Does it really all come back to baseball?

A-Rod was supposed to be the guy who saved baseball from the steroid era. When Barry Bonds was on his way to breaking the home run record, people were whispering (in some cases, not bothering to whisper) “The record will have that steroids monkey in its back until A-Rod breaks it. A-Rod may represent lots of what’s wrong with baseball, but at least he’s not juiced!” Now A-Rod is nearly all of what’s wrong with baseball (the only saving grace for him, in my eyes, is that he hustles). He was juiced. I disagree with Roy Oswalt when he says that all the guys who were juiced cheated him out of the game. I’m not convinced that steroids make you a better baseball player; they don’t increase your bat speed, they don’t help you read pitchers, they don’t help your reaction time, they don’t make you a smarter baserunner, they don’t remind you who you’re supposed to back up when the play is away from you in the field.

But they represent cheating and cheaters. They weren’t against the rules when a lot of guys took them, I know. But that doesn’t change the fact that not a single player ever would have said if asked publicly, “Yeah, I’m on steroids. So what?” Granted, many substances are illegal in the literal sense of being against the actual law as it applies to jail and courts and stuff, not just baseball, but I believe that no one would have admitted it anyway. If someone doesn’t admit something, it’s because they are afraid of the repercussions; you wouldn’t be afraid of repercussions if you weren’t doing anything wrong! All those guys knew what they were doing was wrong, whether technically against the rules of the game or not, and they did it anyway. Including A-Rod.

Steroids are against the spirit of the game. Baseball is about a perfect mix of practice and hard work and loving to toss a ball around in a park (well, except for DHs. I don’t know how you can enjoy baseball without ever putting a glove on). Baseball is guys who can throw curveballs and beat out hits, guys who are not physical specimens (see: Dustin Pedroia). Steroids make people into freakish physical specimens (see: any of the age-defying substance abusers; Bonds, Clemens, etc.). It’s the former that should be the heroes for kids in the sandlot, not the latter.

Steroids and other PEDs are now disallowed in baseball with a penalty of a 50 game suspension on your first offense, and I believe banishment on your third (I can’t verify that because I’m currently on an airplane). I think the first time you’re caught, and if the appeal that you should be allowed is not upheld, you are gone for life. Betting on baseball is considered one of the worst offenses you can commit against the game and the punishment for it is banishment for life. The steroid era is more than a serious black eye for the game of baseball – it has fundamentally changed the way we will forever look at a period of great players, all of whom are now under suspicion – and the punishment for those who are keeping it alive should be banishment for life.

As I mentioned, A-Rod was supposed to be the guy who made us forget about the statistics marred with asterisks and pulled us out of the juiced era, and he failed. Barack Obama was supposed to be the guy who made us forget about “politics as usual” and pull us out of the mess left behind by the last administration, and he is stumbling out of the gate. He closed Guantanamo without planning where all the detainees would go; perhaps a different camp with a different name, so the public will feel better. That’s for a future committee to decide, his people have said. I see – much like how we are going to pay for this stimulus bill and the various bailout bills will be figured out by future generations.

Why on earth did he pass the responsibility of writing the bill to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid? I hope that it was because he was overwhelmed by suddenly being president and he was unprepared for coming up with the solution. That’s sound counterintuitive and is certainly not the dream we all had in mind when he was elected, but at least being overwhelmed is something that he can get over. Giving the House the bill as a way to make sure a very, very expensive spending spree was written without his name on it so that if it doesn’t work he can say “I didn’t do it!” is a bad sign, and is likely an MO that cannot be overcome. Making the honest mistake of gift-wrapping the bill for the House liberals can be learned from; using the House liberals as a measured ploy to shaft the conservatives is a firm step deeper into politics as usual.

