Like a lot of young journalists in the 70's, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were heroes to me because of their work meticulously piecing together the Watergate crimes. So it was particularly disheartening in the first half of this decade to see Woodward take on the role of commentator/courtier for the Bush administration in his two mostly glowing books describing preparations for the Iraq invasion.
Improbably, he became a confidant, calmly reporting all the grandiose claims and little white lies that built The Grand Mistake. What in the world happened to him?
Well, it looks like one of two things. Either he was duped by those people and now wants to salvage his reputation; or he slyly used the first two volumes of his Bush At War trilogy in order to gain their confidence so that he could write the third: State of Denial.
As a book, it reads like an endless newspaper article--and I mean that in a good way. There is a shocking void of judgement in his account. Instead, he uses quotes and anecdotes from all of the principals involved to simply let them savage themselves. The roles become pretty clear: Powell is the scorned 'appeaser' for suggesting anything other than full scale warfare; Tenet is well meaning but sometimes bumbling, allowing himself to fall on the sword of both misused and misguided intelligence; Rumsfeld is petty, domineering and in the end incompetent; Rice is unflatteringly described by almost everyone, including one who calls her "clearly the worst National Security Advisor in modern times". And of course, Bush himself, who apparently has long since ceased talking to Woodward directly, is the parenthetical pseudonym for the title of this final volume.
For those like me who have long wondered how this administration could get so many things dead wrong, Woodward paints what seems to be the most plausible explanation. Bush believes in his heart that if he shows any wavering, any doubt whatsoever, everyone underneath him will 'go wobbly' on him. Thus, he never expresses doubt, never admits a mistake, and takes whatever steps necessary to remain a positive force field at all times. (And we all saw how well that leadership style worked for the followers of Jim Jones). In response, his staff feels reluctance and even fear to bring him anything to upset his vision of victory and perfection.
The consequence, of course, is denial. A refusal to consider reality. One misguided decision piled on top of all the previous ones. In the end, resolute does not trump wrong.
If you want to know what it's been like on the inside, I don't know that anyone will offer a better analysis any time soon.
diderot
Friday, March 30, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
Chicago Story: Spring Training
For the Three Guys, it's impossible to go through March without talking about what spring training meant when we played high school baseball together.
First of all, 'practice' in Chicago always started as a fresh coating of sleet was falling on the five inches of dirty snow still on the ground. So into the gym we went.
It is somewhat possible to successfully play catch across a basketball court, but not much else. We would take faux infield practice on the gym floor...a surface that created bounces so true that they were of absolutely no use once the real season began, since we never played on an infield without pebbles...and rocks...and sometimes, downright boulders.
We would spend endless hours on sliding practice--on a gym floor. There were some 'sliding pads' available, but they were generally of no use. As Oketo (our stolen base king) always comments, during the regular season he would only attempt a steal if he knew he could swipe the bag standing up. His haunches were still pocked with strawberries that never seemed to heal until fall.
We would run pretend infield cutoff plays indoors, with the second baseman intercepting a throw to second in order to return it to the plate before a runner could score from third. On one of these plays, Oketo was felled by a peg to the head--with no helmet to intercede. On another, a throw glanced off the tip of my webbing and cost me half of my left front tooth.
Hitting practice? That was a hoot. Think of a basketball court, and someone hitting live fastballs from one corner. When someone like Hortense was up, this was like trying to dodge live AK-47 rounds. Most of the fielders hid behind the gym mats hanging along the walls, and none of us will ever forget the sound of those line drives pounding against the leather. One day, evicted from the full gym, we retreated up to the 'girl's gym' on the second floor, where we pummeled the ceiling tiles of that little room with fly balls. On a reunion trip back last summer, we confirmed that the dents and divots are still up there.
Eventually, of course, we did get outside. No small number of our early games were played in snow flurries. I still fondly remember getting two line drive hits in a game where the snow flakes were so thick you could hardly see across the infield. (Unfortunately, I didn't hit nearly as well in the sunshine).
And if every dirt surface in the area were underwater, we would finally retreat to a place called LaBagh Woods, where we could set up a field on the all-grass pasture of a Forest Preserve. True, there were no puddles, but the grass was so mushy that it would often take half a minute just to run to first base.
These are conditions that were miserable. Unbearable. Sometimes almost inhumane.
And every spring...we wish we could go back. Even for a day.
diderot
First of all, 'practice' in Chicago always started as a fresh coating of sleet was falling on the five inches of dirty snow still on the ground. So into the gym we went.
It is somewhat possible to successfully play catch across a basketball court, but not much else. We would take faux infield practice on the gym floor...a surface that created bounces so true that they were of absolutely no use once the real season began, since we never played on an infield without pebbles...and rocks...and sometimes, downright boulders.
We would spend endless hours on sliding practice--on a gym floor. There were some 'sliding pads' available, but they were generally of no use. As Oketo (our stolen base king) always comments, during the regular season he would only attempt a steal if he knew he could swipe the bag standing up. His haunches were still pocked with strawberries that never seemed to heal until fall.
We would run pretend infield cutoff plays indoors, with the second baseman intercepting a throw to second in order to return it to the plate before a runner could score from third. On one of these plays, Oketo was felled by a peg to the head--with no helmet to intercede. On another, a throw glanced off the tip of my webbing and cost me half of my left front tooth.
