Cafferty on the stimulus bill: "What a joke."

I love Jack Cafferty. Here are a couple excerpts from today's piece on CNN.com:

What a joke. Your Congress has voted to spend almost $790 billion of your money on a stimulus package that not a single member of either chamber has read.

The 1,073-page document wasn't posted on the government's Web site until after 10 p.m. the day before the vote to pass it was taken. I don't care if you're Evelyn Wood, you can't read almost 1,100 pages of the lawyer talk that makes up all legislation in eight or 10 hours.

The criminal part of this boondoggle is divided into two parts. The first is the Democrats promised to post the bill a full 48 hours before the vote was taken to allow members of the public to see what they were getting for their money. Both parties voted unanimously to do this ... and they lied.



And this part is my favorite:

It's really too bad President Obama couldn't figure out a way to jettison these two [Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi] who are poster children for everything that is wrong in Washington. The Associated Press called the birth of the stimulus bill "sausage making" in the best tradition of Washington politics as usual.



There's more good stuff there. And by "good stuff," I mean appallingly predictable nonsense that will hopefully bring some of the change-worshipers down to earth just enough to remember that their job is not to blindly support the new administration as much as it is to hold them accountable for their multitudinous and often irresponsible promises.

Yes, recession is bad. The late '70s were worse. And the stimulus-spendulus-porkulus package President Obama is about to sign gives me no confidence whatsoever. Gone already are promises of bipartisanship, of fiscal responsibility, of transparency, of posting all bills on the White House website for five days before signing them. Ridiculous. At least wait a full month before flagrantly going back on your word, Mister President. And don't even get me started on eliminating corruption in your administration. How many tax cheats so far? Three? And those are just the high-profile ones, the ones we've found out about!

Sorry for the rant, y'all. But I was afraid it was going to be all Obusiness-as-usual, and I've seen nothing yet to disprove that. Grr.

A journey toward Barack Obama

I like to play devil's advocate. It gets me in trouble sometimes--okay, a lot--and it occasionally gives people the wrong idea about what my beliefs and values are. I'm willing to bear that burden; I'm a teacher at heart and I want to shake up people's entrenched ideas.

It has long been my philosophy that a fully realized human being must be able to look in the mirror every day and honestly say "I may be completely wrong about everything I believe in." I don't just look to change others' minds, I strive to be open to having my perspective changed as well.

This brings me to Barack Obama, my vote to be the next President of the United States.

It isn't so much that my views on the issues have changed, though a few have. What happened instead was that I had an abrupt realization of just how important many social issues were to me: gay marriage, funding for education and the arts, pay equity, healthcare, environmental preservation, alternative fuels and power sources, human rights. I realized that I had been voting a small handful of issues, all traditionally conservative, and that my votes had most assuredly not been resulting in candidates on any level who were terribly good at handling them.

I had known for months that I could not in good conscience vote for John McCain. When I looked at the newly-shuffled deck of what I believed and compared it against Senator Obama's platform, I realized that I could vote for Barack Obama with a clear eye and head held high.

I have many reservations. I'm not choking on this vote the way I did for Bush in '00 and '04, but I have doubts. Obama's inexperience is a factor, and you have to be delusional to deny that. I'm very nervous about the kind of revisionist Justices he could appoint to the Supreme Court. I worry about his healthcare program, primarily about the fact that there doesn't seem to be any kind of plan in place to fund it. I'm worried about how much more of a mess the current incompetents in charge of the House and Senate could make with a Democrat in the White House (I swear Pelosi and Reid make Bush look like a freaking Rhodes scholar). And there are socialist overtones to his economic plans that trouble me quite a bit. (This last bit I'm less worried about, because no one knows what the hell to do about the economic crisis, and I don't think anyone's current plans resemble what's actually going to happen. January 20 is a long way down the road.)

I still believe that Islamic war is the defining issue of our time. I believed this years prior to September 11, I gnashed my teeth as President Clinton disemboweled our international intelligence and military capabilities, and I still don't believe we as a nation know or care enough about the threat we face, particularly from Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. I fear it's going to take a radiological or chemical attack to make us realize, and such plans are in the works in at least two dozen locations as I type this.

What I'm most worried about is Obama's total inability to meet or even approach the expectations his supporters have. The first time he fails in some major way, will we have a national hangover, a depression?

However...

I'm convinced. I'm convinced that Obama is actually the man we see, not a media-manufactured messiah. I'm convinced that he has the ability to be the kind of transcendent figure that Ronald Reagan was. I'm convinced that he can bring some unity and understanding in the face of an increasingly fragmented social discussion. And I'm convinced that he has the kind of swift and subtle mind a President needs to deal with changing circumstances.

I'm convinced that Barack Obama can be a great President.

I pray God I'm not wrong.

Bailout bacon. Delicious, delicious bacon.

In the middle of rushing through legislature intended to halt the supposed greatest economic collapse in America since the Great Depression, our elected heroes on Capitol Hill are proving that the one thing they do best is more of the same.

One wonderful thing has come from the failure to push the bailout package through the first time: it has given us more time to look at it. It has given us a chance to see that the bill began as a three-page measure and has bloated out to 450. Neither of those numbers is a typo.

Notably, it has given us a chance to see the $1.7 billion in pork--bacon, really, hickory-smoked and honey-crusted--in the form of tax cuts designed to woo fence votes. Among my favorites are $192 million for Puerto Rican rum producers, $128 for auto racing tracks, $33 for corporations in American Samoa, $223 for Alaskan fishermen affected by the Exxon Valdez 19 years ago, $10 for television productions, and my personal favorite, a $6 million cut designated thus:



SEC. 503. EXEMPTION FROM EXCISE TAX FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROWS DESIGNED FOR USE BY CHILDREN.

(a) In General- Paragraph (2) of section 4161(b) is amended by redesignating subparagraph (B) as subparagraph (C) and by inserting after subparagraph (A) the following new subparagraph:

(B) EXEMPTION FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROW SHAFTS- Subparagraph (A) shall not apply to any shaft consisting of all natural wood with no laminations or artificial means of enhancing the spine of such shaft (whether sold separately or incorporated as part of a finished or unfinished product) of a type used in the manufacture of any arrow which after its assembly–

(i) measures 5/16 of an inch or less in diameter, and

(ii) is not suitable for use with a bow described in paragraph (1)(A)

(b) Effective Date- The amendments made by this section shall apply to shafts first sold after the date of enactment of this Act.



Thank God. We're saved from certain economic ruin. It was the wooden arrows that pushed Lehman Brothers over the edge. :Roll. Freaking. Eyes.:

Look, I know this crap happens all the time. It's how things work in the Capitol Hill Sausage Factory, and it makes The Jungle look like The Jungle Book. I understand that. But is this a crisis, or is it a grab opportunity? This isn't some obscure little bill that first-term Senators need to use to prove to the people in their district that they're working for them. This affects just about everyone in every district. Everyone is watching this one.