Perhaps it’s the unfulfilled promise of success that has made it so much harder to accept the problems Obama has had in his first month. The 2008-9 Cardinals reached the Super Bowl and are considered a huge success even though they lost the big game; the 2007-8 Patriots went 18-0 before they lost the big game and are seen as a resounding failure. The 2008 Rays reached the World Series but lost and are considered a huge success; the 2008 Yankees missed the playoffs for the first time in over a decade and are considered a resounding failure. Maybe if John McCain had been elected and we were in a very similar mess, which is likely, people would be saying “Yup, here we go, we figured this would happen.” But John McCain wasn’t elected, Barack Obama was, so people are insisting that something wrong must be happening; we didn’t sign up for this, we were promised success! (To be fair, many, and I believe most, of these expectations were manufactured by the media and rabid, blind Obama supporters. I think his inaugural address was a clearer into his true feelings: that we have a long road ahead, and that we need to bear together, which I appreciate as being terribly realistic.) Some in the media, who are clearly experts in everything, have already deemed Obama’s presidency a failure. His presidency, which is barely a month old, will last at the very least 4 years, barring a catastrophe, if memory from civics class serves. What are these people talking about?

That being said, I don’t know who is to blame for the extremely negative outlook being bandied about by everybody. I’m not even sure that anyone needs to be blamed; that just seems to be the American way, and who am I to condemn that? Let us please not forget that most of us, an astronomical proportion of us relative to those in other parts of the world, let alone in all of history, still have access to bread and milk and emergency medical care and the privilege of living in a country that, while it is plunging into a debt that it can’t afford, still affords us the freedoms and protections that it does, arguably the greatest and most plentiful in the history of mankind. Just consider that; it’s actually not that easy to wrap your head around without really thinking about it.

Not to mention, spring training is right around the corner.

Middle Relief Picks a Side

I chose the post name just because it sounds sort of official.  You should know that although Matt J and I agree on many of the points I’m going to try to make, I think, I do not speak for him and you should not hold him responsible for anything I say.  Or do.  What do I care?

(Note: I just finished writing what follows.  It is not complete.  I do not intend to complete it at a later time.  I just want any reader to keep in mind as they read the many, many words that follow that this is not inclusive of all my thoughts on this campaign.  Also, as usual, I tend to ramble a tad, so I apologize in advance for that.)

It’s been difficult to watch this election unfold.  Each candidate and their running mate have said and done things of consequence that have been ignored by the mainstream media, and each candidate and their running mate have said and done things that are not of any consequence that have been blown up by the media.  Each side has attempted to exploit the other with “gotcha” moments that are truly petty and have no place in (what I like to think would be) a real election.  This is commonplace in elections, so why bring it up?  Both of these candidates pledged, at a time that seems like long, long ago, to keep this campaign season clean.  I can’t pinpoint who first violated their pledge, or when, but it doesn’t really matter.  The point is that I actually believed them; John McCain, the maverick, the bipartisan senator, the guy whose name I invoked many times in the past several years to describe my political affiliations, and Barack Obama, the fresh-faced young guy from Illinois who promises to lead us in a departure from politics as usual, the one who understands that Americans are largely sick of the status quo in Washington.  They both let me down.  And that was when the race between them was just beginning.  There have been many more letdowns since, but there have also been many reasons to be encouraged.  A summary of these events and my observations will, I hope, explain my decision regarding for whom I am going to vote tomorrow.

The following are in no particular order.

My first event is already violating my plan of looking at events since the race between McCain and Obama began, but it is still significant to me.  Back in April when Hillary was still in the race, the three candidates, who were the only ones remaining from the two major parties, all went public with their opinions on whether the government should give Americans a tax holiday on gasoline for the summer, whereby the federal tax on gasoline would be lifted, which at the time was about 18 cents a gallon.  Clinton and McCain both said that yes, this holiday should occur, and Obama said that it should not.  This was important to me because it told me something about the two who said yes: either a) they were shamelessly pandering to voters at the expense of our country’s lame current attempts at curing our dependency on oil (not just foreign oil, the distinction itself being an entirely separate issue), or b) they were acting in good faith, sincerely believing that the tax holiday would have been the best thing for the American people, which means that they entirely miss the bigger picture when it comes to our dependency on oil.  Both of these options are bad.