Hitting practice? That was a hoot. Think of a basketball court, and someone hitting live fastballs from one corner. When someone like Hortense was up, this was like trying to dodge live AK-47 rounds. Most of the fielders hid behind the gym mats hanging along the walls, and none of us will ever forget the sound of those line drives pounding against the leather. One day, evicted from the full gym, we retreated up to the 'girl's gym' on the second floor, where we pummeled the ceiling tiles of that little room with fly balls. On a reunion trip back last summer, we confirmed that the dents and divots are still up there.
Eventually, of course, we did get outside. No small number of our early games were played in snow flurries. I still fondly remember getting two line drive hits in a game where the snow flakes were so thick you could hardly see across the infield. (Unfortunately, I didn't hit nearly as well in the sunshine).
And if every dirt surface in the area were underwater, we would finally retreat to a place called LaBagh Woods, where we could set up a field on the all-grass pasture of a Forest Preserve. True, there were no puddles, but the grass was so mushy that it would often take half a minute just to run to first base.
These are conditions that were miserable. Unbearable. Sometimes almost inhumane.
And every spring...we wish we could go back. Even for a day.
diderot
Elizabeth Edwards
During any presidential election, we get the chance to draw conclusions, based on almost no facts, about the candidates' spouses. In 2004, we had the Bushes, the Cheneys, the Kerrys and the Edwards. Among those eight humans, I wonder if other people had the same reaction I did: the best human being of the bunch--not necessarily the best politician--was clearly Elizabeth Edwards.
The news about her recurring cancer? Man, what do you say?
diderot
The news about her recurring cancer? Man, what do you say?
diderot
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Unraveling (continued)
- Bush claims he can't let his people testify under oath, because that would prevent them from giving him 'unvarnished' counsel
- His spokesman today said Bush has 'no recollection' of them ever having discussed the Attorney General issue with him
- Therefore, why can't they testify? What are they afraid of if they never talked to him?
diderot
Monday, March 19, 2007
Starbucks
Howard Schultz founded Starbucks. When he was seven, living in a subsidized apartment complex in Brooklyn, one day his mother suddenly called him back to their apartment. There lay his father, a deliveryman, who had fallen on the ice and broken his ankle.
Instantly fired--no job, no paycheck, no health care. Schultz' mother couldn't work--she was seven months pregnant.
For months, they lived hand-to-mouth, borrowing from friends, fending off bill collectors.
Today Howard Schultz employs 140,000 people. Not one of them is paid just the minimum wage. Even working 20 hours a week, those employees are eligible for full health benefits.
Howard Schultz is who he is because of what he learned as a child.
What are our children learning?
diderot
Instantly fired--no job, no paycheck, no health care. Schultz' mother couldn't work--she was seven months pregnant.
For months, they lived hand-to-mouth, borrowing from friends, fending off bill collectors.
Today Howard Schultz employs 140,000 people. Not one of them is paid just the minimum wage. Even working 20 hours a week, those employees are eligible for full health benefits.
Howard Schultz is who he is because of what he learned as a child.
What are our children learning?
diderot
Barack's Problem
Very simple. He's tired. Dog tired.
Pulled-an-all-nighter tired.
Drank with the boys until dawn when I knew I had an 8am meeting tired.
He's off his game. On Larry King Live tonight, there were too many 'uhs', too many, 'wells...'.
The guy has got to take four or five days off. Recharge. But how do you do that without the press immediately asking what took him away from the campaign trail?
The most impressive guy at the party...isn't very impressive right now.
diderot
Pulled-an-all-nighter tired.
Drank with the boys until dawn when I knew I had an 8am meeting tired.
He's off his game. On Larry King Live tonight, there were too many 'uhs', too many, 'wells...'.
The guy has got to take four or five days off. Recharge. But how do you do that without the press immediately asking what took him away from the campaign trail?
The most impressive guy at the party...isn't very impressive right now.
diderot
It's a Crime
The ability of the Bush Administration to frame an issue is beyond reproach. All politics aside for a moment, this is truly a skill honed to a fine edge by its practitioners both inside and outside the White House. If there were not so much at stake, it could even be called a marvel. In my mind, it's certainly something the historians will cite as a hallmark of these eight years...long after we're all gone.
The current uproar over the firing of the eight U.S. Attorneys has been countered with three standard answers from the right wing, each designed to reframe the argument:
-- Those are political appointments--they serve at the 'pleasure of the President'
-- Thus, no law was broken
-- Clinton did it too
(Yes, that last one is pretty much a standard response to anything, and a proven winner in that it never fails to distract the media).
However, the real issue has nothing to do with politics. The point is not what Bush did--but why he did it. And when you fire a U.S. Attorney for refusing to pursue political opponents on charges he does not think are justified...or when you fire another for pursuing charges against political cronies who she does think warrant presecution...that's called obstruction of justice.
And it's a crime.
diderot
The current uproar over the firing of the eight U.S. Attorneys has been countered with three standard answers from the right wing, each designed to reframe the argument:
-- Those are political appointments--they serve at the 'pleasure of the President'
-- Thus, no law was broken
-- Clinton did it too
(Yes, that last one is pretty much a standard response to anything, and a proven winner in that it never fails to distract the media).
