A Touch of Chaos

There have been a host of interesting events since my last posting, so let’s take a brief tour of the land of insanity.

Race Matters 1, or, The Importance of 42

Remember Jackie Robinson.

Remember Branch Rickey.

Remember Walter O’Malley.

Robinson’s heroism is never to be overlooked, but were it not for Dodgers’ GM Rickey and owner O’Malley, Robinson’s courage would not have been displayed.

Race Matters 2

Anyone who believes the two stories of the Duke University lacrosse players and the probably temporary professional demise of Don Imus are not interrelated need to take another look at the cases.

Both cases involved a rush to judgment against rich white guys, and this rush was promoted by those famous racial provocateurs, Rev. Al (convicted for defaming an innocent man) Sharpton and Rev. Jesse (Hymietown) Jackson. In both cases, the white guys were the victims of professional media-mob lynchings stirred up by the aforementioned reverends.

Regarding the Duke case, take a look at the well thought out piece by Peter Applebome in the Sunday (4/15) New York Times Metro section. Applebome gets it just right as he points to the reverse racism evidenced by a black minority, unwilling to let the evidence come forward for examination before hanging the innocent. Also guilty are the leftist academics and women’s groups who did nothing less than hoist the players off the ground once the rope was placed around the players’ collective neck. Of course, directing the old heave-ho was district attorney Nifong, who suppressed exonerating evidence. Nifong issued a legalistic non-apology apology for his actions. He should not only lose his license, but also spend some time as a guest of the state.

I was stunned this morning while watching ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopolis. His two female panelists, including Democratic Party operative Donna Brazile, stated that they had “mixed feelings” about the end of the Duke story. “Mixed feelings”? I was flabbergasted. What did these women not learn from the story? A horrendous mistake was made by many in the media, academia, and various “rights” organizations, and they say they have “mixed feelings”?

Imus in the Mourning

I remember the Imus show from his beginnings in New York. He was on WNBC. Well, he sort of was on WNBC. He missed so many shows because he was either drunk or stoned that NBC fired him and exiled him to Cleveland for a coupe of years before bringing him back to New York. I was a bit of a fan for some of his bits, such as the pompous evangelist Rev. Billy Sol Hargas (“I don’t care if it rains or freezes/ long as I got my plastic Jesus/ riding on the dashboard of my car”), but on the whole, I didn’t really care. I was more than surprised when he returned to New York and became a major hit, so much so that big-time politicians and serious writers clamored for airtime with him.

Imus has been doing his current shtick for many years and many people are flabbergasted that he got canned for his “nappy haired ho’s” comment regarding the Rutgers women’s basketball team. The claim is that Imus used language common to rap and hip-hop music for more than a decade.

So what went wrong and why was Imus canned? CBS corporate suits caved like a West Virginia coal mine when Rev. Sharpton et al. called for Imus’s head on a platter. CBS, through its other entertainment arms, has long profited from the racism, vulgarity and crudity of rap and hip-hop. What gave their corporate cowardice adequate cover was that Imus made a fatal mistake: previously, he would insult groups or specific public figures who certainly were both deserving of or capable of withstanding attack by dint of their public positions or publicity seeking, here he attacked specific individuals who had done nothing to warrant this attack.

This verbal assault on the Rutgers women certainly deserved action by CBS, and the initial announcement of a two-week unpaid suspension sounds just about right. In light of his mea culpas at the feet of Al Sharpton (why did he gave Sharpton this power to grant absolution?), and his face-to-face apology to the Rutgers women’s basketball team, Imus’s termination was nothing less than a corporate lynching to satisfy a racist mob.

What does it all mean? This country is marked by the permanent stain of slavery and racial prejudice. Efforts over the past 50 years to make amends for our national history have made progress in admitting our past and correcting our present, but racism and its legacy remain a clear and present danger to our future. Racism exists in all communities, black and white, and to various degrees, from subtle and silent to outspoken and violent. The chasm between certain segments of our society is wide and the space between us is filled with the corrosive acid produced by the professional provocateurs and their willing associates. Sometimes the issue of race is just a race to the bottom.

The Uniter and the Decider

I shouldn’t be surprised at the continued idiocy spewing forth from this administration. I really shouldn’t. Especially since the administration is headed by an idiot, what else can you expect?

But the headlines that say the idiot-in-chief is looking for a “War Czar” to control the land wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are just totally baffling. Let’s see, there is the navy admiral, William Fallon, who is the head of the United Stated Central Command, which stretches from the Horn of Africa to India and the south eastern rim of Russia, who controls all forces in that entire region. Then there is a joint chiefs of staff. Then a secretary of defense. Then hawk-in-chief Dick (I’ve got better things to do) Cheney. Then the “Decider” himself. So now he is looking for someone to act as War Czar? Nope. There are plenty of people in the chain of command to invest with the title of “War Czar”.
As reported in the media, several retired flag officers have already turned down the position. One general said, in essence, that this administration hasn’t got a clue as to what it is doing.