Aren't earmarks one of the big issues of the current presidential campaign? Where are Obiden and McPalin now? I want to know who's going to lead the charge and say, "Look. This one is different, guys. Let's get it right the way it's supposed to be gotten right, because it's the correct thing to do and not because we can get some cash for wool research (yes, wool research)." Maybe we can set a precedent of actually doing what Congress is supposed to do.

I don't know how I stand on this bailout. I'm not an economist, I have no assets to speak of, and I'm so deep in Hamlet that I haven't been able to research it as much as I would like. My fiscal conservative side says no, that failures have to be weeded out of the financial gene pool for it to be healthy. But my social-justice-seeking side sees a lot of people in a lot of trouble because of the worst kind of abuses of capitalism. Both sides are now hungry for Bite-Sized Frosted Mini-Wheats.

I don't know what the right thing to do is. But I'm fairly confident that it involves neither rum, wool, or the diameter of children's wooden arrows.

New York Post link.

Paglia on Palin

Yeah, yeah, I recognize that my "No more politics" pledge was broken sooner than "No new taxes" and "Mission accomplished." Move on. I have.

Yesterday's Salon saw a piece by one of my intellectual heroes, Camille Paglia. It's really fascinating. I expected Paglia to lambaste the McCain camp for the choice of Sarah Palin. That's not exactly what happened. Instead, I read the first argument for Palin's essential feminism that made any sense.

It's a long piece, so the excerpts are long.

Pow! Wham! The Republicans unleashed a doozy -- one of the most stunning surprises that I have ever witnessed in my adult life. By lunchtime, Obama's triumph of the night before had been wiped right off the national radar screen. In a bold move I would never have thought him capable of, McCain introduced Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his pick for vice president. I had heard vaguely about Palin but had never heard her speak. I nearly fell out of my chair. It was like watching a boxing match or a quarter of hard-hitting football -- or one of the great light-saber duels in "Star Wars." (Here are the two Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn, going at it with Darth Maul in "The Phantom Menace.") This woman turned out to be a tough, scrappy fighter with a mischievous sense of humor.

Conservative though she may be, I felt that Palin represented an explosion of a brand new style of muscular American feminism. At her startling debut on that day, she was combining male and female qualities in ways that I have never seen before. And she was somehow able to seem simultaneously reassuringly traditional and gung-ho futurist. In terms of redefining the persona for female authority and leadership, Palin has made the biggest step forward in feminism since Madonna channeled the dominatrix persona of high-glam Marlene Dietrich and rammed pro-sex, pro-beauty feminism down the throats of the prissy, victim-mongering, philistine feminist establishment....

....Over the Labor Day weekend, with most of the big enchiladas of the major media on vacation, the vacuum was filled with a hallucinatory hurricane in the leftist blogosphere, which unleashed a grotesquely lurid series of allegations, fantasies, half-truths and outright lies about Palin. What a tacky low in American politics -- which has already caused a backlash that could damage Obama's campaign. When liberals come off as childish, raving loonies, the right wing gains. I am still waiting for substantive evidence that Sarah Palin is a dangerous extremist. I am perfectly willing to be convinced, but right now, she seems to be merely an optimistic pragmatist like Ronald Reagan, someone who pays lip service to religious piety without being in the least wedded to it. I don't see her arrival as portending the end of civil liberties or life as we know it....

....But what of Palin's pro-life stand? Creationism taught in schools? Book banning? Gay conversions? The Iraq war as God's plan? Zionism as a prelude to the apocalypse? We'll see how these big issues shake out. Right now, I don't believe much of what I read or hear about Palin in the media. To automatically assume that she is a religious fanatic who has embraced the most extreme ideas of her local church is exactly the kind of careless reasoning that has been unjustly applied to Barack Obama, whom the right wing is still trying to tar with the fulminating anti-American sermons of his longtime preacher, Jeremiah Wright.

The witch-trial hysteria of the past two incendiary weeks unfortunately reveals a disturbing trend in the Democratic Party, which has worsened over the past decade. Democrats are quick to attack the religiosity of Republicans, but Democratic ideology itself seems to have become a secular substitute religion. Since when did Democrats become so judgmental and intolerant? Conservatives are demonized, with the universe polarized into a Manichaean battle of us versus them, good versus evil. Democrats are clinging to pat group opinions as if they were inflexible moral absolutes. The party is in peril if it cannot observe and listen and adapt to changing social circumstances.

I'm really working hard to resist copying-and-pasting half of the article here. Make sure you read the end. You have to love the Star Wars reference and accompanying YouTube link! And her swipe at Gloria Steinem is must-read.

(Bear in mind that Paglia is an Obama supporter and that she makes plenty of attacks at McCain, the "Vampire" of the article's title. But it's her views of two weeks of Palin that interest me in this piece.)

Paglia always defies expectations. I love it when she pisses me off to the extreme left, because I know she's likely to shockingly agree with something radically right-wing--which she'll believe in for ultra-liberal reasons--in the next paragraph. Libertarians make me smile. It usually doesn't matter if I think she's right as much as that she models genuine independent thought always.

Paglia hits on an essentially vital point: Much of the reaction to Palin smacks of an idealogical dogmatism that is swiftly becoming much more dangerous to the Democrats than to the Republicans. Conservatism is becoming cast as the oppressed minority opinion rather than as an entrenched establishment in need of updating. The Democratic party has traded arguing the merits of its ideas for demonizing their Republican opposites.

Congratulations, liberal America: the Greek temple, the 80,000-seat acceptance speech, the hurricane, and the strident lies overshadowing real concerns about Palin have all combined into a perfect storm. You have successfully handed the crown of "scrappy underdog" from Barack Obama to Sarah Palin. And Americans like an underdog.

Intermission

In the quiet between conventions, as we ruminate over Obama's magnificent Thursday speech and await the McCain camp's VP announcement, a couple thoughts:

Dear Democrats: Please stop denouncing your opponents as too rich. You're all rich. You can't move in the circles of upper-level national government without being rich. You can't afford to run for federal office without being rich.

Not only that, but I want you to be rich. Wealth is one of the surest sign of success in a capitalist society. I want people in office who have demonstrated that they have achieved success in the private sector, in business, law, and industry. I want people who have turned a profit; they would seem--seem--less likely to run a deficit. I want our leaders to be successes. We've seen what happens when you elect a serial failure.

Dear Republicans: Please stop denouncing your opponents as too elite. You're all elite. You can't move in the circles of upper-level national government without being elite. You can't successfully debate ideas and perspectives on the federal level without being elite.

I want my elected representatives to be smarter and more educated than I am. I want them to be thinkers and dreamers, and I want them to have advanced degrees. I want them to have the widest vocabulary of words and thoughts possible. Salt of the earth is valuable, but advanced degrees and deep thought are what's called for here. We're not hiring someone to run a corner fruit stand. I want our leaders to have master's degrees and PhDs. Higher education doesn't necessarily disconnect you from the common man; it can (and often does) put you more in touch with humanity. It's okay by me if my elected leaders think the country needs things that I don't understand.