However, the real issue has nothing to do with politics. The point is not what Bush did--but why he did it. And when you fire a U.S. Attorney for refusing to pursue political opponents on charges he does not think are justified...or when you fire another for pursuing charges against political cronies who she does think warrant presecution...that's called obstruction of justice.
And it's a crime.
diderot
Four More Years?
Today is the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Today the clueless Condi Rice was on the Today Show attempting to explain what has gone well. Saddam is gone--that was her key message. Yes, he was a maniacal nut job. But so is her boss. The invasion has left at least 60,000 Iraqis dead--and maybe multiples of that. Anyone Iraqi with enough money to afford it has left. Would you stay there and risk you family's safety?
The need to get out by next year is now a majority opinion in America. Except in Congress. Except inside the Beltway, where the right wing manipulators continue to sway the pundit class.
How much longer will it take for the obvious to be acted upon? Four more years?
diderot
The need to get out by next year is now a majority opinion in America. Except in Congress. Except inside the Beltway, where the right wing manipulators continue to sway the pundit class.
How much longer will it take for the obvious to be acted upon? Four more years?
diderot
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
The Great Unraveling
You can argue all night about the best baseball player, the best actor, the best tuba player. But in my mind, there is no argument about who possesses the single best insight into the crimes of the Bush administration--Sidney Blumenthal (who does Chicago proud).
His latest, on what may well be the final unraveling of the Bush era (courtesy of Salon.com)...
His latest, on what may well be the final unraveling of the Bush era (courtesy of Salon.com)...
All roads lead to Rove
The White House political director was clearly at the center of the partisan plot to fire U.S. attorneys, despite the administration's clumsy attempts to pretend otherwise.By Sidney Blumenthal
Mar. 15, 2007 | The Bush administration's first instinct was to shield Karl Rove from scrutiny when Congress began inquiring about the unusual firings of eight U.S. attorneys. Among the replacements, the proposed new U.S. attorney for Arkansas happened to be one of Rove's most devoted underlings, his head of opposition research, Tim Griffin, who boasted during the 2000 presidential election about the effectiveness of the negative campaign against Al Gore: "We make the bullets!" Griffin also posted a sign in his department at Bush headquarters: "Rain hell on Al!" A letter written by the Department of Justice in late February informed Congress: "The department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin." Despite this categorical disavowal, a sheaf of internal Justice Department e-mails released this week to Congress under subpoena revealed Kyle Sampson, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff, writing in mid-December 2006, "I know getting him appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc." Harriet, of course, was Harriet Miers, then the White House legal counsel.
The Justice Department's statement on Karl Rove was simply one part of its coverup. The department's three top officials -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty and William E. Moschella, principal associate deputy attorney general -- all testified before Congress under oath that the dismissed U.S. attorneys had been removed for "performance" reasons, not because they had been insufficiently partisan in their prosecution of Democrats or because they would be replaced by those who would be. Yet another Sampson e-mail, sent to Miers in March 2005, had ranked all 93 U.S. attorneys on the basis of being "good performers," those who "exhibited loyalty" to the administration, or "low performers," those who "chafed against Administration initiatives, etc."
The day before the e-mails were made public Sampson resigned, offering a classic fall-guy statement, claiming that he was the one who failed to inform Gonzales and other officials about the firings. Sampson, who was Gonzales' closest aide, accompanying him from the White House Counsel's Office to the Justice Department when Gonzales was appointed attorney general, had sought to become a U.S. attorney himself through the purge. And Sampson was considered to be politically adept enough to be considered a stand-in for the supposedly indispensable Rove. When it was rumored that Rove might be indicted in the Valerie Plame case, the Washington Post reported that Sampson was likely to replace him.
Sampson's abrupt departure was followed by Gonzales' bizarre press conference on Wednesday. Speaking in a passive voice that "mistakes were made," he pleaded ignorance of "all decisions" at his department, explained that it has 110,000 employees, appealed to his modest origins, and promised to oversee the investigation of his own misfeasance. His defense was the very grounds used to fire the U.S. attorneys: poor performance. He used his failure as a shield.
But the day before, Gonzales' ignorance defense had already been punctured. A White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, acknowledged that the U.S. attorneys' dismissals were preceded by a conversation between President Bush and Gonzales last October in which Bush complained that some prosecutors were not pursuing voter fraud investigations. These were, in fact, cases that Rove thought were especially important to Republicans.
Rove was the conduit for Republican political grievances about the U.S. attorneys. He was the fulcrum and the lever. He was the collector of information and the magnet of power. He was the originator, formulator and director. But, initially, according to the administration, like Gonzales, he supposedly knew nothing and did nothing.
Even after the administration alibis had collapsed, the White House trotted out Dan Bartlett, the cool and calm communications director, to engage in a bit of cognitive dissonance. There was no plot, and maybe Rove was involved in the thing that didn't happen. "You're trying to connect a lot of dots that aren't connectible," Bartlett said, adding, "It wouldn't be surprising that Karl or other people were receiving these complaints." Thus the "dots" are invisible and Rove is at their center.