Obama critics attacked his stance by claiming that he, an Ivy League-educated, wealthy elitist did not understand or care about the economic concerns of the common person who was hurting at the pump.  These criticisms are petty and foolish.  Giving Americans a break at the pump is not going to solve any problems, it will make them worse.  I will not be the first to convey this sentiment and I will certainly not be the most articulate, but I believe the idea is very simple.  We use a lot of oil.  Without getting into the reasons why we need to cut back on oil, allow me to make the statement and assume you will agree that we need to cut back on how much oil we use.  The most visible way that most of us use oil is by putting it into the tanks of our cars in the form of gasoline.  This is the way that most of us can see how much each drop of oil we use hits our pocketbooks: you literally watch the digits that represent your dollars spin on the pump as the gas flows into your tank.  How high the number goes affects how willing people are to fill their tanks.  If the number goes up, people will get upset and act accordingly; before the price of crude oil went down recently due to the dips in global markets, public transportation use went up and cries for offshore drilling went up.  (I will return to this point in a minute.)  If the Clinton-McCain tax holiday had taken place, Americans would have been encouraged for a few more months to continue to think that their addiction to oil was probably bad but not really as bad as people made it out to be.  All the while, their gas would have simply been made cheaper at the expense of future generations, and they would not have been forced to react in the ways they did.

Taking more public transportation and calling on Congress to allow offshore drilling are two important reactions on the part of Americans.  The increase in public transportation use represented Americans’ willingness to change something in their daily lives in response to the higher prices, which is a good thing.  The demand for Congress to allow offshore drilling represented Americans’ awareness that the government needs to do its part to respond to the situation.  Let me emphasize that this point is relevant regardless of your views on offshore drilling; the point is that the people went to Congress demanding a solution.  Let me also emphasize that I do not believe that the government’s role is to solve all our problems; this just happens to be a problem in which the government does need to make itself heavily involved.  These two reactions would not have taken place at all and have in fact subsided since the price of gas went down.  It is important that they did take place because it’s an indication that Americans will be able to cope when they are forced to finally make real changes concerning their energy choices and consumption.  In fact, their impressive reactions are one of the reasons why I personally support a federal tax that would put into effect a price floor on gas, but the platform on which I would run for president is not at issue here.

I was largely unimpressed by the presidential debates, with several reasons unique to each candidate.  One reason that was common to both was the fact that they said things that were entirely unrealistic and most likely untrue.  I suppose that saying things that are unrealistic and likely untrue are designed to woo undecided voters with promises, but the effect on me was disenchantment.  Each candidate was asked directly by moderators on multiple occasions which of their proposed government programs would have to be suspended or reduced on account of the economy turning sour, and each candidate tiptoed around the question, not wanting to be the one to break the bad news to voters that (gasp!) some campaign promises were going to be broken.  This was a bit puzzling to me; not that the candidates were reluctant to admit that they would not be able to meet all of their goals, at least not right away, but that neither of them seized the somewhat unusual opportunity to have a legitimate excuse onto which they could blame their inability to fulfill all of their promises.  The debates would have been a good time to begin laying the groundwork for the inevitable excuse, and neither one did, instead insisting that they could save the world despite the sagging economy; and by the way, while offering generous tax cuts!  I’m not saying that excuses are a good thing, I’m saying that being unable to be honest or even realistic is a bad thing.  My final note on this point is that Obama came the closest to admitting that some of his plans may have to be delayed or cancelled, but that came only after numerous questions from multiple moderators, and he never fully answered the question.  But he came closer than McCain.