What the idiot-in-chief is looking for is a scapegoat on whom to pin our ultimate defeat in both land wars.

Alberto Gonzalez Says, "The Dog Ate My Homework"

Dweeb of the Week Alberto Gonzalez continues to swing “slowly, slowly in the wind” and I wonder how long it will be before the Uniter and Decider decides it’s time to cut him loose. It’s is clear that he lied about the circumstances that lead to firing of eight US Deputy Attorneys General, and that those firings were motivated solely by political considerations, more specifically, the AGs were attacking Republican wrongdoing instead of the Democrats. Even Republicans don’t believe him.

Now comes word that the entire issue was discussed with Karl Rove over a parallel internet mail system run by the Republican National Committee specifically to by-pass the White House system and thereby evade required record keeping. And now they claim that they can’t find e-mails that Congress wants to examine in the course of reviewing the AG situation. In the internet age, nothing disappears, even after you press the “Delete” key. Or maybe Rosemary Woods still works in the White House?

Is there a Hercules available to clean out the Augean Stable that this administration has built?

Giuliani Time

This is rich. Rudy is campaigning in Iowa and he tells the Des Moines register he has experience fighting terrorism. The truth is Rudy hasn't so much as lifted a paper clip to actually "fight" terrorism. Since he left office Rudy has concentrated on making a fortune by setting up various "consulting" companies and capitalizing on his post 9/11 media exposure. Not that there's anything wrong with it. Rudy's rise is just another example of the media having a "boy crush."

Abraham Lincoln said "You can't fool all of the people, all of the time." The question is whether Rudy, like George Bush, can fool just enough people just enough of the time.

Giuliani leads in the Iowa polls by a slim margin, followed closely by Sen. McCain. ON the money side, McCain leads Giuliani $25m-$15m.

Sense and Sanity in Government .. What a Concept!

New Mexico Governor, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson, is about to sign into law a measure that would remove the possibility of criminal prosecution from people who are trying to aid victims of drug overdoses. The total sanity of this measure is fall-off-your-chair startling.

Talk About Strange Bedfellows

This is hillarious. The National Rifle Association and the American Civil Liberties Union are on the same side -for- in a Texas gun case. You've got to reads this one.

Ka--CHINNNNG!

Easy as A-B-C


Really surprising news was released by the Federal Elections Commission regarding the fund raising achievements of the leading candidates.

On the Democratic side, there appears to be considerable traction by the A-B-C group: those political operatives and rank-and-file members who believe that Hillary Clinton is not, for various reasons, the best possible standard bearer for the coming election.Hence, A-B-C , or Anyone But Clinton. The ABCs believe Hillary has too much baggage, is too polarizing, voted for the Iraq war, is too wooden a candidate, and various combinations of the above. In searching for an alternative, the unseasoned Barack Obama managed to virtually tie Hillary in the amount of money raised the last quarter: $26 million for Clinton versus $25 million for Obama. Edwards came in at third place with $14 million. Take a look at this Jeff Zeleny NYTIMES article.

Of equal importance is the source of the funds. Clinton raised her money in a serious of big ticket events for Democratic fat cats, while Obama held many cheaper rallies and used the internet effectively. One possible result is that Hillary has maxed out the permissible fund raining of the fat cats and now has to depend upon the "little people" , who really don't get the "warm fuzzies" from her. On the other hand, Obama, has had more than twice the number of individual donations , and in far smaller denominations, than has Hillary. If Obama shows strength going forward, he then has the opportunity to pick up support, and more important, cash, from people who previously gave big bucks to Hillary but now see Obama as a potential winner.

On the whole, the Dems seem to be the money powerhouse this election cycle as they continue to surprise by raising more money, overall, than the Republicans. Early ’08 Fund-Raising Has Clear Blue Tint

Don't discount the possibility that the heavyweights,: Obama (geez.. calling a flyweight like Obama a heavyweight is mind boggling), Clinton and , bringing up the rear of the so-called "first tier" of Dem candidates , John Edwards, could tear each other apart
Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye

Major bad news for the candidacy of Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, as former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney raised significantly more money that McCain.

McCain's candidacy seems to be in shambles as he is shuffling campaign staff members and trying to field an effective fund raising team . For someone who has previously run for the presidency, this is an ominous sign.

Both McCain and Romney have flip-flopped on issues and each one presents no definable political persona. Instead, they look like a couple of old style pols who will do and say anything to get another vote. It is a sad move for the once highly regarded and self-styled maverick, McCain, and well as the moderate-liberal Romney.