On a personal note, I've been justly criticized lately for claiming centrist views that my writing here doesn't really reflect. (Kind of like MSNBC.) In my defense, I know that most of the people who read and comment on this blog tend to the left. There's been plenty to criticize the GWBA about for the past several years. I just really didn't want to be yet another theatre artist bitching about conservatives and/or praising liberals. I've endeavored to be a questioner, a discussion-starter, and a devil's advocate. I want to raise issues and perspectives that those reading this might not seek out otherwise.

That said, as I look back on my previous political posts, I find that I have written almost nothing about the liberal causes I feel strongly about, and much less against the GWBA than I have felt. I'm going to shoot a bit more toward "fair and balanced" than I have, starting with this very post.



EDIT: Sarah Palin? Really?

As much as Biden is the safe choice for Obama, Palin is an unsafe one for McCain. She's an interesting woman, a social conservative, yet she exercised veto power to assure rights to same-sex partners. She's been a reformer in the face of corrupt Alaska politics. And she has two years more executive experience than Obama, Biden, and McCain combined.

But I said it about Obama and I'll say it about Palin: she'd be a really interesting candidate in a 2012. If I'm concerned about Obama's lack of experience, I'm terrified of Palin's.

And Biden is going to eat her alive in debates.

Okay, fine, some politics. Just a little.

I like the pick of Joe Biden as Obama's running-mate. None of the choices were very strong, and few of them were likely to deliver key states. As former chairman of both the Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees, Biden shores up a lot of the doubts a lot of Americans (like me) have about Obama's lack of experience. He's also a heck of a lot more centrist than Obama.

But what I actually like is the symbolism. Biden shot his mouth off last year about "clean, good-looking" Obama in a moment that was widely seen as the very end of his political career. He has also been extremely critical (again, like me) of Obama's foreign policy inexperience and naivete.

I have been highly dubious regarding the Obama campaign's claims of operating a new kind of electoral politics, but I have to admit that the choice of Biden says two things: 1) We forgive gaffes and refrain from the politics of disqualification by foot-in-mouth disease, and 2) We welcome our critics to the table. Those are perhaps the two things I believe the American political dialogue is most sorely lacking.

I still have many doubts and fears about an Obama presidency (and a McCain presidency, just so you know). But today I applaud the senator and his advisers on their choice.

(Then again, Cheney was supposed to shore up Bush's lack of experience, too...)

A(wk)ward nomination

It was only a matter of time before someone called me on it, but it happened much faster than I thought it would.

In the post on Richmond Shakespeare's blog where I wrote the announcement of the company's eight Richmond Theatre Critics Circle award nominations, an anonymous writer (hereafter referred to, Strong Bad-style, as "Nonny") remarked:

Andrew, I'm surprised that you would tout the awards here, considering your previous quote:

"I hate all award shows. I'm just not down with a perspective of awarding one person's art as being somehow 'superior' to another's. I also resent the cult of celebrity in general. Can we please spend that money on something that helps people rather than self-aggrandizement? If I was nominated for an Oscar or a Tony I would very seriously probably not attend."

First of all, I made some comments about the anonymous post over there, and you can read those if you like. But the big thing is this: Nonny makes a very valid point: It's all quite easy to decry and criticize the awarding of art... until you're nominated for an award. It's also quite easy to have rock-solid principles right up until the point where they make you into a gigantic asshole.

One thing I have learned beyond the shadow of a doubt in this topsy-turvy 2008 is that I am dead-damn wrong about a whole lot of things I've been sure about for a long time, personally, politically, socially, and artistically. Change is good (except when it's not), and I've been taking a lot of my opinion changes as evidence that I'm doing all right as the listener I've been trying to be. But disliking the valuation of one person's artistic expression as superior to another person's continues to be an issue I'm entirely solid about.

This was all well and good until I found myself nominated for a couple of the damn things.

I write that with a smile. It's as if God and the RTCC conspired to say, "Hamm hasn't learned quite enough humility this year. Let's show him what challenging his ideas really is."

It's a cliche, but it really is an honor to be nominated; nomination is an award in and of itself. I'm flattered as all hell to be nominated, and am quite proud of the work everyone did for both productions of As You Like It. The spring show (the one nominated), in particular, was just a magical experience from start to finish, from the December read-through in my living room with the smell of simmering chili wafting through the room all the way through the April non-goodbye knowing we were coming back to do it again in the summer. The cast (Patrick Bromley, Frank Creasy, Sunny LaRose, Adam Mincks, Julia Rigby), the technical staff (Rebecca Cairns, Joey Fanelli, Annie Hoskins, Bryan Laubenthal), and the advisors (Jill Bari Steinberg, Christine Walters, Dave White) combined to create an ensemble feel I have never before experienced in the rehearsal room. It was also some of the most fun I've ever had on a show. I'm glad to know that the production merited this kind of notice. They deserve it.

But wait a second, Hamm, Nonny says, wagging his/her finger. I thought you said you hate these things!

I hate self-aggrandizing Hollywood spectacles that primarily serve to sell television advertising minutes and show all the little people how much money the glitterati can afford to spend on their clothes. That's not what the RTCC Awards are for. The event is black-tie, yes, but come on. Who in Richmond Theatre is going to be wearing a $300,000 necklace, a $100,000 tux, a custom-made six-figure dress? Perhaps the finest thing I can say about Richmond theatre artists is that they're genuine, honest, real people. They're also contributing to a worthy cause; all proceeds from the evening are going to the RAPT Theatre Artists' fund.

There's just no reasonable way I can apply my dislike of award shows to this event, which is so clearly a celebration of our community and collective achievement.

I shun glory and attention moments, sometimes to a level that is counterproductive. I'm not very good at self-promotion, compliments make me uncomfortable, and I often tend to under-block curtain calls (As You Like It had no contingency for extended applause or a standing ovation, and we had several opportunities for extra bows). I have a tendency to undervalue my work and my contribution. But there's no way I can look at the list of RTCC nominees and not feel enormously proud of my company's work, my friends' work, and the high level of quality produced by Richmond theatre artists and organizations in the past year. This evening is shaping up to be a glorious celebration of what we can do in Richmond, what we have done, and I am damn well going to smile and support it.

I'm also amazed that the circle critics were able to keep this all secret. Nicely done.

As a final note, I like that the design awards are referred to as "Outstanding Achievement" rather than "Best," as in "Outstanding Achievement in Costume Design." I hope that the RTCC will consider applying this language to all the awards next year, such as "Outstanding Achievement in a Musical," "Outstanding Achievement by a Supporting Actress," "Outstanding Achievement by a Director," and so on. It sounds a bit clunky, but it's certainly much more truthful than the labeling of anything artistic as "The Best."

