Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Finding joy where we can, and muddling through where we can’t.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Dear legacy media: you are not here to influence outcomes and policies you find desirable.

T R E 4 5 O N

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

He really is that stupid.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

No one could have predicted…

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

You are here: Home / Archives for 2003

Archives for 2003

Sports Loyalty

by | 9 Comments

This post is in: 

Calpundit links to an article about Walter O’Malley, the man who moved the Dodgers from Brooklyn to LA, as well as helping to break the color barrier and a number of other important things to help usher in the modern era of baseball. Kevin is shocked that some people might block O’Malley from the Hall of Fame because of a grudge they still hold about him moving the team:

“Walter did a lot of great things for baseball,” said Hal Lebovitz, Hall of Fame writer from Ohio. “But I can’t vote for him the way I could never vote for Art Modell for the football Hall of Fame. In a way, they were traitors to their cities.”

My mother’s side of the family grew up in Baltimore, and I can tell you first-hand that Hal Lebovit’s sentiments are tame stuff compared to the hatred most people from Baltimore have for former Indiannapolis Colts owner Robert Irsay, who stole the Colts from Baltimore. Here is some background on the move:

The Colts received the first selection in the April 26, 1983 NFL draft and selected Stanford quarterback John Elway. Six days later Irsay pulled the rug under from his own front office and quickly traded Elway to Denver for the Broncos’ 1983 first round choice, offensive tackle Chris Hinton, and quarterback Mark Herrmann. Leaving the question as to what might have been in store for Baltimore had they kept Elway under the Horshoe rather than in Denver under the Bronco. Instead, another blunder move by Irsay while Denver acquires a franchise quarterback for the next two decades.

The Colts rebounded in 1983 to go 7-9, the best turnaround ever in the NFL for a winless team. The Colts were 6-4 after week 10 and then went 7-9 on the season. The Chris Hinton acquisition proved temporarily successful as the rookie earned a starting berth at offensive guard for the AFC in the Pro Bowl. The Colts’ running game came together as Curtis Dickey and Randy McMillan combined for just shy of 2,000 yards rushing to rank first in the AFC and second in the NFL. They capped their season with a 20-10 victory at home over Houston on December 18 in the season finale.

Few realized it at the time, but that game marked the final time the Colts would play as the home team in Baltimore. In 1984, in the middle of the night, the owner, Robert Irsay, ‘snucked’ the team out of Baltimore to Indianapolis. (See image, right – one of the last vans to pull out) This was the famous Mayflower incident that left Baltimore without a team, and much controversy and debate that still rages today. Their surroundings changed, the club owned by the Irsays still to this day continues its losing ways.

An entire city was devestated. No team, except for perhaps my Steelers and their rival the Browns (who also endured a similar unpleasantness), identified with their city more than the Colts. Sure, there were still the Orioles, but this was the Colts. My mother was with her brother and my grandmother and grandfather to greet the Colts and and Johnny Unitas when they returned from NY after the ‘Greatest Game,’ and my mother’s family ties to the Colts were typical of those who lived in Baltimore. It was a blue collar town with a deep love for their Colts, and Irsay shattered that.

“Unitas We Stand” was not just some sort of pithy slogan to root for the team, it was part of the core moral and ethical values of the city. Teammate John Mackey referred to playing with Unitas as ‘being in the huddle with God.’ If Johnny Unitas was God, certainly heaven was Colts football in Baltimore. For those of you who are unaware, during the Greatest Game ever played, the television brodcast briefly went out. For the next 25 years until he died, my grandfather had both a radio and a television tuned to the game in case the television broadcast went out again. It never did, but he would never miss another down of Colts football.

To get an idea how deep the grudges still are about Irsay stealing the Colts:

– It took my mother until Peyton Manning to call the Indiannapolis Colts the ‘Colts.’ For the previous fifteen years she had referred to them as ‘that damned team from Indiannapolis.’

– Along with important family birthdays, deaths, the date the Colts were stolen is still marked on calendars in our household.

– For years my mother woke up in the middle of the night crying because the Colts were no longer in Baltimore.

– The night the Colts were stolen, my mother called my grandmother and said “Thank God daddy is dead and didn’t have to live to see this.”

– Mayflower moving vans, the moving line used to sneak the Colts out of the city, almost went under in the region. To this day my mother and her friends refuse to even cosider using the corporation.

– When the Colts were moved, the Baltimore Colts marching band rushed off and incorporated. They continued to organize, practice, and play from 1984-1998:

The Baltimore Colts’ Band, Inc. continues to operate without a football team. The band performs at 30 NFL football games, 23 CFL (Canadian Football League) games and had the honor of performing at the 1991 Pro-Football Hall of fame enshrinement, parade, pre-game and halftime and receives the first standing ovation for a halftime band in Pro-Football Hall of Fame history.