Meanwhile, the high flying Rudy Giuliani seems to be coming back down to earth as more and more details come out about his personal life and his business dealings, particularly his attachment to former police commissioner Bernard Kerick. Now Rudy is saying that he supports public funding for abortions. Rudy's trying to run away from his political record, but as Satchel Paige used to say, " Don't look back, someone might be gaining on you."

If Rudy stays in contention, the opposition will start to pound him with so many negatives that Rudy will feel that he was hit with a southeast Asian tsunami.


Overall, it looks as though both the Democrats and the Republicans are having a hard time coalescing around one leading candidate. This is a good thing! It gives the campaign process, rather than the money raising process, enough time to have a real impact by requiring candidates to test themselves and their ideas in the public forum.

Don't be surprised if dark horse candidates start to gain traction, candidates with substance, and more importantly, candidates more in tune with their party's core values. Look for Bill Richardson on the Democratic side and Newt Gingrich for the Republicans.

On Richardson

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is doing the dollar hustle in Manhattan this week. he is also trying to get some media attention with a shot on Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" (Comedy Central) show this evening. The New York Observer's Jason Horowitz found Governor Richardson in a bar... but it's a good thing. Horowitz reports:

Mr. Richardson, whose long and impressive résumé in government and foreign affairs has earned him enough attention to gain him thinking-man’s-dark-horse status in the crowded field of Democratic nominees, is working hard to break into the elite club of front-runners, which includes Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.

He served 15 years in Congress before acting as Energy Secretary in the Clinton administration and turning in a generally admired stint as U.N. ambassador. He is the first major Hispanic Presidential candidate, and his two terms as governor of traditionally Republican New Mexico are another asset—especially because, as he informed the young crowd sipping pints of ale Monday night, “We elect governors in this country.”

Read about the man who should be the next president here.

Once Upon a Time......

There was a rising political star named Barack Obama. One day Barack decided he wanted to be president. So Barack tried to convince all th people that he was the bestest, smartest, candidate. Then Barack decided to tell all the people the story of his life. Except.. it wasn't his life...Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Obama's gaffes start to pile up
One stump line sounds similar to John Edwards'

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, 46 days old on Tuesday, has run into some speed bumps, created because of a series of missteps magnified because he is under microscopic scrutiny.

It's too early to say whether the gaffes slow Obama's momentum -- or if they become barricades, extracting a more significant price for the Illinois Democrat's White House bid. They are getting noticed.

Consider the items that have been accumulating since Obama announced on Feb. 10:

• Marking the anniversary of the March 1965 "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Ala., Obama, speaking at a church, said his parents got together "because of what happened in Selma." Obama was born in 1961.

• Obama told Larry King on CNN -- asked about that anti-Hillary Rodham Clinton YouTube ad, a doctored version of a spot created for Apple computers -- "We don't have the technical capacity to create something like that."

Obama did not know what he was talking about. Any professional media consultant can manipulate images on video. Turns out the creator -- unmasked last week as a political operative who worked for a firm overseeing the technical side of Obama's Web site -- made it at home on a Mac.

read all about it here

WIND SPRINTS...

Here are a couple of articles that agree with my assessment that this political campaign will be a sprint, not a marathon:

From the Hartford Courant:

Bowing to a national trend, Connecticut would join two dozen states in holding an early "Super-Duper Tuesday" presidential primary on Feb. 5 next year under a plan endorsed Tuesday by high-ranking state Republicans and Democrats.

Massachusetts and Rhode Island are expected to join Connecticut in abandoning their shared primary date of March 4, 2008, as states across the country adopt an ever-earlier presidential primary calendar, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz
"The reality is the race will be over by the time we were voting in March," Bysiewicz said.

read the rest of that article here.

And the Wall Street Journal focuses on money ( what else is new?)

Lawmakers Join Hunt To Bag Big Donors Early
By Laurie P. Cohen
Word Count: 1,439

The unusually early and intense fund-raising push in the 2008 presidential campaign is spurring congressional candidates into a hasty money chase as well, just two months after the current class of lawmakers was sworn in.

The sheer number of campaigns hunting for seed money has intensified the competition to tap big donors before they bump up against either legal or self-imposed caps on what they can give during the current election cycle, fund-raisers say. The rematch between Democrats and Republicans for control of the House and Senate is also ratcheting up what has become a perpetual campaign-finance cycle.

Horse Race

David Yepsen is the reporter's pro in Iowa. Here is his take on the latest poll numbers:

The numbers show that since January, Edwards has added 15 points to his total while Hillary Clinton has dropped 1. She and Edwards are now locked in a statistical tie for first place in the survey.

This poll was conducted before the news that Edwards's wife had a recurrence of cancer. Will that help him or hurt him? (PREPARE TO FIRE CLICHE` .. FIRE!)

ONLY TIME WILL TELL!

GIULIANI TIME....