What the internet needs is another Brett Favre story

So the juicy part of the Brett Favre - Green Bay Packers divorce has ended. Brett keeps his number and his Hall of Fame numbers, the Packers keep the Super Bowl trophy and Aaron Rodgers.

And the New York Jets, of all people, get Favre.

Look at this image, for crying out loud:



That's just wack. Wiggity-wack, not just regular kind.

The New York Jets' website, understandably, is all-Favre now, topped by the typically New York media headline "DO QB-LIEVE IT? BRETT FAVRE IS A JET." "Jet Favre" has cropped up everywhere in the New York media.

Team-wise, it's not a bad fit. WRs Coles and Cotchery, in particular, are good targets for Favre's playing style. But the Jets simply aren't one player away from being a great team, not even a quarterback, not even Brett Favre. Even if Favre totally revitalizes the team after last year's 4-12 record--which I don't expect--the best-case scenario is still looking up at the Patriots all season long. Two Favre-versus-Brady duels this year sound really interesting, though.

The truly bad fit, in my opinion, is Favre and New York City. Hey, I love New York; I lived there. But the only things more likely to eat their young than the New York sports media are the New York sports fans. Turning on their heroes after a single bad play is simply what's expected. Yes, they will turn right back and forgive if you do something spectacular--sometimes--but Favre is extremely prickly and sensitive (and that's putting it quite kindly). There's just no way he's passing for his 2007 totals of 4155 yards, 28 touchdowns, and only 15 interceptions in 2008. His TD-to-INT ratio with the Jets may be close to even, especially as he's learning a new system and new players. He's a mistake-prone gunslinger of a quarterback now playing in a market that inflates and obsesses over mistakes. And it's a town that doesn't have a great history of rewarding quarterbacks since Joe Namath.

Favre is from tiny Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and he played in tiny Green Bay, Wisconsin. Now he's playing in the largest media market in the world. I'm not worried about his learning a new offense, I'm worried about his learning how to get around in a town that discourages driving. I'm worried about his averting his eyes from massive pun-filled headlines exaggerating his last game-turning interception. I'm worried about his reaction to being booed at home for the first time in his career.

It would have been hard to come into a situation in Tampa where he was displacing a Pro Bowl quarterback in Jeff Garcia. This is going to be harder. Much harder. But these are the consequences of what was an emotionally-driven, impulsive retirement.

I wish Brett Favre well (except, of course, when they play the Redskins). But he may find that the game is the easy part of this transition.

What else can Brett Favre do?

(I'm going to assume that most people reading this know what's going on with Brett Favre, and that those who don't know don't care, so no recap.)

I ask you, what else can Brett Favre do?

Obviously, the right choice for Brett is to have simply not retired in the first place, but that's not an option. Favre can still play, he still has the passion, he still has the arm and the skills. He clearly retired in a state of extended despair over seeing one of his best seasons end with another Super Bowl so close but yet so far.

Yes, this is an impossible situation for the Packers. He has sabotaged their training camp, their salary cap, and possibly their season. And if anyone has an idea what he could do differently, I'd love to hear it.

Staying out of the league is not a viable option. He's a future Hall-of-Famer, and he clearly still has starting quarterback skills. He has consistently been the brightest spot on the Packers' roster for 16 years, and he has single-handedly raised them back from their dismal 1980s to being an elite franchise again. For an entire football generation, the Green Bay Packers are #4. In other words, he has earned the benefit of almost every imaginable doubt in Green Bay.

Unfortunately, I don't know what else the Packers can do, either. They have invested confidence and commitment in Aaron Rodgers, and to pull him out of the starting position now, under these kind of circumstances is to most likely ruin him as a starter in Green Bay forever. The Packers have drafted with Rodgers in mind, they have acquired free agents with Rodgers in mind, and they have managed salaries with Favre's retirement in mind. The team simply isn't built for Favre's history, his skills, or his salary now. And it's months too late to change that.

It's an ugly situation, but I think as soon as the parties sit down face to face it will clarify. Both sides will find ways to give to the other; both sides respect each other's perspective. Favre needs to be able to play, period. The Packers need to be able to move on, period. They'll find a way, maybe one that will surprise us all.

08AMA goes to the gym: stop the presses!

CNN.com has a great piece on the media's Obamessiah worship today. It's by rogue conservative Glenn Beck, a guy I really respect even when I disagree with him.

After some great mockery of the AP's July 17 piece on Obama's gym habits (have they mentioned that McCain is old?), Beck writes:



Of course, anecdotal evidence that Obama probably polls somewhere around 95 percent with members of the media has been around for years, but now there are some actual statistics to back it up.

According to the Tyndall Report, a service that monitors the three network news broadcasts, ABC, NBC, and CBS have spent a total of 114 of their national airtime minutes covering Obama since June. They've spent 48 minutes on his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain.

And then you have the almost embarrassing way the media have gushed over Obama's trip to the Middle East. There were 200 requests for the 40 press seats available on Obama's plane, and all three top network anchors (Katie Couric, Charles Gibson and Brian Williams) made the trip and are broadcasting live from each country Obama visits.

You can't buy that kind of publicity. And neither could McCain.

McCain made a trip to the Middle East in March and didn't have to worry about finding seats for any network anchors, because none of them wanted to go. And while Obama was flying from country to country this week in a plane packed with celebrity reporters, McCain flew to an event in New Hampshire. After his Boeing 737 landed in Manchester, he stepped out onto the tarmac and glanced at the one reporter who'd bothered to show up. Yes, one.

And then you have the print media's fascination with Obama. He's been on the cover of U.S. News and World Report, GQ, Rolling Stone, Us Weekly (twice), Time and Newsweek (a combined 12 times) and will soon be on the cover of Men's Vogue for the second time. To be fair, Men's Vogue also did an in-depth story on John McCain but, strangely, a photo of McCain didn't make their cover.

Why the disparity? According to Men's Vogue deputy editor Ned Martel, there's a simple explanation: Obama "is what is called in the magazine world an 'interest driver.' " Translation: Obama sells magazines.



I don't criticize any individual for supporting Barackstar. There's a lot to like; there's a lot I like, as a matter of fact. I think he'd be a really interesting presidential candidate--in 2012 or 2016, when he actually has enough experience and knowledge of foreign policy to be qualified for the job. But anyone, anyone, who thinks the national news media isn't drowning in their own drool over him is either blind, completely partisan, or so in love with the Obamessiah themselves that both forest and trees are just a blur of green.

It's not just McCain supporters who see this; can I get an amen from the Hillary folks? Hope-ama captured the imagination and attention of influential media figures who have worked tirelessly (and for free) to appoint him the Democratic candidate, and who are now working just as hard to assign him the presidency. All this is happening despite a serious lack of experience and even greater dearth of specifics, all of which apparently doesn't stand for much if you can speak well and look presidential. Perhaps we should be voting for Kevin Kline, who played the president in Dave. Or Michael Douglas from The American President. Oh, wait, he has to be black. Fine, Morgan Freeman from Deep Impact. Any of those three gentlemen have, honestly, not much less foreign policy experience than Obama does.