Fifteen years after the move, they performed for the last time and Became the Baltimore Marching Ravens.

– Baltimore magazine continues to reference Rob Irsay, barely containing their disgust.

– In a poll in Baltimore magazine (which my mom still gets) last year, the following question was asked:

“Who is your favorite Baltimorean, living or dead?”

The #1 response- “Bob Irsay, because he is dead.”

So no, Kevin, I don’t Lebovitz’s statement is crazy at all. In fact, for my mother, I will leave you with a song:

Let’s go you Baltimore Colts

And put that ball across the line,

So, drive on you Baltimore Colts –

Go in and strike like lightning bolts,

Fight, fight, fight,

Rear up you Colts and let’s fight –

Crash through and show them your might –

For Baltimore and Maryland –

You will march on to victory.

– – – by Jo Lombardi & Benjamin Klasmer

Sports LoyaltyPost + Comments (9)

Didn’t Know THis

by | 2 Comments

This post is in: 

I find this shocking:

Democrats have big majorities in California because of favourable redistricting and because most voters favour their liberal positions on abortions and guns. And the news media provide little coverage of state politics and government: none of the Los Angeles or San Francisco television stations has a bureau in Sacramento, the state capital where Schwarzenegger will reign from.

The news director of one LA station once told me: “I suppose if anything happens up there, we could send up a crew for the day.” Viewers were thought to be more interested in car chases and crime scenes.

Even in my rinky-dink little WV, we get rather thorough and complete coverage of state politics, and there are also indy rags like the Graffiti, as well as NPR. This will make all the NPR haters cringe, but our public radio really is fantastic here in WV. Yes, it has a leftward tilt, but the quality of porgramming and the variety is amazing.

Didn’t Know THisPost + Comments (2)

Scalzi’s Analysis

by | 26 Comments

This post is in: 

John Scalzi has a long and fun screed up about the recall, and I would recommend you take a look at it. I am not going to join him in beating up the California voters (four years of Davis and then a choice between Simon and Davis- haven’t they suffered enough?), but I do think he is right about some points, not surprisingly, the points I have mentioned previously that I found objectionable about the recall process:

Yes, Gray Davis was unpopular. That’s what you get when you don’t vote, people. You want your leaders to reflect your interests, haul your whiny asses to the polls on a regular basis.

The very worst thing about this recall election is that it solidifies the concept of the permanent political campaign, with the focus on running for a position rather than the running of the government. Every vote for the recall was a vote for office-holders needing even more money to run their political organizations, money which will inevitably come from special interests and corporations, making the political process even more opaque to the needs of citizens than it already is. Every vote for the recall is a vote that signals that politicians can’t vote their consciences, on the rare occasion they have one, for fear of some excitable group deciding that it just can’t wait for the normal election cycle to boot their asses out. Every vote for the recall is a vote for short-attention-span government, one that inevitably trends towards the “bread-and-circuses” aspect of the political discourse, rather than the aspect that deals with long-term issues in a serious way.

So, to wrap things up: If you voted for the recall, you might have thought you were voting to boot Gray Davis out of office. But that’s because you’re a moron, easily distracted by sparkly lights and shiny objects. You were really voting to let small, inherently undemocratic groups run your state all the time, forever. The fact that you thought you were doing the former when in fact you were doing the latter suggests that you would have been more helpful in the governance of your state by hurling yourself off the Golden Gate Bridge and smacking into the bay below with a nice, bone-powdering swack. In addition to clearing out four million bottom-feeders from an already-overpopulated state, California might still have a government still nominally beholden to voters, instead of through special-interest control by mob rule proxy. Good job.

While I disagree that this was undemocratic (it followed all the procedures set up within the California Constitution), the CA recall as written is a deeply flawed piece of work. A quick note to Californians- change this. However, he is absolutely right about this instituting the so-called permanent campaign. I am fearful that this will be the beginning of six month administrations (although it should be noted only four states have a form of recall), but it is most certainly going to poison the climate. With jackasses like McAuliffe and Mulholland running around, you can be sure of it:

California Democrat Party state spokesman Bob Mulholland said his party is giving Arnold Schwarzenegger just 100 days before a new recall effort may be launched.

Mulholland made his threat on Fox News Tuesday night after polls closed and major press outlets declared Arnold Schwarzenegger the winner.

On Tuesday, Gray Davis declined to refute reports that he may back a new recall effort against Schwarzenegger.

Already press reports indicate that Democrats have $3 million prepared for a new recall effort.

Also, Hollywood billionaire Stephen Bing has promised to finance any Democratic-backed recall effort.

