Posted on Baseball, Random Musings

king bud and his merry monopoly

it’s almost that time of the year again, where MLB returns to beautiful grassy fields all over this great nation. for those who are privileged enough to live close to a good major league team, congratulations. you can watch your team live in person and on local tv. as for the rest of us, well, we aren’t so lucky. we are subject to the whims of bud lite and DirecTV, who will have the exclusive rights to out-of-market games in their Extra Innings package, if cable and other satellite providers don’t show MLB the money (and soon). how generous of MLB to permit competing offers they have no intention of taking. this has got to be a joke, right? the feds jump all over microsoft for being anti-competitive, and yet they will not take on this obvious attempted monopoly.

i think this is the first time i will give john kerry credit for anything. he is actually going to hold a hearing on this. i think that i will agree with the other liberal senator from massachusetts — more access to good baseball games is good for america. if he can produce any positive result from this hearing, good for him…but i’m not optimistic. baseball does what it wants to do, and there’s not much congress can do about it.

i can’t tell you how much i wish baseball commish bud selig would decide to retire soon. i think it’s almost as much as the democrats want to see the quick end to the bush administration.

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Posted on Iraq

depressing

it’s easy to understand why the united states would be cautious in trusting the iraqis. one wrong decision could put more american lives at risk. however, i wonder whether we have been missing opportunities to keep the iraqis who don’t support the insurgents from switching sides. that’s one conclusion to be drawn from this new yorker piece. the writer, george packer, believes that there is more that we could have done, and that there is more we could do to support the iraqis who have proven themselves to be trustworthy allies in our combined struggle against the insurgents. he makes a strong argument, and it only reinforces the belief that iraq is far more complex than the bush administration expected it to be.

there is one particular part of his article that i found interesting — where mr. packer asks the iraqis he’s interviewing what they expected when the americans took over in iraq.

Whenever I asked Iraqis what kind of government they had wanted to replace Saddam’s regime, I got the same answer: they had never given it any thought. They just assumed that the Americans would bring the right people, and the country would blossom with freedom, prosperity, consumer goods, travel opportunities. In this, they mirrored the wishful thinking of American officials and neoconservative intellectuals who failed to plan for trouble. Almost no Iraqi claimed to have anticipated videos of beheadings, or Moqtada al-Sadr, or the terrifying question “Are you Sunni or Shia?” Least of all did they imagine that America would make so many mistakes, and persist in those mistakes to the point that even fair-minded Iraqis wondered about ulterior motives. In retrospect, the blind faith that many Iraqis displayed in themselves and in America seems naïve. But, now that Iraq’s demise is increasingly regarded as foreordained, it’s worth recalling the optimism among Iraqis four years ago.

both sides had the same optimism at the beginning of this process. iraq’s future is still in doubt, and i don’t think that anyone can say with certainty how this whole thing will play out in the long run. there is still a possibility that iraq could be stabilized, but i’m not sure that the american people have the patience to wait for that to happen. there are some positive signs from the current surge, but it may not be enough to keep the politicians from deciding how our involvement in iraq will end.

1 Comment Posted on Iraq

the plame game act II

valerie plame wilson was outed as a CIA agent way before richard armitage and scooter libby got involved in this mess. the original claim didn’t come just from the bush administration, but also from the media.

andy mccarthy(nro):

Specifically, she was exposed by a Russian spy in the early 1990s. Thereafter, the CIA itself “inadvertently” compromised Plame by not taking appropriate measures to safeguard classified documents that the Agency routed to the Swiss embassy in Havana. According to Bill Gertz of the Washington Times, “the documents were supposed to be sealed from the Cuban government, but [unidentified U.S.] intelligence officials said the Cubans read the classified material and learned the secrets contained in them.”

As I wrote here nearly two years ago, this is not my claim. It is the contention made in a 2005 brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit by the Times along with ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, AP, Newsweek, Reuters America, the Washington Post, the Tribune Company (which publishes the Los Angeles Times and the Baltimore Sun, among other papers), and the White House Correspondents (the organization which represents the White House press corps in its dealings with the executive branch). The mainstream media made the contention in an attempt to quash subpoenas issued to journalists — the argument being that if Mrs. Wilson’s cover had already been blown, there could have been no crime when an administration official (who we now know to be Richard Armitage, not Scooter Libby) leaked her identity to journalist Robert Novak, and thus there was no need to compel reporters to reveal their sources.

read the rest here.

to find valerie and joe credible, you would have to totally discredit the findings of the senate intelligence committee. they concluded that instead of debunking the claim of iraq’s possible yellowcake purchases, joe wilson’s report actually supported that claim. the evidence was also there that, despite what plame and wilson say, she did recommend him for the niger trip. joe wilson has lied from the very beginning, so it’s hard to believe anything he says. he’s a hero on the left for opposing the iraq war, but he’s not someone who can make a convincing case that the american people were intentionally misled by the bush administration to get us into war with iraq.

as i’ve said before, if the left wants to make that case, joe wilson’s not the right guy to champion that cause.