On one issue that Obama remains completely unrealistic is his review of the budget.  He has promised, as he did in his national TV spot that would have delayed the conclusion to Game 5 of the World Series had there been more than 3 innings to be played, to go through the federal budget “line by line”.  This is an out and out lie.  The federal budget for the 2007 fiscal year was about $2.4 trillion, which is another way of saying that it was many, many, many pages long.  He is not going to go through the budget line by line.  I doubt he would even go through it page by page.  He may have a very large team of people go through it and give him a nice little summary, and maybe that’s what he meant.  But that’s not what he said, and that bothers me.

I’m also bothered by his approach to redistributing wealth, particularly in national TV spot.  Please read carefully: my problem is not (entirely) with the fact that he wants to distribute wealth.  Rather, my problem is with the hypocrisy in the spot.  Part of his spot focused on the idea that many of us have parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents who immigrated here and worked hard so that we, their future generations, could have a better life.  The point of the spot was to show that the government has been failing those hard-working ancestors by depriving us, their future generations, of quality education and healthcare.  What I took away from that was a terrible inconsistency which forced me, again, to wonder whether a candidate was simply oblivious to a disconnect between two important concepts, or if they are aware and are just hoping that Americans are too dumb to see the disconnect themselves.  The disconnect of course is that the immigrants who came here to forge a better life for them and their future generations were not lured by the idea that they could work hard to provide quality education and healthcare to others; they were lured by the idea that they could work hard and keep their money.  The “land of opportunity” gig meant that if you worked hard you could make a better life for your family, regardless of your current socioeconomic status.  The extent to which this was true is inconsequential; the point is that the two ideas don’t jive, and it makes me feel like Obama as trying to pull the wool over my eyes.

Hypocrisy, of course, does not have a political affiliation, and that’s not the point I’m trying to make.  McCain has had his own fair share of hypocritical statements and actions, that’s just not the problem that I have with him that I am choosing to highlight.  McCain’s never ending attacks on Obama’s position shifting is utterly ridiculous.  It stems from the idea that changing your mind is a faux pas.  Saying one thing and immediately turning around and doing another is what’s bad; changing your mind after conditions have changed is not.  Sticking to your guns is effective in certain situations, but being able to take new developments into account and changing your strategy to reflect changes is more effective in other situations.  McCain’s claim to being a maverick and his continuous pointing to his record as a measuring stick of consistency are inconsistent.  He says he is a maverick because he reaches across the aisle to Democrats on certain issues, and that he has to examine each issue in its own context, not according to the party line (the issue of whether or not he does this as consistently as he claims is a separate one).  He also says that he is consistent because he has always and will always vote to “finish the job in Iraq”, whatever that means.  That strategy is not one of a maverick, or of a person who will examine issues as contextual facts change and develop.  That strategy is one of a person who considers sticking to his guns more important than reacting to potentially very important developments, and that is a dangerous approach, not just to a war but to an economy, a volatile Congress, an approaching energy crisis, and so on.

A maverick also would not have chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate.  (I’m ignoring the pesky question, yet again, of whether the candidate really didn’t know what they were doing or if they were just trying to pull one over on voters.)  Palin being a woman or being from Alaska or being a hockey mom does not make either one of them a maverick.  By McCain’s own definition, a maverick politician is one who tries to reach across the aisle and work with the other side.  Selecting Palin in only a very small way represented McCain trying to reach out to undecided voters.  The only people who were swayed by Palin were people who are only interested in a woman occupying executive office, most likely embittered Hillary supporters.  I suspect that the number of people who were undecided or leaning towards but uncommitted to Obama that instead swung to the McCain camp by virtue of him selecting Palin was marginal.  Rather, Palin reinvigorated an otherwise dead conservative base.  The GOP had a great couple weeks thanks to her but then the buzz fizzled.  Her staunchest supporters remain people who were already going to vote Republican regardless of who was on the ticket.  At that point, as an undecided voter, I liked Palin as a gimmick but I was again disenchanted by McCain.  I’m the undecided voter! Aren’t I the one that you are trying to woo? How is this supposed to be appealing to me? It wasn’t, and it further tarnished McCain’s already heavily damaged maverick image in my mind.  Choosing a running mate who reinvigorates your base is not something a maverick would do.  A maverick would have chosen a Joe Biden, a Mike Bloomberg, or, in an alternate universe, a Hillary Clinton.