Yippee! We get to do this all over again. Fortunately, the Democrats will need to give him more than 100 days, as the law gives him a six month grace period- but you get the point. In his screed, Scalzi blames the usual suspects for this recall:

Californians, boy, did you ever get played, you dumb-ass losers. This was, at its root, one of the most flagrantly un-democratic (small “d”) elections in the history of the United States, and you followed the script as if you were giggling, squealing paid extras. The recall was bought and paid for by one guy and orchestrated by a few zealots with an extremely narrow agenda, and both these parties were more than happy to push your emotional buttons to get you to do what they wanted you to do, which was boot the current and conventionally-elected office-holder for a chance to install someone more amenable to their own interests. Florida 2000 paranoids aside, this is the closest thing to a coup we’ve had in the country, and you swallowed it like it was a tasty treat. It’s sickening, really.

Scalzi is partially right, in a sense- it is the GOP to blame. But not the ‘cabal’ of ‘conspirators’ the tin-foil hat crowd likes to throw around. The people who are really to blame are all the people are a group of influential California GOP party men, led by George Deukmejian, who killed Dick Riordan’s primary race by denouncing the man, stating they had no respect for the man, and essentially writing Gray Davis’s commercials. It was clear to anyone with a brain that someone like Bill Simon would NEVER be elected, yet the CA GOP marched along in lockstop, choosing the right to marginalized ideological purity over the right to govern. Hell, Richard Bennet had an ongoing theme about this titled the Republican Death March.

Fortunately for the state of California, do-overs are allowed, some in the GOP grew up enough to realize that a pro-choice moderate Republican was better than Gray Davis, as did the rest of the electorate. Simon dropped out early, McClintock ran a respectable, principled, and decent campaign, and Arnold was able to carry the day.

This is the main reason that I think all of the triumphalism about California being in play for 2004 is rather absurd. There was no tectonic shift in the political stances of the majority of Californians. This was an anti-Davis vote, and Arnold is a moderate, palatable candidate. Let’s be clear about one thing- this was not, as some might say, an anti-incumbent vote. This was an anti-Davis vote. Has everyone forgotten what Davis’s friends thought about him?

Gray is a friend of mine, but Gray has really given a bad name to being moderate, because Gray really isn’t a moderate. Gray is kind of a, you know, this kind of guy who polls for the answer. … There’s not much that Gray stands for — and I like Gray personally — but Gray doesn’t stand for anything. That’s his problem politically right now. You know, Gray stands for Gray. And so, as something moves forward, his calculus is not ‘What do I feel in my gut or my heart?’ His calculus is ‘What sounds good? What polls good? I don’t wanna make a mistake that could cost me politically.’ But when you do that, you get just what he got. I mean, which is, in his effort to be risk-averse, you end up with the biggest risk, where ultimately nobody feels shit about you. I mean even the articles that try to say we don’t like the recall, none of them have good things to say about Gray. …

Had Rirodan run the first time around this recall would never have happened. But does this put California in play for Bush? Let’s not be silly. Oliver seems to think the reason the GOP will not win in 2006 is because there will be no other celebrity to run. He is wrong. If the GOP loses in 2006, it is because either Arnold was a failure or because they will nominate another candidate like Simon, a person that mad even the most outspoken Davis critics cringe.

Maybe the GOP will learn. I doubt it. Arnold really does represent the new breed of Republicans (at least he claims to hold positions like most of the Republicans I know- think libertarian lite), but the California primary voters continue to select candidates who we be immensely popular Governors- in Alabama.

Scalzi’s AnalysisPost + Comments (26)

Cruzin’ for a Bruisin’

by | 31 Comments

This post is in: 

According to the California Secretary of State, it is pretty clear that Arnold has won in a landslide, and that is not even counting the million or so absentee ballots (which are unimportant because the margin is so big it can not be overcome). Here are the numbers as of right now:

Arnold Schwarzenegger – Rep – 3,624,154 – 48.3%

Cruz M. Bustamante – Dem – 2,400,264 – 32.0%

Tom McClintock – Rep – 996,968 – 13.3%

As of right now, that means approximately 61.6% of the voters chose a Republican candidate, and the left is already spinining this as meaningless. Oliver Willis, fresh off the Democrat defeat, states rather confidently:

Unless Arnold works a miracle, the next governor will be a Democrat and the state will remain firmly in the hands of the Democrats, alleged 60% GOP notwithstanding.

I am not sure how he concluded that, but I will agree that if Arnold turns out to be as bad a governor as Davis, his time in office will indeed be short.

Other attempts to deligitimize the election have come in various forms. Atrios is blaming the media:

Anyway, I had optimistically predicted that Davis would survive. I based that on one major premise – that after about a month or so, the media would stop with the Access Hollywood coverage of Arnold and actually point out his ties to Pete Wilson, Enron, etc…

Of course, I was wrong. They’re a lazy bunch of SOBs, and if they can point a camera at a Nurembourg rally and call it news, they’re going to do it. I knew Arnold would have untold hours of free media on AM radio, etc… but I actually made the mistake of thinking the respectable news media would eventually realize they had a responsibility.