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Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

the lloyd bentsen question

who are we, and why are we here? ross perot’s former running mate has the right question for conservatives. the first part requires a definition of our core — what we consider important values for a conservative. the second part requires an explanation of our purpose and vision — what we need to do to restore this ideology as a viable governing philosophy in DC. grassroots conservatives know what makes us who we are, but as far as getting the politicians to listen to us, well, we are still working on that part.

karen tumulty in time magazine:

Conservatives are in many ways victims of their successes, and there have indeed been big ones. At 35%, the top tax rate is about half what it was when Reagan took office; the Soviet Union broke up; inflation is barely a nuisance; crime is down; and welfare is reformed. But if all that’s true, what is conservatism’s rationale for the next generation? What set of goals is there to hold together a coalition that has always been more fractious than it seemed to be from the outside, with its realists and its neoconservatives, its religious ground troops and its libertarian intelligentsia, its Pat Buchanan populists and its Milton Friedman free traders? That is why the challenge for Republican conservatives goes far deeper than merely trying to figure out how to win the next election. 2008 is a question with a very clear premise: Does the conservative movement still have what it takes to redeem its grand old traditions — or, better, to chart new territory?

these are questions our future standard-bearers should answer. we will continue to wait until it happens, or until someone steals newt’s notes on the subject.

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Posted on '08 Election, Random Musings, Republicans

john mccain: bracketologist?

as if there weren’t enough people foolishly filling out NCAA basketball tournament brackets, talking about “cinderellas” and “glass slippers” and such, now we must add john mccain to that list. the arizona senator and letterman fan has filled out his bracket, and let’s just say he didn’t put much thought into it. somebody should have advised mccain that not every #1 seed in a region makes it to the final four.  he doesn’t have a prayer of winning his own contest, but if you want to try to win some kewl mccain swag, feel free to take his bracket challenge.

it’s an interesting compulsion politicians seem to have to pander to sports fans. for example, john f. kerry: he LOVES the red sox, but someone had to inform him who the manager was and who some of the players were.  hillary clinton: she used to be a cubs fan, but she had a miraculous conversion to becoming a yankee fan while running for senator of new york. amazing how that happens. my money says she never really watched either team, deciding instead to pursue an interest in a different kind of sport.

seriously, people…why does everyone feel compelled to fill out a NCAA bracket at March Madness time? you know your picks will be done after the first 10 games.  you are not going to win big money. give up.  i can understand the addiction with the game though. however, if you find yourself filling out NIT and NCAA women’s basketball brackets…GET.HELP.FAST.

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2 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Random Musings

the silly season

as if we needed any more proof that the ’08 presidential campaign season is too long, we now have even more people considering jumping into the race. i’m not sure if this says more about the quality of the current candidates or about the monstrous egos of the other possible candidates. either way, it’s an amusing little circus and it gives bloggers more interesting storylines than we would have otherwise. to that end, i applaud the dark horses, vampires and other assorted persons who could shake things up while the republicans are deciding whether rudy is really their guy or not.

apparently senator chuck hagel believes that there could be a hole for him for him to fill in the republican field, but he’s not ready to save us from all these pro-war candidates just yet. he says that he has more important work to do in the senate before he could even consider doing us the favor of running for president. how considerate of him. how selfless of him to put the needs of his constituents first. if only all politicians were like chuck hagel! so he calls a press conference, and the media are all a-twitter…what will he say? will he run for president? not quite. he simply announced that he might have something to announce in the future.

what a disappointment for the media that was. this is a bad tradition mccain started, and it needs to stop. having press conferences or going on letterman to announce that you might have a big announcement later on is just obnoxious. if you want to have separate pressers announcing the exploratory committee and the official “i’m in” statement, that’s fine, but press conferences announcing nothing in particular are just silly.

if you are still unconvinced about the field of democrats and republicans who want to be your next president, you are in luck. there are other options. our favorite vampire jonathan sharkey, in addition to running for governor of minnesota, is also running for president as a member of the vampires, witches and pagans party. as dave barry would say, i’m not making this up. i have no doubt that he would be tough on crime, but i’m not sure the country is ready to be represented by a vampire. mormons? sure. women? no doubt. african-americans? why not? i think, however, that we must draw the line somewhere.

welcome to the circus, ladies and gentlemen. grab some popcorn and enjoy the show.