Full disclosure: I voted for Bush in 2004.  In 2004 it was no a secret that the “world” wanted someone who was not Bush to be elected, and that bothered me little.  This is because it is my impression that the world wanted Kerry for the same reason millions of Americans wanted Kerry, and that is not so much that he was John Kerry but that he was not George W. Bush.  While I did think that the Obama Europe Tour of this past summer was a little over the top, it also convinced me that the world truly wants Obama because he’s Obama, not only because he’s not McCain.  It’s important this time that we elect a guy that will get along with the rest of the world.  One of the president’s many hats is our head of state and it would help our image immensely if our head of state was well-received by not only somewhat obligated other heads of state but also by the people of other countries, who are not so obligated to feign friendliness towards an American president.  I am convinced that if Obama is elected that it will also reflect well on the American people.  The memories of non-Americans are similarly, pitifully, but also thankfully, as short as those of Americans; when an American travels to England or France or Japan or India now they are questioned about their feelings of Bush because the average non-American doesn’t understand the volume of votes against Bush and that the person they are speaking with didn’t necessarily vote for Bush.  If Obama is elected, they might assume that the visiting American voted for Obama, and they probably will be a little happier about it.  I’m in no way saying that people base their amount of hospitality towards Americans based on the visitor’s political affiliations but in my travels I have found that it does impact the hosts in a noticeable way.  Electing Obama will show the rest of the world (or at least, serve them the same delusion) that we’re on the right track and not just interested in war, which is a very generalized version of their perception of the choice we’re making in this election.  Showing the world that we’re interested in change is important.

Another hat the president wears is party leader.  If McCain is elected, he will likely be facing a very Democratic Congress.  There is potential for that to be a terrific situation; the maverick senator-cum-president who when faced with a strong opposition sees the situation as an opportunity to work together rather than a roadblock preventing partisan action.  However, I think that he will try to stick to those guns of his and fight the Democrats.  Nothing will continue to get done.  Partisan divides will continue to deepen and widen.  Fights will ensue in a nasty nomination process to replace Supreme Court justices.

Now is not the time for things to not get done.  Now is the time for serious reform of our national energy policy, which directly impacts the economy, both in the short and the long term, foreign policy, and national security.  Education and the economic impact of the baby boomers retiring also need serious attention.  In a worst case scenario, Obama is elected and the floodgates burst open with Democratic reform and Supreme Court nominations.  The Republicans are powerless to filibuster, much less vote down, borderline socialist legislation, and they instead hunker down to try to weather the storm until the midterm elections come to save the day.  But this is unlikely.  I’m not scared of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid dream team, precisely because of the first name on that list, the leader of the party.  Obama has swung back to the center just in time for the election, like a good candidate, whereas McCain has inexplicably swung hard to the right.  This gives me more faith in Obama.  I could be falling prey to yet more wool being pulled over my eyes, but I feel like with Obama I’m at least taking a chance on a good thing, whereas McCain, as he fought hard to convince me, is a sure thing; surely to be stagnant.

I’m drinking the Kool-Aid.  I think the constitutional law professor will appoint justices to the Supreme Court that will appropriately balance the political scales on the Court that they all claim to not be a part of.  I think that he will use the de facto mandate he has by virtue of his party’s majority in the Congress to seriously attack our self-damaging energy policy.  I think he will have the restraint to not abuse that de facto mandate.  He will not just reinvigorate his base to try to coax supporters out of the woodwork, but also reinvigorate international support for the United States and for Americans.