Typical Atrios- he has it bass-ackward again. The media does hold a lot of responsibility for Arnold’s win, but the real truth to how the media helped appears to have been recognized by Jeralynn Merrit at TalkLeft (who always seems to have a nose for the high road):

Finally, we’re glad the smear campaign failed. It was irrelevant, trash politics. We’re glad he won. Congratulations, Arnold, you earned this. We wish you good luck and hope you accomplish great things for California. And we hope you thank your lucky stars every night that you have Maria by your side.

Jeralynn nails it- the voters rejected the sleazy, corrupt, and incompetent Gray Davis, and they rejected the smear campaigns that were his hallmark. As Henry Hanks noted in the form of pictures, not only was Gray Davis recalled, so was the LA Times and their cronies in the California Democrat leadership who orchestrated the smears.

Senior Democratic strategists knew the particulars of last Thursday

Cruzin’ for a Bruisin’Post + Comments (31)

Here We Go Again

by | 26 Comments

This post is in: 

If outrage was oil, the Calpundit would be OPEC. Not to pick on Kevin twice in one day, but his post just goes to show what a no win situation the President is in with when it comes to hyper-partisan Democrats. Apparently, Kevin has a real problem with this statement from Bush:

“I don’t know if we’re going to find out the senior administration official,” Bush said. “I don’t have any idea. I’d like to. I want to know the truth.”

But, Bush said, “This is a large administration and there’s a lot of senior officials.”

Sayeth Kevin:

Noted without comment. It just takes your breath away, doesn’t it?

Yes, it just leaves me breathless. Well, not at all. I guess this is the second Act in the Valerie Plame Opera- the immensely popular first Act was titled “Bush Doesn’t Care.” I guess we can name the second Act “I’m so Stunned I’m Speechless, with the popular arais called “Breathtaking” and “Unbelievable.”

In all seriousness, though, the reason it is amusing watching Kevin and other’s faux fumings is because there is NOTHING Bush can say that they wouldn’t raise a hissy fit about. For example, what if the President had stated:

“I have complete faith that Attorney General Ashcroft and the DOJ will find out who is behind this leak.”

Here would be the possible reactions Kevin would have:

1.) “He knows who leaked and isn’t telling us. Remember, parsing words is everything with Bush- he is telling us that he knows and it is up to Ashcroft to find out, and he isn’t goingto help him.”

2.) “He is a figurehead who doesn’t even read the newspapers and he has no control of his administration. The neocons are running the show. He really doesn’t know who leaked this.”

3.) “He is shifting the topic to caring about the leak, and not addressing that a FELONY has been committed because a CIA agent has been outed.” (Oops- they have already stated this one).

4.) “He is so smug and confident because he knows that Ashcroft is going to do the cover-up for him- we need a special prosecutor.”

I could go on and on- but I don’t have to. I’ll just save my time and wait for the next Plame update from Kevin on the West Coast. You can almost guarantee there will be some pretty damning anti-Bush tea-leave reading within the next 6-8 hours. The newest one makes me giggle– they are outraged the White House Counsel is going to make sure no National Security secrets are accidentally released in the document turnover- HOW OUTRAGEOUS. Mark Kleiman states:

All those documents concerning the Wilson trip and conversations about it that White House staff has been ordered to come up with by tomorrow at 5 p.m. will not be going to the Justice Department. No, they’re going to White House Counsel — that is, to the lawyers for the President, who must be considered a likely suspect, at least as a co-conspirator or accessory.

Co-Conspirators! Accessories! In order for them to be co-consipirators, then Bush would have to have been the leak or have known who was leaking ahead of time or given the go-ahead. But in the world of Mark Kleiman, charges precede evidence. And to soud no-partisan, he puts in this laugher:

Note that I am not accusing Alberto Gonzales of any unethical conduct here.

Nothing unethical- just a co-conspirator to a felony, as well as felony obstruction of justice. But nothing unethical. Snicker.

Here We Go AgainPost + Comments (26)

Please

by | 37 Comments

This post is in: 

This is just getting absurd. Kevin Drum and others are now claiming that the reorganization of the Iraq and Afghanistan reconstruction/occupation is a sign of failure. Says Kevin:

So we’ve tried the Pentagon, we’ve tried the State Department, and now we’re going to try the White House. What’s next if that doesn’t work?

I guess that is why all the Democrats were screaming in unison “What is the plan? There is no Plan!!!” Clearly, there was to be one and only one approach to the situation, and any shifting of priorities, response to events on the ground, or reaction to past failures and successes should be viewed through a narrow partisan lens as nothing more than a failure.

Get real.

PleasePost + Comments (37)