To the extent that the facts are known, Rove keeps surfacing in the middle of the scandal. And it is implausible that Sampson, the latest designated fall guy, was responsible for an elaborate bureaucratic coup d'état. Nor is it credible that Gonzales -- or Harriet Miers, who has yet to be heard -- saw or heard no evil. Neither is it reasonable that Gonzales or Miers, both once Bush's personal attorneys in Texas, getting him out of scrapes such as his drunken driving arrest, could be the political geniuses behind the firings. Gonzales' and Miers' service is notable for their obedience, lack of originality and eagerness to act as tools. The scheme bears the marks of Rove's obsessions, methods and sources. His history contains a wealth of precedents in which he manipulated law enforcement for political purposes. And his long-term strategy for permanent Republican control of government depended on remaking the federal government to create his ultimate goal -- a one-party state.
"We're a go for the US Atty plan," White House deputy counsel William Kelley notified the Justice Department on Dec. 4, 2006, three days before seven of the eight U.S. attorneys were dismissed. "WH leg[islative affairs], political, and communications have signed off..."
From the earliest Republican campaigns that Rove ran in Texas, beginning in 1986, the FBI was involved in investigating every one of his candidates' Democratic opponents. Rove happened to have a close and mysterious relationship with the chief of the FBI office in Austin. Investigations were announced as elections grew close, but there were rarely indictments, just tainted Democrats and victorious Republicans. On one occasion, Rove himself proclaimed that the FBI had a prominent Democrat under investigation -- an investigation that led to Rove's client's win. In 1990, the Texas Democratic Party chairman issued a statement: "The recurring leaks of purported FBI investigations of Democratic candidates during election campaigns is highly questionable and repugnant."
A year later, Rove received a reward. Gov. Bill Clements, a Rove client, appointed him to the East Texas State University board of regents. Appearing before the state Senate's Nominations Committee, a Democratic senator asked Rove about how long he had known the local FBI chief. "Ah, Senator," replied Rove, "it depends. Would you define 'know' for me?"
Rising to the White House as Bush's chief political strategist, Rove well understood the power of U.S. attorneys to damage Democrats and protect Republicans, and he paid close attention to their selection. When U.S. senators, who recommend the U.S. attorneys for their districts, wanted a more independent-minded professional, Rove leaned on them. In 2001, he instructed Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., to sponsor a safe choice from within Republican state circles. Rove "just said we don't want you going outside the state. We don't want to be moving U.S. attorneys around," Fitzgerald told the Chicago Tribune on March 12. But Sen. Fitzgerald would not relent, and his nominee, Patrick Fitzgerald, an assistant U.S. attorney from New York, became the U.S. attorney in Illinois, where he successfully prosecuted Republicans, including the incumbent governor, George Ryan, for corruption, and went on to be appointed special prosecutor in the Plame case. "That Fitzgerald appointment got great headlines for you, but it ticked off the base," Rove told Sen. Fitzgerald.
In 2002, the first midterm elections of the Bush presidency, Republicans systematically raised charges of voter fraud involving Native Americans in the hotly contended U.S. Senate race in South Dakota. Though the accusations were never proved and the GOP failed to depose the Democratic senator, Tim Johnson, the campaign served as a template.
By the election of 2004, Rove became a repository of charges of voter fraud across the country, from Philadelphia to Milwaukee to New Mexico, all in swing states. In the campaign, unproven voter fraud charges, always aimed at minority voters, became a leitmotif of Republican efforts.
In Washington state, when the Democrat won the governorship by 129 votes, the state Republican Party chairman, Chris Vance, demanded that U.S. attorney John McKay tell him the status of his investigation. At that time, Vance was in constant contact with Rove. "I thought it was part of my job, to be a conduit," Vance told the Seattle Times. "We had a Republican secretary of state, a Republican prosecutor in King County and a Republican U.S. attorney, and no one was doing anything." McKay refused to have any conversation about an investigation. And he found no basis for charging anyone with voter fraud. In a Sept. 13, 2006, e-mail, Kyle Sampson identified McKay as one of those "we should now consider pushing out" -- and he was among the eight attorneys fired.
In 2006, Rove addressed the Republican Lawyers Association on the "growing problem," as he put it, of voter fraud. Every instance he cited was in a swing state. New Mexico was one of them.
Rove had heard complaints from the New Mexico Republican Party chairman, Allen Weh, about David Iglesias, the state's U.S. attorney, for his supposed refusal to indict Democrats for voter fraud. Iglesias appeared to be a dream figure for local Republicans -- the model for the movie "A Few Good Men," Hispanic and evangelical. "Is anything ever going to happen to that guy?" Weh asked Rove at a White House Christmas party. "He's gone," Rove replied. Indeed, Iglesias' firing was already a done deal.
In California, it was time for payback against U.S. attorney Carol Lam, who had prosecuted Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham in the most flagrant corruption case involving a member of Congress. Her probe was expanding to encompass the dealings of Rep. Jerry Lewis, another California Republican. On May 11, 2006, Sampson e-mailed the White House Counsel's Office regarding "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam." Soon, she was axed, one of the eight.