The saying goes that the evil that we know is better than the evil that we don’t know.  My take on that is that it’s only true if the evil you know is not so troubling and discouraging that you worry for the country’s future.  I think that in this election we need to bet on what we don’t know, and that’s Obama.  He may abuse his majority in Congress and he might blow it with Iran.  He may go soft on Russia and he might appoint some radical judges.  But those are just possibilities.  You could make up similar damning possibilities for any candidate who ever ran.  The difference in this case is that there is also the real possibility that Obama will be great.  I do not see that possibility for McCain.

Morning Quickie

I finally got around to reading this interview with former German Chancellor Schröder that Matt J passed along to me yesterday. The Chancellor talks about the Georgia-Russia fiasco, what it means for Russia, and what it means for the West. He seems pretty frank. I wonder if he was like that when he was still in office. That would be refreshing.

Major League Baseball cannot institute instant replay this season. If you start a season with the rules a certain way, you have to play the season out that way. And the fact that MLB seems more concerned with the instant replay rule than with shattering bats is a little absurd.

There’s a chance that Melky Cabrera may never re-emerge from the minors. I still like my T-shirt.

On ESPN, fans voted and elected the greatest player of all time for each team. I didn’t vote because I hate these things. Fans chose Jim Kelly for the Bills. He won very much with a mere plurality, getting only 37% of the vote, in front of Bruce Smith, O.J., Darryl Talley (!), and Thurman Thomas. I’m glad the vote was so close, but it’s obvious only a minority of the voters were over 30, otherwise O.J. would have gotten more votes. People forget how great he was. 2,003 yards in 14 games! Plus, I love Darryl Talley, but him getting more votes than Thurman Thomas is just plain wrong.

I assume Matt J will not object to the Original and the Only LT (a healthy 84%) beating out the likes of Michael Strahan, Phil Simms, Frank Gifford, and, uh…Carl Banks. No Eli! Where’s the outrage?

Obama’s pick for Veep reported to come early tomorrow. Obama’s keeping it quiet so his supporters who have signed up for this super-cool, super-neat, super-insider, clap-your-hands-because-you-get-a-text-message-from-Barack-and-can-show-your-friends-how-involved-you-are notification can find out before the media and the masses who he has chosen. My money is on Drudge getting it before any text message gets sent out.

I learned this morning that the incumbent party hosting their convention last is a tradition that has held steady since 1956, and is one that is steeped in history, a lot of which goes back to the 1864 and 1868 elections. Also, in 1868 the chairman of the Democratic convention was Horatio Seymour. There was a deadlock in the voting among other potential candidates. Suddenly, Seymour himself was being mentioned as a strong possibility to be the nominee. He got up in front of everyone and declared that they could not vote for him, and he wasn’t being humble. He really meant it: he didn't want it. They voted for him anyway, and he reluctantly went on to get crushed by Ulysses S. Grant, who remains the President with the coolest name. Anyway, can you imagine anyone in politics today saying “No, don’t vote for me”?

Quickie

Some real quick nuggets:

• Should have blogged the game last night. Joba went 6 with 3 runs and 5 Ks, which was good, but he also had 4 BBs, which was not so good, not to mention a wild pitch that let a run score and a slider that slid all the way behind Youkilis’ thigh. All in all not a bad outing.
• Rivera pitched two strong innings for the win while Papelbon got walked off by rookie Brett Gardner. He’s really fast.
• Jose Molina has made several perfect throws to take guys out at second and third this past week or so. He has an impressive throw out rate, about 50/50 on bases stolen/guys thrown out.
• A-Rod tied the Mick for career home runs.
• Boston lost its sixth straight one run game.
• Joe Morgan was at the top of his moronic, self-loving game. Or maybe I mean he was at the bottom. Whatever; he was notably unbearable, even for him. He and Jon Miller continue to impress by messing up players’ names, confusing them with managers, etc.
• You know the irrepressible fear that I get whenever Kyle Farnsworth comes in with a lead smaller than 12 runs? I get the feeling that Red Sox fans are starting to feel the same way about Hideki Okajima (the guy who, if you listen to Miller and Morgan’s hyperboles, never ever looks at the plate before he pitches. We’re talking from when he walks out of the bullpen to when he leaves. Never looks. Yes, he jerks his head in a funny way. We get it.)
• Why is A-Rod’s divorce first page news on ESPN? I love ESPN but I’m starting to lose faith in them.
• I know I’m picking on the Red Sox a lot in this post when there are equally annoying or bad things about the Yankees. I’ll get to them later.
• Did you hear about the kid at Purdue who got in trouble for bringing a book to work about the Ku Klux Klan? Not just any book, but one about how the students of Notre Dame battled the Klan in the 1920s; not a book glorifying the Klan! Just by bringing the book to work he was accused of “harassing behavior” towards his black co-workers. He was ordered to not bring the book to work anymore or he might get fired. By the way, he was working for Purdue. An American university punishing a student worker for reading a book they carry in their own library!
• The latest GOP plan to “trap” Obama into a flip-flopper role is symptomatic of the disease that is the electoral season. Obama is clearly a flip-flopper; we all know it and he’s shameless about it. But guess what: they all are! Democrats, Republicans, anyone who wants to get elected is! They do it every cycle! Do we learn nothing! McCain’s camp is trying to trap Obama into either a) admitting that he is going to ignore the realities on the ground Iraq and stick to his 16 month plan no matter what, which will expose him as being someone who ignores facts and is unable to change, or b) changing his position on his withdrawal plan so he can be labeled a flip-flopper. Obama and his cronies must be spending time figuring out how to avoid this trap. I wish them luck. The McCain cronies must have spent a bunch of time figuring out how to lay the trap. Is this really what these people are spending all their time on? This is how we win elections in this country?
• Senators are expending so many resources, using so many people who are supposed to be smart on their campaign. Senators themselves are, theoretically, also smart. We could have all these people using their collective brain juices on solving the real problems this country is having as opposed to creating problems for their counterpart blowhards. As such, upon declaring their candidacy for the presidency, senators should be forced to resign their positions in Congress. This will not only allow their constituents to retain a representative who is actually serving them, but it will also make certain senators (and congressmen and governors, for that matter) think twice about opening campaigns that everyone knows are doomed from the beginning but are just for the publicity (see: Huckabee, Mike and Paul, Ron). They can run again later if they want but for the duration their constituents need people who are paying attention to them and not personal endeavors.

Horsefeathers

From an article on Hillary's appearance on "This Week":

An Obama supporter picked from the audience by Stephanopoulos to ask a question in the town hall meeting format of the show said she makes less than $25,000 a year, so the price of gas is not an academic issue for her.

“I really do feel pain at the pump,” said Kara Glennon. “However, I do feel pandered to when you talk about suspending the gas tax. I don’t think that it’s really a reasonable plan. Call me crazy, but I actually listen to economists because I think they know what they’ve studied.”

Glennon asked Clinton how the proposal squared with her concerns about energy independence and global warming as lowering the gas tax would not encourage people to save energy and drive less.

Clinton said that while suspending the gas tax would offer short-term relief, she’s also advocating long-term solutions to gas prices and energy independence, including making vehicles more fuel efficient and having the United States be a world leader on addressing global warming.

At a rally in Indianapolis Saturday night, Clinton used the gas tax issue as “just one more indication” that Obama is “not understanding what’s going on in so many people’s lives.”

She is more or less admitting to using the gas tax suspension as a means to getting to voters! She is acknowledging that the proposal is not a long-term solution and is in fact counterproductive! She should not be allowed to tout herself as a global warming fighter while this is happening! How do people get away with this? McCain too, for that matter! And not just the politicians; where is the responsibility of the journalists? I know Stephanopoulos is a former Clintonian, but why even fake it at this point? This is ludicrous. And that quote about Obama just makes me want to punch her in the face.