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Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Republicans

newt gingrich: damaged goods?

newt gingrich cannot win the republican nomination for president. even though his supporters might wish that it were possible, it’s not. my concerns about newt are not related to his personal life. they are based on what i have seen while he was in congress –his leadership style and his inability to complete the reform job he started in 1994. i just don’t see him as a guy who would be able to run this country. no matter what newt gingrich says now about bipartisanship and working together to solve the nation’s problems, there are more than a few skeptics who question his new-found commitment to that ideal. that skepticism is well deserved. we didn’t see that very often in the gingrich congress, which always seemed to be at odds with the clinton administration and congressional democrats.

the main problem for newt is that most of the country is already biased against him. i don’t usually put much stock in polls, but if you look at his favorable / unfavorable ratings, the deficit there is around 20 points. whether that rating is fair or unfair, it is undeniably true that he has very high negatives with the average american. not many people can claim that they are unfamiliar with the virtues and the flaws of the former leader of the republican revolution. we know him well, although that knowledge is based on what he did in congress and not so much on his personal life. those who pay attention to politics on a regular basis know enough about newt gingrich to make the judgment on whether he has the ability to be president, and even though we like newt, we should realize that he lacks that ability.

anyone can be re-invented, except newt gingrich. we know what he is, and what he was. if adultery was a disqualifier for the presidency, then our candidate pool would be much smaller in each election year. this isn’t what makes newt gingrich the wrong man for the presidency. gingrich made his mea culpas to dobson and falwell, and whether he was sincere enough to change this pattern of behavior, that’s not for me to decide. you can argue that the details of newt’s past affairs are troubling, and that he has made some glaring mistakes in his personal life. those past mistakes were also well known to the press corps at the time of the lewinsky affair. because of this, gingrich was initially cautious about moving forward with impeachment based solely on clinton’s monica indiscretion. if you still want to accuse newt of hypocrisy because clinton ended up being impeached anyway, i guess you could.

in spite of all newt’s flaws, conservatives still like what he brings to the table as a potential presidential candidate. he’s got a stronger claim to conservatism than any other front-runner except for mccain. we also like big ideas and big-picture thinking. that’s another one of the strengths he has. he also has the appeal of not being giuliani, romney, or mccain… and don’t underrate that quality. even though he hasn’t “officially” entered the presidential race, he still could raise the money necessary in time to get himself into the top three and become a serious contender. i just don’t see it happening.

that said, newt is kidding himself if he thinks that he can blunt the criticism or short-circuit the full examination of past sins by entering the race late in the game. as dean barnett points out, thanks to the speed of information these days, it won’t take long for his entire record to be bludgeoned to death. in fact, it’s already happening at altercation, where a very thorough discussion of all those affairs in newt’s past is taking place right now. his record is not going to hold up under the media scrutiny. he’s a rock star now, but all that changes once he officially announces his candidacy.

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2 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

john edwards: victim?

poor john edwards. everybody is picking on the aggressively photogenic presidential candidate. first ann coulter. now roger ailes. his strategy is rather curious, considering that his base would applaud any condemnation from two of the left’s main enemies. doesn’t he understand that whining isn’t a very attractive quality in a potential nominee? i can understand why he might want to take a swing at ann coulter. many on the right sometimes feel the same way about her. on the other hand, he’s allowing fundraising letters to be sent out that accuse the right of having this orchestrated plan to destroy him. that’s a crazy charge, and that kind of accusation didn’t work for hillary either. (remember the “vast right wing conspiracy” line?) ann coulter doesn’t speak for the bush administration or for vice president cheney. there’s no conspiracy here. why would the right need to destroy john edwards? he can self-destruct without our help.

i don’t understand why john edwards still thinks he needs to win the lefties over. he’s got them already. he gave them what they wanted when he decided not to fire his controversial bloggers. he admitted that he made a mistake on the war. he is even calling for cutting off the funding for the war. (that’s easy for him to propose…he doesn’t have to vote on it.) he said no to the proposed nevada presidential debate because fox news was airing it. is it possible that there’s not much else he can do to keep the lefties happy?

maybe this is all part of the grand plan. i don’t see it working. if he considers these personal attacks to be extremely rough treatment, he doesn’t want to know what will happen after hillary gets done with him. if i’m a average democrat who is seriously looking at edwards as a potential nominee, i would want him to take the high ground more often and stop whining about every single criticism he receives. what i have seen so far from edwards doesn’t show me that he’s a leader. it shows me that he’s a follower, and that he might just follow the netroots right over the cliff.

tags: john edwards

Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

george will takes the field

are conservatives being too harsh in their judgment of mitt romney, rudy giuliani, and john mccain? george will seems to think that we are.

Suppose someone seeking the presidential nomination had, as a governor, signed the largest tax increase in his state’s history and the nation’s most permissive abortion law. And by signing a law institutionalizing no-fault divorce, he had unwittingly but substantially advanced an idea central to the campaign for same-sex marriages — the minimalist understanding of marriage as merely a contract between consenting adults to be entered into or dissolved as it suits their happiness.

Question: Is it not likely that such a presidential aspirant would be derided by some of today’s fastidious conservatives? A sobering thought, that, because the attributes just described were those of Ronald Reagan.

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