The laziest player among the Pittsburgh Pirates, overrated outfielder Jason Bay, has been traded to the Boston Red Sox! Could it be any better? The Buccos got rid of a guy who, while talented, just doesn’t try, and they gave him to the evil Red Sox! Perfect!
We could definitely see the Bucs break .500 this season!
Jay Cost has an excellent brief today on why John McCain should pick Mitt Romney now as his running mate. His bottom line is right on target:
. . . if McCain waits or chooses somebody else, he must do a better job in his critique of Obama. Right now, it is not nearly as good as it needs to be. I think picking Romney now would be a way to improve it immediately. If the McCain campaign wants to save a Romney announcement until St. Paul, or if it thinks it is better served by another pick, it must look for a way to improve its attacks.
Like DB, I too am sick of this incessant campaign and am trying not to waste any time on all the spin, punditry, and flood of emails from Team McCain. Like many others here, I’m not enthusiastic at all about the GOP’s presumptive nominee (and downright disturbed by the Democrat’s presumptuous nominee).
Over my long absence from these pages, I enjoyed finally getting to Doris Kearns Goodwin’s tale of Lincoln’s leadership strategy of relying on past adversaries for the greater good of the Republic. It’s seemed to me for some time that the selection of Romney as VP could be a first step toward following this grand Republican tradition.
Convincing other past rivals to join his administration might be the only way of getting folks like the ‘Cooler’s contributors actively engaged in Senator McCain’s campaign. Rolling the rivals out, one at a time, before St. Paul would certainly get a lot more attention than he’s likely to get on his own. Then, dedicating the first three nights in St. Paul to each of these past rivals might just make the convention somewhat interesting to the public and partisans alike.
But which rivals need convincing and how would they be effective in a 15-person cabinet plus a half-dozen or more other cabinet level posts? Well, last fall Governor Romney presented a novel idea that might just serve a McCain administration well. In a Wall Street Journal interview with the “Consultant in Chief,” Romney suggested the concept of “super-cabinet secretaries” by explaining: “There’s no corporation in America that would have a CEO, no COO, just a CEO, with 30 direct reports.”
Now its probably way too late in the game for the many advisors, consultants, and strap-hangers on the “Straight-Talk Express” to put together a coherent plan along the lines of the following concept (but, then again, I haven’t heard any better ideas, or ads out of them yet):
If Senator McCain is serious about winning the presidency, he must also be seriously thinking about how he would govern over the next four years and who will help him do so. Convincing past rivals to serve with him would be a much-needed sign of the senator’s political skills. Convincing his countrymen that he’s chosen these rivals because they are the best qualified Americans to help lead our nation would be a sign of the future president’s political genius.
DB, let’s not forget the Great Seal of the Office of the Obamanation.
It’s amusing how many in the mainstream media are still working themselves into a lather trying to diffuse the claims of Obama’s arrogance, though. Me thinks they dost protest too much.
I predict that those in the television media will be the last to admit to Obama’s arrogance, if they cop to it at all. After all, Obama is THEIR candidate: The vapid empty suit selling nothing but charisma. This goes way deeper than love; they identify with him and he gives their lives and livlihoods meaning.
Reg Henry, yet another useless leftist political hack in the employ of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, presented the people of Southwestern PA with a very interesting editorial this week. It involves the technique of “Dowdification”, a term coined by Ann Coulter. “Dowdification”, which is used often by columnist Maureen Dowd, means writing an entire column around a single fact which just happens to be completely and demonstrably false.
Here is Henry’s “fact” which begins his column:
Michael Savage, whose last name incorporates the concept of truth in advertising, recently went on a rant against autistic children, apparently because other innocents were not readily available to vilify that day. He called autism a “fraud, a racket.”
It’s true that Savage said, “In 99% of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. That’s what autism is.”
However, it’s also true that Savage said, “The real cases of autism deserve our sympathy and our financial support. It is the phonies and the misdiagnosed and the falsely diagnosed that we are addressing on The Savage Nation.”
Savage was on a “rant” against misdiagnosis, not sick children. But then, “99%” of the people complaining about Savage, including the dishonest Henry, aren’t really offended. They’re just liberals who want to use this situation as an excuse to get him fired or otherwise drag him through the mud.
Henry used the incomplete comments from Savage to make the following declarations:
With the Fairness Doctrine abolished, the garden of free expression bloomed. Unfortunately several undesirable plants — the Rush dandelion, the Savage thistle, the O’Reilly ragweed — thrived in ground fertilized with manure. They spread pollen on the airwaves that to this day troubles autistic kids, gays, blacks, liberals, Mexicans, feminists — heck, anybody who dares and cares enough to think.
But as much as the unfairness doctrine sometimes irritates, the Fairness Doctrine is not coming back, and nor should it. The whole idea of expecting conservatives to be fair at this late date is preposterous. The Republican elephant will do delicate ballet steps before fairness rules on the right-wing airwaves and in the mindless rank and file that tunes in to get its orders.