Change of Plans...

I was intending to jot down a few thoughts on the Mets this afternoon, but I was stuck behind an SUV with 8 anti-George Bush bumper stickers and I feel compelled to add my two cents.

First of all, 8 bumper stickers about anything denotes you as a fanatical fool.

Second, what type of point are you trying to prove?

Third, she was driving one of those late 90s SUVs that drink gas more quickly than John Daly throws back beers.  Come on, if you have to attach these (anti-GOP/conservative) political statements to your bumper, drive a hybrid, not something that makes an M-1 Abrams look fuel efficient.

I think that bumper-sticker mania is indicative of the political situation that we currently face.  As soon as candidates reach national exposure, they are immediately labeled by the national media.  Regardless of the congruency of these generalizations, they have a tendency to stick, unless the candidate does something so horrific that a more caustic moniker is within reach.  Think about it.  Right now we have the Former First Lady, Hope & Change, and the War Hero.

Never mind that they are all senators and have extensive and nuanced policy histories.  Never mind that there are still definite questions about Barack's ability to bring about any change, Hillary's past actions in her husband's White House, and Mac's relationship with the armed services (see his testimony on the Khobar Towers attack before the SASC).

A few good links...

A few good links...

John McCain hammers out a key economic speech, while Barack Obama feels mighty put out by the media.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Carter does everything but make out with a terrorist.

In other news, my usual forty minute commute to work today turned into a hour and forty minute ordeal despite the absence of any major accident on the 295N corridor. Gotta love drivnig in VA/DC/MD. This makes for a very cranky blogger.

The Red Sox were on ESPN again last night. This time viewers were treated to the fool that is Steve Philips, as well as a come-from-behind Red Sox victory that needs to remind the American League and the world, that until someone beats the Sox in October, you can take the moniker of "best team in baseball" from their cold, dead hands.

Coming later today, a Mets' fan vents about things that worry him in the new season.

What is a Genius?

For a rocking Wednesday night, I'm watching Justice Scalia answer questions asked by some pimply-faced Virginia High School students - someone just asked about intra-state and Scalia is running with the ball, to say the least.  Agree with him or not, Scalia's command of the English language, his bravado, ability to speak in clear, ordered sentences off the top of his head is quite impressive.  And what a vocabulary!  He just challenged the high schoolers to read the Federalist Papers of them in their entirety.  

But let me cut to the chase, what seems to be greatly missing from current political discourse is "genius."  That is to say, those thinkers who fill up the room with their intellect and oppress those who go against them simply by their force of mind -- not, mind you, force of will, amount of money, etc., etc.  Does Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or John McCain seem to be particularly spectacular in terms of intellect?  I suggest the answer is a resounding "no."  Moreover, those great thinkers who are part of the political discourse have been marginalized by the 1-hour news cycle so prevalent because of cable news.  Genius generally isn't sexy, nor is it particularly marketable.  Picture poor Alexander Hamilton needing to kowtow to Larry King because of a slight misspeak regarding his banking scheme.  Or Bill O'Reilly castigating a rather down-troden Thomas Jefferson for his failure to fully punish the Barbary Pirates.  

Very often we're told that those present within a current period of history will overestimate its own importance.  Just as common, however, is the seemingly depressing depravity of intelligence within this particular era.  What's my point?  We need more idea folks, more geniuses during this point in our history.  But no! We have a society dispossessed of any respectable attention span.  So, let's start those ideas coming.  It's too late for a campaign of ideas for this election cycle, but I can only hope that find an idea person too.  And keep this person away from Brett Hume, Chris Matthews and the other fair and balanced bloviators.  

Foolish, but I'm in the mood to dream.

Posted by Jersey Matt