Those fired were not completely "loyal," as Sampson's e-mails emphasized. But to what policies should a prosecutor be "loyal"? Two academics, Donald C. Shields of the University of Missouri and John F. Cragan of Illinois State University, studied the pattern of U.S. attorneys' prosecutions under the Bush administration. Their conclusions in their study, "The Political Profiling of Elected Democratic Officials," are that "across the nation from 2001 through 2006 the Bush Justice Department investigated Democratic office holders and candidates at a rate more than four times greater (nearly 80 percent to 18 percent) than they investigated Republican office holders and seekers." They also report, "Data indicate that the offices of the U.S. Attorneys across the nation investigate seven times as many Democratic officials as they investigate Republican officials, a number that exceeds even the racial profiling of African Americans in traffic stops." Thus what the 85 U.S. attorneys who were not dismissed are doing is starkly detailed.
If the Democrats hadn't won the midterm elections last year there is no reason to believe that the plan to use the U.S. attorneys for political prosecutions -- as they have been used systematically under Bush -- wouldn't have gone forward completely unimpeded. Without the new Congress issuing subpoenas, there would be no exposure, no hearings, no press conferences -- no questions at all.
The replacement of the eight fired U.S. attorneys through a loophole in the Patriot Act that enables the administration to evade consultation with and confirmation by Congress is a convenient element in the well-laid scheme. But it was not ad hoc, erratic or aberrant. Rather, it was the logical outcome of a long effort to distort the constitutional framework for partisan consolidation of power into a de facto one-party state.
This effort began two generations ago with Richard Nixon's drive to forge an imperial presidency, using extralegal powers of government to aggrandize unaccountable power in the executive and destroy political opposition. Nixon was thwarted in the Watergate scandal. We will never know his full malevolent intentions, but we do know that in the aftermath of the 1972 election he wanted to remake the executive branch to create what the Bush administration now calls a "unitary executive." Nixon later explained his core doctrine: "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." Karl Rove is the rightful heir to Nixonian politics. His first notice in politics occurred as a witness before the Senate Watergate Committee. From Nixon to Bush, Rove is the single continuous character involved in the tactics and strategy of political subterfuge.
diderot
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Tony Soprano Says...
"You know my feelings. Every day is a gift. It's just, why does it always have to be a pair of socks?"
Traitors
In physiology, the word, 'accommodation' has a special meaning. It's what a nerve does when it's constantly stimulated--say, by a paper cut. It hurts like hell right away...and certainly keeps hurting for a long while...but not as severely as at first. The nervous system is 'accommodating' the pain to make it more manageable.
This is a lot like the response of the body politic to the Bush Administration. After a while, you're simply dulled to more outrage in what those people are doing to destroy our country. But even amidst the nightmare of Iraq, the lingering sorrow of Katrina, the endless hypocrisies and outright lies, we need to marshall strength to fully internalize the danger represented by the firings of U.S. Attorneys who were deemed insufficiently political.
One of the hallmark boogeymen of the radical right is the 'activist judge'--someone who will put his own personal political views above the law. As with so many other of their yelps, this is pure projection--assigning to others the exact thing which you, yourself, are guilty of.
A case in point is the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., longtime clubhouse for activist judges of the radical right. Two members with impeccable whack-job credentials, David Sentelle and Laurance Silberman (now retired), have been vital instruments for attack dog conservatives. Sentelle was a full co-conspirator in the costly and fruitless Ken Starr follies. Silberman served as co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, where he helped fully shift blame from the White House to the intelligence community for the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Other current and former GOP appointees to this panel include Robert Bork ('high executioner' for Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre during the Watergate era), Clarence Thomas (steadfast supporter of 'states rights' until he flip-flopped in order to deliver the throne to Bush in 2000), Antonin Scalia (see description for Thomas), Ken Starr (raised as the son of a Texas Church of Christ minister, which fueled a lifelong obsession with other people's sex lives), and current Chief Justice John Roberts (the 'good one', who claimed no intent to overturn Roe v. Wade, despite being married to a member of the oxymoronically named Feminists for Life).
These 'jurists' define the danger of the 'activist judge'. Historically, they will bend or break the law in any way required to make sure that their particular beliefs are served. These are the kind of people who voice no concern when a delegation of right wing congressional aides is dispatched to Palm Beach County to bang long enough and hard enough on glass windows until the court-mandated recount of a presidential election by terrified workers is permanently ended. Scalia is the one who explained his vote on that same election issue as necessary, or '...candidate Bush might be deprived of his victory'. Not an activist bone in that body, is there?
Anyway, if you're clued in at all to the controversy over the U.S. Attorneys General, the White House now admits its role in a plan to replace certain of those prosecutors based on criteria that included those who, "...exhibited loyalty" to the administration, or those conversely who, "...chafed against administration initiatives". The U.S. Attorney in Arkansas was dumped in order to make room for an assistant to Karl Rove. The young, 30-something aide at the Justice Department assigned to carry out this plan was himself lobbying for appointment to the prosecutor's job in his home state of Utah.
The story gained momentum when it was revealed over the weekend that a prosecutor in New Mexico had received phone calls from a GOP member of the U.S. Senate...and a GOP Congresswoman...to make sure indictments of key Democrats were announced before the 2006 elections. When he refused to make that promise, he was hung up on. And soon thereafter, he was gone.
How can this be possible? Be legal? Actually, it wasn't--until a provision allowing it passed through unnoticed as part of the Patriot Act. At the time, many Americans trusted these people to keep us safe. But what happens when the people protecting you...are the ones you need protection from?