So Henry tells us that Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and Bill O’Reilly exist just to spew hatred against innocent people whose only crime is being compassionate and thoughtful. Also, he tells us that everyone who listens to Limbaugh, Savage, and O’Reilly is a mindless drone who can’t think for himself and needs to be told what to do. Gee, why don’t you tell us what you really think, Henry?
Eventually the editorial reaches a crescendo with this paragraph:
“By their fruits ye shall know them,” it was said by a wise man long ago. If talk radio had been around in first-century Palestine, you just know that more than a few talk-show hosts would have applauded His crucifixion.
I have to wonder what exactly some incomplete comments from Michael Savage about the misdiagnosis of children have to do with Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, and what any of that has to do with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
I also have to wonder why the Post-Gazette and Henry feel that he is qualified to write a weekly column. Where do they find these people?
Oh wait a sec, Henry’s bio on the Post-Gazette’s website explains how he got the job. It’s clear to me now:
Born in 1948 in Singapore, where his father managed the Reuters news agency
Can you say, “Fortunate Son”?
I am so sick of this interminable election campaign that I refuse to pay attention to the day to day spin game that so obsesses the punditry, but I will note that the arrogance of the Obamination has reached a point where it has begun to annoy even left wing journalists like Dana Milbank. He writes:
Barack Obama has long been his party’s presumptive nominee. Now he’s becoming its presumptuous nominee.
Fresh from his presidential-style world tour, during which foreign leaders and American generals lined up to show him affection, Obama settled down to some presidential-style business in Washington yesterday. He ordered up a teleconference with the (current president’s) Treasury secretary, granted an audience to the Pakistani prime minister and had his staff arrange for the chairman of the Federal Reserve to give him a briefing. Then, he went up to Capitol Hill to be adored by House Democrats in a presidential-style pep rally.
Along the way, he traveled in a bubble more insulating than the actual president’s. Traffic was shut down for him as he zoomed about town in a long, presidential-style motorcade, while the public and most of the press were kept in the dark about his activities, which included a fundraiser at the Mayflower where donors paid $10,000 or more to have photos taken with him. His schedule for the day, announced Monday night, would have made Dick Cheney envious:
Read the whole thing here.
If even lefties like Milbank are beginning to worry about this guy he’s got troubles. As they say, “pride goeth before a fall,” and when the press turns it does so quickly and savagely. It will be interesting to see how “the One!” handles press criticism when it comes…, and it will come.
Friend of the blogosphere Hugh Hewitt is coming to Philadelphia in two weeks.
from Steve Kantrowitz, running for Pa-Senate 19
The good guys win one against the “Stop Snitchin’” culture (from the Inky):
Adero Mahia Miwo fell for a drug dealer, and now she’s headed to prison for 30 months for conspiring to put the word out – with information from the controversial Web site whosarat.com – that a prosecution witness against him was a “rat” and a “snitch.”
The Web site, which touts itself as the largest online database of informants and agents with more than 4,000, has caused consternation in the criminal-justice system, where informants play a critical role.
Miwo, now 26 and from Jenkintown, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to suborn perjury and witness tampering, acknowledged that she took part in a scheme to try to get the prosecution witness to change his testimony against boyfriend Joseph Miles Davis, who is now serving a 17-year sentence as a result of a drug indictment in New Mexico.
Acting U.S. Attorney Laurie Magid said she hoped that yesterday’s sentencing of Miwo would “strike a blow” against the “don’t-snitch culture” that has pervaded Philadelphia, where witnesses have often been too fearful to come forward.
Anyone who threatens or intimidates a witness, she said, should know that “we will find you and you will – like Adero Miwo – go to jail.”
Perhaps, the most interesting aspect of this story is the background of Miwo herself:
She attended the prestigious Germantown Friends School, ran with the Mount Airy Track Club, and made it to the Junior Olympics at the age of 12. She aspired to a career in law and just recently graduated with a degree in Spanish from St. John’s University.
Hmmm…not the downtrodden child of poverty and victim of the streets that we’ve been conditioned to believe has a right and a reason to work against the cops. Miwo’s education and background certainly paint a picture of a woman that had opportunities; she certainly should have known better than to get hooked up with a drug dealer.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark S. Miller said a prison sentence was necessary.
“Enough is enough,” Miller told U.S. District Judge Berle M. Schiller. “Whosarat and all this stop-snitching crap has to end right now.”
Amen, Mr. Miller. Amen.
This remark from two weeks ago may well be responsible for the political failure of Obama’s European and Middle Eastern tour:
The Obamessiah should visit Geno’s over in Philly and ask him why he doesn’t speak Spanish. That would be a fun photo op, wouldn’t it?
Here’s some español for you, Barry: ¡Usted es un tonto!
Jeff, this is one of those rare instances in which I completely agree with what someone else is saying and have nothing substantial to add, but feel the need to comment just to say that I agree.
Senator Ted Stevens should immediately announce his resignation and retirement. Innocent or guilty, that is the most appropriate course of action. He has served in the Senate for many years, and there is absolutely no shame in resigning for the good of the nation. It would in fact be virtuous for him to resign.