A balanced view of Barack Obama's foreign policy statements, viewed in the context of the past half century of history, reveals a man who is either criminally naive, dangerously ignorant about the politics of the Middle East, or lying through his teeth about his plans in order to get your vote. In today's telepolitical climate, I'm pretty certain it's option three. In today's telepolitical climate, I'm pretty certain it won't matter a bit as long as the TV coverage remains as unbalanced as it has for the past year.

Disturbing FanNation Ads

Sports Illustrated's website links to a site called FanNation, a site for sports news, rumors, and discussion. Small, unobtrusive ads, mainly just text, are generated between stories on the "Truth & Rumors" section.

Today, the following ads showed up while I read.

Opposite a piece about Warren Sapp:
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Accompanying the Rams' possible return to Los Angeles:
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easy-to-use features
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Next to personal seat licenses for the Giants' new digs:
Claritin Products
24-Hour, Non-Drowsy Relief From Your Allergies with
Claritin
www.claritin.com

Alongside legal information about the Broncos' Brandon Marshall:
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Claritin
www.claritin.com

And finally, the disturbing one. Next to a piece about the Comcast company, this gem:
Find a local liquor store
Enter your zip code and get your fix. Free business
directory.
www.zipweb.com

How messed up is that??? Essentially, "Welcome to CNN and Sports Illustrated's FanNation. Use the internet to get conveniently 'faced. Free business directory." Seriously, "Get your fix?!" Are crack dealers listed on Zipweb? Or meth labs, or poorly-secured toolsheds with inhalable solvents?

C N freaking N owns this website. Come on, guys. Set a standard.



(Besides, who doesn't know where the nearest liquor store is? I'm just saying...)

Curt Schilling: Hall-of-Famer?

I had been planning to write about this, but ESPN's Jayson Stark makes all the arguments I would have made much better. Here's Stark's essay; click on the link to read some great debate between Stark and emailers afterward.



Monday's topic, courtesy of Nelson from Portland:

"There's only one logical question for this week. Is Curt Schilling a Hall of Famer? I am a huge Sox fan and big Schill supporter. However, I have to say no. The numbers just are not there."

On a November morning five years from now, the 2013 Hall of Fame ballot will show up in my mailbox. And on that ballot, I'll find the kind of name that makes Hall voting so rewarding--and so impossible:

Curt Schilling.

Nelson from Portland says he isn't Hall of Fame worthy. Me? I'm not so sure of that. So let's take a look at Schilling's fascinating Hall of Fame credentials.

THE CASE AGAINST

If you base your Hall decisions just on the old wins column, you won't vote for this man. That seems obvious. His 216 wins are 72 fewer than Tommy John, 71 fewer than Bert Blyleven and 38 fewer than Jack Morris. And none of those guys had a plaque last time I checked.

For that matter, if Schilling has thrown his last pitch, he'll also wind up with fewer wins than Joe Niekro (221) or Dennis Martinez (245). And neither of those guys even made it to a second year on the ballot. So clearly, that's what Nelson is referring to when he says "The numbers just are not there."

THE CASE FOR

Ah, but it depends which numbers you're looking at. And I looked at bunch of other numbers--numbers that rank all righthanded starters from 1992, the year Schilling first moved into the starting rotation in Philadelphia, through 2007, the year he apparently threw his final pitch in Boston. Here's what I found:

Schilling not only led all of them in complete games (with 83), but only one other righthander in the whole sport (Greg Maddux) was closer than 25 CGs away. Just Pedro Martinez had a better strikeout ratio than Schilling (8.59 K/9). Only Pedro and Roger Clemens had more strikeouts than Schilling (3,116) , period. Just Pedro and Maddux had a better WHIP than Schilling (1.137). And nobody had a better strikeout-walk ratio. In fact, Schilling's K/BB ratio (4.38 whiffs for every walk) ranks No. 1 among ALL PITCHERS IN THE MODERN ERA.

So how compelling are those numbers? And I haven't even mentioned October yet--the month in which he did his finest work of all.



Schill has been my favorite active baseball player for 15 years (my fave all-time being Mike Schmidt), and the fact that his marvelous career might have ended with a whimper of shoulder surgery breaks my heart. Today's news on that front is good; the surgery went well and he may be able to start throwing by winter. But even if he's thrown his last pitch he can have no regrets.

I wonder if he's thought about which cap his Hall of Fame bust should wear.

'Rick Gray on McCain and Obama

Style Weekly printed a really interesting piece by 'Rick Gray today. Despite being a passionate liberal, he's voting for John McCain.

'Rick is no more than an acquaintance of mine, but the piece really hits home for me; I'm in the interesting place right now of leaning more liberal than I ever have, but simultaneously believing in the Obamessiah (and in fact the Democratic party) less and less.

Here's a chunk from the middle (thus encouraging you to read the beginning and end in the paper or on their website):



First, I like [McCain]. The very qualities that drive conservative Republicans nuts are those I like best. McCain’s a true maverick. He hasn’t sold out to Washington, D.C. He’s his own man.

I’m also uneasy about Sen. Barack Obama for reasons that haven’t really been explored by the lemmings of the mainstream media.

For one thing, Obama reminds me of a lot of smart guys I’ve known — fellow Echols Scholars at the University of Virginia and classmates at the U.Va. School of Law — brilliant young guys who believed that academic success and intellectual prowess automatically made them leaders. That all they needed was power and they could solve all the problems that confound older, less brilliant minds.

There’s a subtle arrogance about Obama that I’ve seen before, and it troubles me.

Moreover, Obama’s promise of “changing the way Washington does business” reminds me of recent history. Americans — especially young Americans — have short memories, but as I recall, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton also ran as young, personable outsiders who were going to change Washington.

Instead, Washington slowly changed Clinton, while Bush promptly surrounded himself with insiders and set out to consolidate power like no one since Richard Nixon.

Obama may seem a fresh face to others. To me, he looks like the third consecutive iteration of the same mistake.

But none of that gets to the hardpan. My fundamental reason for supporting McCain involves timing. I long for progressive government — but I want progressive policies over the long term — not the short-term satisfaction of electing a progressive in 2008, only to revert to right-wing government in 2012.

Mainstream pundits assure us that an Obama administration would be transformational. Frankly, I suspect that — whoever we elect — the next administration will be more janitorial than transformational.



I highly recommend reading the whole piece; it's very strong. I still don't think I can vote for either Obama or McCain, though...

'Rick may not feel the same way, but I am reminded of South Park creator Matt Stone's famous quote: "I hate conservatives, but I really ####ing hate liberals."