The simple paper cut may mend over time. But the Bush crew slices deeper every day. There is no accommodation. Their incision has now reached muscle, and threatens bone. How do we make the pain go away?
diderot
This is a lot like the response of the body politic to the Bush Administration. After a while, you're simply dulled to more outrage in what those people are doing to destroy our country. But even amidst the nightmare of Iraq, the lingering sorrow of Katrina, the endless hypocrisies and outright lies, we need to marshall strength to fully internalize the danger represented by the firings of U.S. Attorneys who were deemed insufficiently political.
One of the hallmark boogeymen of the radical right is the 'activist judge'--someone who will put his own personal political views above the law. As with so many other of their yelps, this is pure projection--assigning to others the exact thing which you, yourself, are guilty of.
A case in point is the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., longtime clubhouse for activist judges of the radical right. Two members with impeccable whack-job credentials, David Sentelle and Laurance Silberman (now retired), have been vital instruments for attack dog conservatives. Sentelle was a full co-conspirator in the costly and fruitless Ken Starr follies. Silberman served as co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, where he helped fully shift blame from the White House to the intelligence community for the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Other current and former GOP appointees to this panel include Robert Bork ('high executioner' for Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre during the Watergate era), Clarence Thomas (steadfast supporter of 'states rights' until he flip-flopped in order to deliver the throne to Bush in 2000), Antonin Scalia (see description for Thomas), Ken Starr (raised as the son of a Texas Church of Christ minister, which fueled a lifelong obsession with other people's sex lives), and current Chief Justice John Roberts (the 'good one', who claimed no intent to overturn Roe v. Wade, despite being married to a member of the oxymoronically named Feminists for Life).
These 'jurists' define the danger of the 'activist judge'. Historically, they will bend or break the law in any way required to make sure that their particular beliefs are served. These are the kind of people who voice no concern when a delegation of right wing congressional aides is dispatched to Palm Beach County to bang long enough and hard enough on glass windows until the court-mandated recount of a presidential election by terrified workers is permanently ended. Scalia is the one who explained his vote on that same election issue as necessary, or '...candidate Bush might be deprived of his victory'. Not an activist bone in that body, is there?
Anyway, if you're clued in at all to the controversy over the U.S. Attorneys General, the White House now admits its role in a plan to replace certain of those prosecutors based on criteria that included those who, "...exhibited loyalty" to the administration, or those conversely who, "...chafed against administration initiatives". The U.S. Attorney in Arkansas was dumped in order to make room for an assistant to Karl Rove. The young, 30-something aide at the Justice Department assigned to carry out this plan was himself lobbying for appointment to the prosecutor's job in his home state of Utah.
The story gained momentum when it was revealed over the weekend that a prosecutor in New Mexico had received phone calls from a GOP member of the U.S. Senate...and a GOP Congresswoman...to make sure indictments of key Democrats were announced before the 2006 elections. When he refused to make that promise, he was hung up on. And soon thereafter, he was gone.
How can this be possible? Be legal? Actually, it wasn't--until a provision allowing it passed through unnoticed as part of the Patriot Act. At the time, many Americans trusted these people to keep us safe. But what happens when the people protecting you...are the ones you need protection from?
The simple paper cut may mend over time. But the Bush crew slices deeper every day. There is no accommodation. Their incision has now reached muscle, and threatens bone. How do we make the pain go away?
diderot
Media Sins: Sex Sells
I don't know that I've ever been called a prude, but even I have my limits.
I enjoy prime time dramas that can present issues revolving around sexuality in an intriguing or even humorous manner--the new NBC show Friday Night Lights is a good example, I think. But as we've all seen, too often sex presented in a purely exploitative light is the last refuge of a desperate TV executive producer.
A case in point is the Today Show--once the indomitable force of morning TV. But recently, ratings have declined. Consequently, we get a pre-show tease this morning promoting the following stories:
This is the same Today Show that will regularly lament ever-earlier sexual experimentation by teens, and the pornographic dangers that loom on the Internet.
Sophocles is generally credited with first writing the words, 'look to thyself'.
Maybe he had just finished watching Matt and Meredith.
diderot
I enjoy prime time dramas that can present issues revolving around sexuality in an intriguing or even humorous manner--the new NBC show Friday Night Lights is a good example, I think. But as we've all seen, too often sex presented in a purely exploitative light is the last refuge of a desperate TV executive producer.
A case in point is the Today Show--once the indomitable force of morning TV. But recently, ratings have declined. Consequently, we get a pre-show tease this morning promoting the following stories:
- Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff calls homosexuality 'immoral'
- Presidential candidates with histories of infidelities--can they be elected?
- 'Victim' of a sexual liaison with a (hot, blond, young female) teacher in Colorado on set for an 'exclusive' interview (!)
- New research showing that men's sperm count may decrease with age (!)
This is the same Today Show that will regularly lament ever-earlier sexual experimentation by teens, and the pornographic dangers that loom on the Internet.
Sophocles is generally credited with first writing the words, 'look to thyself'.
Maybe he had just finished watching Matt and Meredith.
diderot
Monday, March 12, 2007
Blame Baseball
Even the nation's sportswriters sometimes get tired of writing about baseball and its steroid 'scandals' (while somehow ignoring the fact that the average size of NFL players mysteriously increases by about 25 pounds of muscle every two weeks).