New poll:

Fred Thompson -- the former Tennessee senator who now plays a New York district attorney on the NBC show 'Law and Order' -- is mulling his biggest role yet. The Republican is considering a bid for the White House and the latest Gallup Poll of GOP hopefuls puts him in third place behind Rudy Giuliani, who saw his support plummet 13 points, and John McCain.

As I said previously, Giuliani's support "will go up like a cannon ball... and down like a cannon ball." It is only Republican political desperation that makes him even slightly appealing at this early juncture. It is certain that political opposition research is being put into high gear by both Democrats and Republicans.

Teach Your Children Well....

But we have done a damned poor job of it.

Take a look at this report in today's (3/26) NYTIMES on kids who are dumped into daycare so that mommy and daddy can get another Volvo.

We've made our kids a political football, or to be more accurate, a politically correct football, and no one has been willing to call off the game. Driven by a confluence of historical forces, including rampant inflation as a result of the Vietnam War which put unprecedented pressure on families to earn additional income in order to maintain a middle class lifestyle, the Women's Liberation movement, and the liberal 50s upbringing of the baby boomer generation, so many families have, in essence, abandoned their children to "professional" day care and "care givers".

Any opinion that deviates from the conventional wisdom, which states that any attention given to a child is good enough, is derided as either old fashioned, or worse yet, designed to keep women in their place. One of the country's foremost child development experts, Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, feels that the development of our children should be of paramount importance, and that children should not be viewed as another middle class commodity.

I find it so odd that we, as a nation, place so much emphasis on children in so many respects (how often do you hear policies justified as, "it's for the children!"), but the reality is far different. We give them bad schools ( ever try to pass a school budget? When did football become more important than chemistry? Even better, when did it become the norm to call the smart guys "geeks"?), bad role models, garbage for food, thumb exercises for recreation, and we prematurely sexualize them.

Yeah, right, "we love children".

This is a youth culture and older people desperately try to cling to their youth. In a sense, "adults" haven't earned the right to be respected by our children. How many parents try to be their child's "friend"? How many "adults" try to desperately maintain their youth with unnecessary surgical procedures? How many "adults" try to dress in their children's clothes? How many " adults" are "Adults"?

Yes, no matter what we say, we hate our children.They need us to grow up and be adults. And we don't want to.

A Comment From a Reader...

Alex said...

Yeah, and I'm sure President Cheney would do a much more honest job...
March 26, 2007 7:58 AM

IMPEACH THE PRES??????

FROM A REPUBLICAN!!!!

This AP story caught my eye. I would not be surprised to hear impeachment talk from far left Dems, but such talk from Vietnam vet Senator Chuck Hagel from Nebraska brings a great amount of weight to the issue;

Updated:2007-03-25 21:18:25
Some See Impeachment Option, Hagel Says
By HOPE YEN
AP
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., believes President Bush could possibly face impeachment proceedings over his handling of the Iraq war.
AP
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., stopped short of calling for President Bush's impeachment.

Blog: Impeachment Whispers

Talk About It: Post Thoughts
WASHINGTON (March 25) - With his go-it-alone approach on Iraq , President Bush is flouting Congress and the public, so angering lawmakers that some consider impeachment an option over his war policy, a senator from Bush's own party said Sunday.

KAA---CHINNNNGGGGGG!!!!!!!

Money not only makes the world go 'round , as the song in Cabaret says, it makes politics. Billionaire NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is finally letting out hints that he just might take a flier on the '08 race and toss some pocket change, like a couple of billion dollars, on a presidential bid.

New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a self-made billionaire, has told friends more than once that his definition of good financial planning is making sure the check to the undertaker bounces when it's finally time to go.

So how does a billionaire spend all his money before he dies? In Bloomberg's case, he just might drop a cool half-billion on a long-shot bid to become the nation's first modern president from outside the two major political parties.

the rest of the story is here.

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Hillary Clinton shook her money maker last week and came up with big bucks,TEN MILLION BALLOONS, according to the NYDAILY NEWS. That's a lot of advertising time on TV in all markets. Hillary is blowing the doors off the Dem competitors as far as dollars and that will be the determining factor this year with so many states pushing up their primaries and compressing the decision making process. The candidate will be decided by the end of February , and that leaves a long, dry spell before the conventions, which will matter only for the free prime time they will afford the candidates.

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With Hillary leading the Dem charge to the cash register, look for everyone else to say they didn't expect to raise that much money. The low-balling game is already underway across the political board. John McCain's people are already in the lead in this game, saying , "We started late." Get an excuse slip from your mommy.

Gentle Germans

This is kind of silly. A German judge, an an ultimate act of political correctness, i.e. a non-relativistic, culture neutral approach to reality, has decided that the Koran trumps German civil law. The judge was removed from the case. But you have to wonder about the thinking that led this jurist down this path.