Hank Steinbrenner Is a Jackass.

From the Associated Press:

NEW YORK -- Yankees ace Chien-Ming Wang is expected to be sidelined until at least September after injuring his foot running the bases, prompting club co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner to chastise the National League for playing without a designated hitter

An examination in New York on Monday showed Wang partially tore a tendon and sprained his right foot Sunday during the Yankees' 13-0 interleague win at Houston. He will be on crutches and wear a protective boot for a minimum of six weeks, the latest blow to the team's banged-up pitching staff.

"My only message is simple. The National League needs to join the 21st century," Steinbrenner said in Tampa, Fla. "They need to grow up and join the 21st century.

"Am I [mad] about it? Yes," Steinbrenner added. "I've got my pitchers running the bases, and one of them gets hurt. He's going to be out. I don't like that, and it's about time they address it. That was a rule from the 1800s."

Making a rare appearance on the bases at an NL park, Wang pulled up rounding third and hobbled home on Derek Jeter's single. Wang doubled over after scoring, pointed toward his right foot and was helped off the field.

"This is always a concern of American League teams when their pitchers have to run the bases and they're not used to doing it," Steinbrenner said. "It's not just us. It's everybody. It probably should be a concern for National League owners, general managers and managers when their pitchers run the bases. Pitchers have enough to do without having to do that."



So let me get this straight, Hank, you incompetent imitation of your idiot father. It's the National League's fault for your pitcher stepping awkwardly and injuring himself freakishly. Wang hurt his foot because the National League plays real DH-less baseball, not because he wasn't properly trained to run bases in Spring Training. Maybe you should also blame Houston's pitching staff for giving up a hit to a freaking American League hitter. Or Wang himself for actually swinging.

Maybe, just maybe, pitchers should be expected to be baseball players, too, Hank. Maybe they should have to develop some version of all five baseball tools, instead of just throwing and occasionally covering first base. You know, like ALL PITCHERS had to do until late in the 20th century. Moron.

All I can say about Hank Steinbrenner is that it's a really good time to be a Red Sox fan.

Tim Russert: 1950-2008

We lost one of the last great old news men this week, and well before his time.

Tim Russert has died at 58 years old, and the hole he leaves may be impossible to fill. In a world where "Fair and Balanced" is a tacit omission on one side of TV news and an advertising slogan on the other, Russert was a genuine journalist. I never knew what side of the political fence he sat on, and I never felt that he was pushing an agenda, unlike, oh, pretty much everyone else on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC. Russert didn't just keep equanimity, he insisted on it, going so far as to refuse to work on-air with Keith Olbermann.

But Russert's own words provide a better tribute than any of my own. In an interview for the New Yorker shortly before his death, Russert said, “What cable emphasizes, more and more, is opinion, or even advocacy. Whether it’s Bill O’Reilly or Keith Olbermann or Lou Dobbs, that’s what that particular platform or venue does. It’s not what I do. What I do is different. I try very, very hard not to come up and say to people, ‘This is what I believe,’ or ‘This is good,’ or ‘This is bad.’ But, rather, ‘This is what I’m learning in my reporting,’ or ‘This is what my analysis shows based on my reporting.’ And as long as I can do that I’m very, very comfortable. And nobody has asked me to do anything but that.”

All of us, journalists and actors and realtors and steelworkers, can learn from that.

NRO's Victor Davis Hanson on Campaign Casualties

You may have noticed, dear reader, that I have largely sworn off political commentary around here in recent months. I have become more and more disillusioned as genuine people of vision and conscience on both sides of the aisle have dropped out of the Presidential race in favor of a trio of political opportunists, none of whom I can vote for and look at myself in the mirror the next morning.

I have my problems with Hillary Clinton and John McCain, but the one thing I can't keep down is this: Barack Obama has said things about race and class in recent months that I find find infinitely more ignorant and offensive than anything Don Imus has said, and the only thing that disturbs me more than the potential of an Obama presidency is the fact that so much of America seems to want it, or to believe they do.

I realize that very few of this blog's readers are likely to peruse the National Review Online. But Victor Davis Hanson's column today is just brilliant, and I'm going to link to it and reprint it here. Hanson expresses my despair better than I could.

I'm not sure I really want to launch into a discussion of this nonsense as much as I just want an expression of why I don't want to launch into a discussion of this nonsense.



Casualties of the Campaign
Unfortunately, none of our nation's looming crises are among them.
By Victor Davis Hanson
April 17, 2008

It is only four months into 2008, but the presidential campaign — already too long and nasty — is still a long way from over. And the casualties are mounting.

First, George W. Bush’s popularity remains dismal — even though some of the complaints about his first term have gone by the wayside. The French and German governments are now staunchly pro-American. Violence in Iraq is still way down from a year ago. America has been free from a terrorist attack since 9/11.

No matter. Nothing has seemed to help the president. His approval rating stays at, or sinks below, 30 percent.

Why? The current gloomy economic news and the continuing human and financial costs of Afghanistan and Iraq explain a lot. But another reason is this present election cycle. For the first time in nearly six decades, no incumbent president or vice president is daily hammering back in defense of the recent four years.

We expect Democratic opponents Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to trash an incumbent Republican president. But Republican nominee John McCain seldom endorses anything about the two Bush terms.

Again, the last time America witnessed anything similar was when Harry Truman left office with a 22-percent approval rating — under furious attack by Republican candidate Dwight Eisenhower and yet shunned by his own party’s nominee, the maverick Adlai Stevenson, who had not been part of the Truman administration.

If the current president hasn’t been helped by the present campaign, look what’s it’s done to his predecessor. The Clinton legacy is wrecked. Left-wing bloggers, liberal columnists, and some Democratic politicians now despise Bill and Hillary Clinton — even more than did “the vast right-wing conspiracy” of the 1990s.

A furious Hillary keeps charging the media with the same sort of bias that the Republicans used to routinely claim always favored her husband. Apparently the Left has become infatuated with Barack Obama and does not want another eight years of the once-iconic Clintons — especially after their use of the race card, the hardball politics, and Hillary’s chronic exaggeration and misstatements.

Globetrotting Bill Clinton spent seven years crafting a legacy as a post-partisan senior statesman. Now he’s thrown that away by devolving into a political henchman assigned to take down the Democratic Party’s first serious African-American candidate.

Whatever the final result of the 2008 campaign, the image of an above-the-fray Bill is no more — shattered somewhere between the disclosure of the $109 million Clinton tax returns and his finger-shaking lectures to the press about its supposed unfairness to his wife. Democrats once were enchanted that their party might usher in the nation’s first woman president. Now many of them fear Hillary is a bothersome obstacle in the way of an even more hip and novel breakthrough candidate.

Racial relations also soured from the campaign. Obama promised to be our post-racial healer. But so far, even if it weren’t his intent, he is proving the most racially contentious candidate in recent American history.

