints remain in New Orleans. The fans, and eventually the city rallied around a new coach and an almost completely rebuilt team and rode the emotional roller coaster resulting in victory Sunday night. The feeling on the bayou is that this team of cast-offs and unfulfilled expectations that scratched and clawed their way out of 43 years of misery, symbolizes the spirit of the city itself, and that if the Saints can reach the top, the city of New Orleans can do the same.

I stumbled across the following Kos/Research 2000 poll last week. The questions in the pole were asked only to respondents identifying themselves as Republicans. If research by the Daily Kos raises your alarm bells the way anything from Rasmussen rings mine, then take the results with a grain of salt. But I as-of-yet have no reason to disbelieve the findings.


I’m not sure what bothers me most about those responses. In fact, there is so much wrong with the thinking behind many of those answers that there simply isn’t time nor space on the internet to even attempt to explain why. But if i had to pick out the theme of the poll I would have to say, in exasperated disappointment, that fully 30% to 40% of the Republican Party has taken a swan dive off the proverbial cliff.

This afternoon, Senator Richard Shelby, (Republican, Alabama), removed his blanket hold on almost 70 of President Obama’s nominees for key administration posts. While senators can place holds on nominees for virtually any reason, they typically do so because they have some objection to the nominee’s qualifications, work history or politics. Not so for Senator Shelby. His objection - the reason he was preventing a vote on 70 people needed to fill positions in security, finance, transportation and diplomacy - was because he felt he wasn’t getting enough pork. No, not the other white meat, federal government money specifically for pet projects in his home state. Shelby is one of the 41 Republican senators stumbling over one another to get to a television camera to complain about how the “big government” Obama administration is wasting money and running up the deficit and refusing to exercise fiscal responsibility. All of that while blackmailing the federal government into sending more of that “big government” money directly to his own backyard. Hypocrisy, thy name is Shelby.

Finally, Jenny Sanford, soon-to-be ex-wife of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (remember him) has a new memoir on the market. In it she goes through all the usual descriptions of shock and devastation upon finding out that her husband was “hiking the Appalachian Trail” with his Argentinean mistress. But she also reveals that years ago when she agreed to marry Mark Sanford, she did so even after he refused to use the word “faithful” in their marriage vows. Say whaaa? Should that maybe have been some sort of clue as to what might follow down the road? But apparently Mrs. Sanford failed to connect the dots until her husband started asking her permission to visit his mistress. After learning this, the respect I had for Jenny Sanford and her choice to leave her cheating husband evaporated completely. I’m sorry, but there is such a thing as enabling someone else’s bad behavior. It’s not like the Sanfords were swingers, with some sort of understanding regarding a number of mistresses and which South American countries they could hail from. She claims in her book that she believes that marriage is a vow of fidelity, yet went ahead and married a guy who refused to use the word when referring to his marriage! A politician’s wife - of all people - should understand that words mean things! And the refusal to use certain words means certain things as well! “I, Mark Sanford, promise to love, honor, cherish and only visit my Argentinean soulmate once in a while.” Come on!