So, as a change of pace, these writers have now picked up a new fungo to beat MLB ownership about its collective head--the multi-market game broadcast license granted exclusively to DirecTV.
Now, off the top, I'm not saying this is a good thing. Even though I don't know how any of the traditional networks, or even ESPN, could ever devote enough bandwidth to give you access to virtually every game played. Would cable systems even agree to add to, or 'borrow' enough of, their existing channel menu to allow this? I don't know--and again, that's not my point.
What needs to be underscored is that this scenario--giving all-game rights exclusively to DirecTV--is actually not newsworthy at all. Because the NFL has been doing exactly the same thing for the last five years or so.
Have you ever heard a peep of complaint about that? No. Because it's the NFL. Deep in the recesses of the sportwriter mind is simple contrast: "Baseball ownership--bad. All other sports ownerships--good."
I worked in print and broadcast news for 20 years. I can assure you that sports reporters are not highly regarded among their peers on the basis of pure intellect.
This opinion is not unwarranted.
diderot
So, as a change of pace, these writers have now picked up a new fungo to beat MLB ownership about its collective head--the multi-market game broadcast license granted exclusively to DirecTV.
Now, off the top, I'm not saying this is a good thing. Even though I don't know how any of the traditional networks, or even ESPN, could ever devote enough bandwidth to give you access to virtually every game played. Would cable systems even agree to add to, or 'borrow' enough of, their existing channel menu to allow this? I don't know--and again, that's not my point.
What needs to be underscored is that this scenario--giving all-game rights exclusively to DirecTV--is actually not newsworthy at all. Because the NFL has been doing exactly the same thing for the last five years or so.
Have you ever heard a peep of complaint about that? No. Because it's the NFL. Deep in the recesses of the sportwriter mind is simple contrast: "Baseball ownership--bad. All other sports ownerships--good."
I worked in print and broadcast news for 20 years. I can assure you that sports reporters are not highly regarded among their peers on the basis of pure intellect.
This opinion is not unwarranted.
diderot
Friday, March 9, 2007
Bill Walsh
Good story in Sports Illustrated this week on Bill Walsh, the former 49ers coach and his bout with leukemia. It had a little special meaning for me.
Way back in 1986 I was at a clinic in Chicago at the O’Hare Hyatt. Bill Walsh was one of the guest speakers and of course the room was full. He did a nice job speaking on the West Coast Offense but a little too sophisticated for most of the high school coaches (especially the ones with huge bellies who wouldn’t know a dig route from a stalk block). He thanked the audience and with Dennis Green left the podium stating he had to catch a plane back.
About 20 minutes later, after trying to explain some of what he said to a couple other guys, I was going back to my room. In a corner of the lobby were Walsh and Green, pretty much hidden out of sight, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because the free beer for the coaches was on another floor. I just wanted to go over, introduce myself, thank him for his insight and leave him alone. I pumped up, walked over, introduced myself as a HS head coach down in the Peoria area and so forth. It turned out that his plane was delayed and rather than waiting at the airport they decided to wait at the hotel.
I started to walk away and Walsh said, “Coach, if you’ve got a couple minutes I could go into a little more detail on the offense because with the time I had we just scratched the surface”.
'No Coach, I have to go drink beer with a bunch of high school guys up on level 3 can you wait'? He looked at me, saw that I was being my usual sarcastic self and started to laugh. So there I was in the seat next to Dennis Green and Bill Walsh in the time it takes to say, 'mother may I'. I was there for exactly 46 minutes--I know it was 46 because I looked at my watch and timed it. When a concierge came to tell them their car was waiting we got up, shook hands and he complimented me on the quality of my questions and my overall comprehension. Now he could have been lying through his teeth but I don’t think so, not at all. So here is what I learned (other than football X’s and O’s) from Bill Walsh:
--NEVER overestimate your opponent--not underestimate but overestimate. His theory was that too many coaches worry about situations that will probably never happen instead of practicing their own stuff to make the opposition burn practice time in needless preparation. Boy, is that one true. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen defensive coaches change everything they are trying to do so that they can “cover” your formations and motion. My defensive guys would always worry about motion here and motion there and I would tell them, “What do they run from all these motions?” And they would say, "the same stuff they always run." So what are you worried about? And they would always give me the, “what if”. Screw the what if--nobody has that much time to do all that stuff. Consequently I learned to use lots of formations and motion but very few actual plays. Worked for me and for Walsh.
--Never stop tweaking what you do, especially when you are successful; keep finding ways to disguise and misdirect.
--Attitude and effort are more valuable than talent. He said, 'now when you have Jerry Rice you have both which is ideal', but always take effort and attitude over talent.
--Just because no one is doing it, don’t be afraid to try something innovative and new because from that you get your best ideas. He made the comparison to surgery and told me that almost every major surgical procedure has come from what was learned treating the wounded in war. Interesting.
--Treat your assistants with respect and dignity and always help them to be upwardly mobile if that’s what they want to do. This line is the main subject in the article. No one in football history has had a greater influence on the number of coaches now working in the NFL and college.
Hortense
Way back in 1986 I was at a clinic in Chicago at the O’Hare Hyatt. Bill Walsh was one of the guest speakers and of course the room was full. He did a nice job speaking on the West Coast Offense but a little too sophisticated for most of the high school coaches (especially the ones with huge bellies who wouldn’t know a dig route from a stalk block). He thanked the audience and with Dennis Green left the podium stating he had to catch a plane back.