African-Americans still line up behind Obama, even as whites keep voting in large majorities for Clinton.

The more Obama’s former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, keeps sounding unhinged, the more Obama can’t quite free himself from this hateful albatross.

And when Obama talks down about middle America’s fondness for religion and guns; or suggests that small-town America is “anti-immigrant” and “clings” to “antipathy to people who aren’t like them;” or quips about the “typical white person,” he only increases racial polarization — cementing the image of someone who sees America in terms of “they,” not “us.”

The Bush and Clinton legacies, Obama’s “new” politics and race relations are all casualties of a wide-open election without incumbents. But the greatest casualty has been our inability to figure how to deal with looming crises.

So far we haven’t heard specific workable proposals from the candidates about how exactly they would solve energy dependence, soaring food prices, illegal immigration, or outdated farm subsidies.

There has been no new solution offered about the looming Social Security crack-up. Few candidates have expressed novel ideas of stopping staggering deficits or bulking up a sinking dollar — much less exactly the sacrifices necessary on all our parts to restore American financial solvency. No one has offered a better way of dealing with an ascendant but lawless China, an unhinged Iran, or the ongoing war against Islamic extremism.

In 2008, everything and everyone has fallen victim to a nasty campaign — except America’s nastiest problems.

Decision 2008: I Finally Endorse a Candidate

It's a tense and exciting time in Washington.

A second, four-year term of mixed results passes, and we're on the verge of selecting a replacement for the biggest job in town. Big names have come and gone in the quest. There have been several intriguing candidates, with three coming clearly to the forefront as of Tuesday's action.

Yes, things are tense around town, with all three big-time candidates representing strong ideas and some obvious flaws. Whatever decision is made, I'll support the eventual winner. But the time has come for me to make my will known and pick a horse. I don't expect anyone to be influenced by my decision, but I feel a civic duty to make it known. I've had to balance a lot of issues here, most notedly experience versus the ability to inspire.

After much consideration, I am supporting Ron Meeks to be the next head coach of the Washington Redskins.

I would have been very happy with Gregg Williams as head coach, keeping the Gibbs 2.0 regime's core in place. But Williams is gone, taking over the defense in Jacksonville. Steve Mariucci is an intriguing prospect, but doesn't appear likely at this point. I think Fred Thompson threw his hat in the race for a little while, but surprisingly never turned out to be a serious contender.

Which brings us to the big three candidates.

I originally wanted Jim Fassel, and had been a big Fassel supporter for the job four years ago before Gibbs came back. And Fassell could be a fine head coach; Washington is one of the biggest pressure cities in the league, and Fassell's experience as New York Giants head coach certainly has him prepared for that. He's a fine, solid coach. But I want something new; I want the Redskins to be the team that discovers the new hotness, rather than bringing in the same old merry-go-round of established guys.

Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo is an intriguing prospect. His defense certainly gave the Patriots offense more than they could handle. But I'm just not enamored of the idea of hiring a first-year coordinator based on his players' performance in one game, even if it was the Super Bowl. No, especially if it's the Super Bowl; players play out of their minds in that game. I don't want to hire somebody based on one game, or even one playoff season.

Which brings us to Meeks, the Barack Obama of this chase. A one-time defensive backs coach in Washington, he knows the scene and is familiar with management. With Dan Snyder or Jerry Jones as your owner, that's extra important. He turned a Colts defense that had resembled a sieve just a couple years ago into one of the league's best last year, with mostly the same personnel. His players would run through walls for him. He's young, he's hot, he's hungry, and frankly, I just have a feeling.

I'll support any of these guys because they'll be wearing burgundy and gold and that's how I roll. All three have the potential to be great coaches. All three have the potential to be huge disasters. Last time we could say that, we were looking at Steve Spurrier.

Please let this not be Steve Spurrier.



EDIT: Spagnuolo is out of the race. He agreed today to a three-year contract worth more than two million dollars a year to stay in New York, making him the highest-paid defensive coordinator in the game.

So it's looking very much like Jim Fassel will be the next head coach of the Redskins. We could do a lot worse.



EDIT: Holy crap, it's Jim Zorn! If I'd had any idea he was in the running, he would absolutely have been my candidate.

Last notable name to jump from QB coach under Mike Holmgren to head coach? Andy Reid of the Philadelphia Eagles. That seems to have worked out pretty darn well.

I'm totally jazzed! This is just the kind of guy the team needs. Can it be that Dan Snyder has actually grown up as an owner with Gibbs at his side for four years?

Kucinich Out of the Race

From the AP: Kucinich abandons White House bid.

I have to say that I am geniunely sorry to see Dennis Kucinich drop out of the race for President. I may not agree with many of his policies and stances, but Congressman Kucinich is a rare animal in American politics: a man of integrity. He's one of the few I see who actually appears to believe what he professes to, and he always raises the level of debate when he addresses an issue. I trust him to see things I don't see from an angle of honesty and good conscience, and find his arguments difficult to dismiss. That's the definition of a statesman.

Kucinich will focus instead on a tough congressional race in Cleveland. The four Democratic primary challengers for his seat have a hell of a fight ahead of them.

"Smoke Free VA Now"... By Any Means Necessary

I just heard one of the most appallingly disingenuous misuses of facts in my entire life, and what kills me most about it is just how effective it's certain to be.

WRVA just played a commercial from Smoke Free Virginia Now which touted the following information:

1) that an estimated 1700 Virginians die as a result of secondhand smoke every year,

2) that the Surgeon General recently declared that "there is no safe amount of exposure to secondhand smoke," and

3) that 98% of Virginians believe that secondhand smoke is dangerous.

The next part of the commercial implored the listener: "In the face of this overwhelming evidence" I should contact my legislator to get anti-smoking laws passed.

Okay, first of all, I loathe smoking. It gives you cancer and emphysema, it makes your eyes and skin gross, it makes you smell, it makes me smell if you're smoking and I'm near you, and I find people to be unpleasant to be around when they're smoking. I don't smoke, I have never smoked (other than celebratory cigars and a single clove cigarette because it was freshman year of college), I never plan to smoke, and I avoid places where there is smoking.

That said, this commercial is a pack of lies and bull#### that deliberately manipulates the few facts it uses.

1) The connection between secondhand smoke and death is emotional and anecdotal, and the science is so far from compelling that it makes global warming look like holy scripture. See the following sites for evidence and commentary: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News and Commentary, Clearing the Air, Junk Science, and the impressive Dave Hitt.

2) Surgeon Generals throughout the years have often been both politically motivated speakers and demonstrably wrong about medical science. And the SG's statements are frequently excerpted out of context by activist organizations to support fanatic and frantic claims. In point of fact, the SG's report on Reproductive and Developmental Effects from Exposure to Secondhand Smoke concludes:

The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between prenatal and postnatal exposure to secondhand smoke and childhood cancer. ... The evidence is inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship between exposure to secondhand smoke during infancy and childhood cancer. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between prenatal and postnatal exposure to secondhand smoke and childhood leukemias. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between prenatal and postnatal exposure to secondhand smoke and childhood lymphomas. The evidence is suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship between prenatal and postnatal exposure to secondhand smoke and childhood brain tumors.

I count four references to the evidence being "suggestive but not sufficient," as well as one "inadequate" in there. Even the strongest language can only "infer a casual relationship."

3) I don't give a rat's what 98% of Virginians believe. 100% of Italians believed the world was flat. 100% of many Native American tribes believed it was balanced on the back of a turtle. Let me write this as large as blogspot will let me:

OPINION POLLS

DO NOT EQUAL

EVIDENCE.

They certainly do not eqate to the "overwhelming evidence" that Smoke Free VA Now touts so earnestly and smugly in their radio spot.

If the people of Virginia want to outlaw smoking because it's yucky and they don't like it, that's fine; I can respect that point of view. For the most part, I share it. But if you have to lie and manipulate to make a compelling argument, well, you've got nothing as far as I'm concerned.

I hate smoking. It disgusts me. It's on its way to being outlawed, another freedom being taken from us for our own good by well-intentioned liberals with extremely short memories (*cough* PROHIBITION *cough*). But this is a dirty way to try to sway public opinion to your cause, disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst. You want to attack a legal behavior that's scientifically proven to ruin families, shorten lifespans, lower income, and reduce self-image? Attack premarital sex and adultery.

You should also read Hitler's Anti-Tobacco Campaign for laughs and shivers of fear.

Curt Schilling on the Mitchell Report

From Schilling's blog, 38 Pitches. Schill has been a very vocal advocate for cleaning up the game for many years, and has never been shy about giving a controversial opinion. He's also my favorite active baseball player.

It is a long, complex read, and these excerpts don't do it justice. But if you don't have 20 minutes to read the whole thing, you should at least see these parts:

On admitting guilt:

...These three guys (Andy Pettite, Brian Roberts, and Gary Bennett) were man enough to admit they were caught, made a huge mistake, and asked for forgiveness. There will be many who say they only admitted what they did because they were caught, which is probably true in every case, but the fact of the matter is that when you look at how many names are now out there, very few have chosen to own up to the mistake and take responsibility. To dissect the manner of their apologies, or try and discern intent is irrelevant to me. I know all three guys are good people. The world is full of good to great people that have made mistakes of this magnitude or worse. I’ll argue that this mistake in many cases doesn’t define the people I know, but merely points to another fact of our lives that people continually dismiss.

We’re human, we make mistakes, some bigger than you, some smaller, but at the end of the day it’s what makes us human. These guys made mistakes and I do mean mistakes. They didn’t accidentally do this, this was a conscious decision with far reaching implications and they should be held accountable. Problem is the fans version of accountable is completely dependent on their opinion of the player in question. If you are a fan then all is forgiven, or there is much less vitriol than you might have for other names mentioned....

On Jose Canseco:

...The problem I have, and the opinion I have, is based on the fact that he (Canseco) lied his entire career, every single day of it. He cheated his entire career, and lied about it. He spent his entire career on the record claiming he didn’t use PEDs (performance-enhancing drugs), yet only when his life was in shambles and only when it served Jose Canseco the most, did he ‘come clean’. Only then did he become this bastion of truth and honesty. Is that not the scam of scams? He made his hundred million or so, and when he was no longer good enough to compete up here, only when cheating stopped being enough to keep him competitive, only then did he scream ‘blackballed” and vow to get his revenge. Only then did he tell the truth, or his version of the truth.

Which in the end gets us here. Say what you want about Jose, and there are things I disagree with and think he’s wrong about, but I have yet to find someone he’s named who’s NOT been guilty or tried to clear their name. The view I have on that is maybe a bit too simplistic but I look at it like this. If Jose had named me in his book, it would have taken about 20 minutes for me to issue a press release vehemently denying the allegations, which would have been as closely followed as possible by as large a legal action as I could have possibly taken to sue for slander, libel, defamation of character and anything else I’d have been able to legally do. It’s either that, or I’m guilty. There is no gray area here, you either did, or you didn’t and Jose, up through today, hasn’t called out anyone that’s sued his ass off for false representation, slander, libel or whatever you would do if someone said something like this about you, that you didn’t do....

On Roger Clemens:

...So as a fan my thought is that Roger will find a way in short order to organize a legal team to guarantee a retraction of the allegations made, a public apology is made, and his name is completely cleared. If he doesn’t do that then there aren’t many options as a fan for me other than to believe his career 192 wins and 3 Cy Youngs he won prior to 1997 were the end. From that point on the numbers were attained through using PED’s. Just like I stated about Jose, if that is the case with Roger, the 4 Cy Youngs should go to the rightful winners and the numbers should go away if he cannot refute the accusations....

Schilling's focus on the lack of libel suits is an angle I hadn't thought of. When is Alex Rodriguez going to sue Canseco; when is Bonds going to sue the writers of Game of Shadows? If they don't sue for defamation of character, we can only assume that they are refusing to do so to keep evidence out of court.

He's got me softening a bit on the guys who apologize; if they're guilty and have even half of a conscience, what other choice to they have? The only problem with that, Andy Pettitte, is that HGH has to be in your body for months to do anything. It's not something you take once or twice, look in the mirror, admire your new six-pack, and move on; it's not something you take once or twice and your torn rotator cuff is all better. I think it's likely these guys are plea-bargaining in the court of public opinion; admitting to enough for us to get mad for a few seconds, then forgive them. I maintain a high level of skepticism with these guys who claim to have "only tried it once or twice." If you believe that, you probably believe Bill Clinton didn't inhale.

But regarding Slimeball Canseco, look: It wasn't going to be an angel who named names. It was going to be a user, it was going to be a sleazebag, and it was going to be someone who had a lot to personally gain. It was going to be someone who had as few scruples about calling out former teammates as he did about cheating in the first place. Canseco is our mob informant, and a seven-figure book deal is his immunity. This final bit of slime is the one redeeming moment, the necessary evil, his overall reason for being, before he drifts away into the oblivion of some horrible VH1 celebreality show.

One thing does have to be mentioned here, though: Last season was a great one. From top to bottom, start to finish, it was full of drama and as many great stories as a year of baseball has had in a long long time. Is that because of PEDs? Of course not; if the Mitchell report has brought nothing else to light, it has confirmed the idea, long held by me, that pitchers are benefitting as much as the hitters. The field isn't exactly level, but both sides of the ball have benefitted. I'm not ready to throw out entire seasons. Steroids and HGH didn't create Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins, the Rockies' win streak, Buchholz's no-no, or the chapion Red Sox. Most or all of that would have happened in a clean league.

I'm not ready to give up on baseball yet. Not as long as there are Curt Schillings and Jimmy Rollinses in the game.