About 20 minutes later, after trying to explain some of what he said to a couple other guys, I was going back to my room. In a corner of the lobby were Walsh and Green, pretty much hidden out of sight, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because the free beer for the coaches was on another floor. I just wanted to go over, introduce myself, thank him for his insight and leave him alone. I pumped up, walked over, introduced myself as a HS head coach down in the Peoria area and so forth. It turned out that his plane was delayed and rather than waiting at the airport they decided to wait at the hotel.
I started to walk away and Walsh said, “Coach, if you’ve got a couple minutes I could go into a little more detail on the offense because with the time I had we just scratched the surface”.
'No Coach, I have to go drink beer with a bunch of high school guys up on level 3 can you wait'? He looked at me, saw that I was being my usual sarcastic self and started to laugh. So there I was in the seat next to Dennis Green and Bill Walsh in the time it takes to say, 'mother may I'. I was there for exactly 46 minutes--I know it was 46 because I looked at my watch and timed it. When a concierge came to tell them their car was waiting we got up, shook hands and he complimented me on the quality of my questions and my overall comprehension. Now he could have been lying through his teeth but I don’t think so, not at all. So here is what I learned (other than football X’s and O’s) from Bill Walsh:
--NEVER overestimate your opponent--not underestimate but overestimate. His theory was that too many coaches worry about situations that will probably never happen instead of practicing their own stuff to make the opposition burn practice time in needless preparation. Boy, is that one true. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen defensive coaches change everything they are trying to do so that they can “cover” your formations and motion. My defensive guys would always worry about motion here and motion there and I would tell them, “What do they run from all these motions?” And they would say, "the same stuff they always run." So what are you worried about? And they would always give me the, “what if”. Screw the what if--nobody has that much time to do all that stuff. Consequently I learned to use lots of formations and motion but very few actual plays. Worked for me and for Walsh.
--Never stop tweaking what you do, especially when you are successful; keep finding ways to disguise and misdirect.
--Attitude and effort are more valuable than talent. He said, 'now when you have Jerry Rice you have both which is ideal', but always take effort and attitude over talent.
--Just because no one is doing it, don’t be afraid to try something innovative and new because from that you get your best ideas. He made the comparison to surgery and told me that almost every major surgical procedure has come from what was learned treating the wounded in war. Interesting.
--Treat your assistants with respect and dignity and always help them to be upwardly mobile if that’s what they want to do. This line is the main subject in the article. No one in football history has had a greater influence on the number of coaches now working in the NFL and college.
Hortense
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
A Chicago Story: Cheeseburgers
The Three Guys were emailing yesterday and I mentioned my strong memory of the first time I ever ordered something by myself in a restaurant: a cheeseburger when I was about 10 or 11. It was a single-counter, bowling-alley shaped greasy spoon in my neighborhood. What I remember most is how quickly I finished that and paid, absolutely petrified I was doing something wrong.
Oketo answered with a similar, but much better story:
'It was a place called Brown's, after its owners, Dickie Brown (who went to my grammar school) and his older brother (whose name escapes me), who was killed years later drag racing on Dee road when it still known as Forest Preserve Drive. Anyway, same thing, I took my 59 cents and ordered a cheeseburger.
Now, I was afraid that I would be seen doing this since 59 cents was a lot of money to my family and they would not want it wasted on a burger. Like you, I can still remember how afraid I was of ordering wrong or being seen. Once they gave me the burger I took it out of the store and road my bike to Oriole Park to eat it. Theory being it was natural for me to be at the park but not on Harlem avenue--if seen.
So, I get to the park but by the time I get there the grease has eaten through the paper bag and the cheeseburger falls on the ground. The bun opens and the meat lands on the ground. It picks up stones, cinders, dirt etc. However, I was not about to throw away this watershed moment so I scraped off the crap and ate it. It's funny. That incident is so ingrained in my head I can still remember the fear of being seen and the actual taste of that burger with all the sidewalk condiments. Why would those experiences be so vivid for each of us after all this time?'
Oketo answered with a similar, but much better story:
'It was a place called Brown's, after its owners, Dickie Brown (who went to my grammar school) and his older brother (whose name escapes me), who was killed years later drag racing on Dee road when it still known as Forest Preserve Drive. Anyway, same thing, I took my 59 cents and ordered a cheeseburger.
Now, I was afraid that I would be seen doing this since 59 cents was a lot of money to my family and they would not want it wasted on a burger. Like you, I can still remember how afraid I was of ordering wrong or being seen. Once they gave me the burger I took it out of the store and road my bike to Oriole Park to eat it. Theory being it was natural for me to be at the park but not on Harlem avenue--if seen.
So, I get to the park but by the time I get there the grease has eaten through the paper bag and the cheeseburger falls on the ground. The bun opens and the meat lands on the ground. It picks up stones, cinders, dirt etc. However, I was not about to throw away this watershed moment so I scraped off the crap and ate it. It's funny. That incident is so ingrained in my head I can still remember the fear of being seen and the actual taste of that burger with all the sidewalk condiments. Why would those experiences be so vivid for each of us after all this time?'
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Two Sets of Books
Amid the fallout this week over the conditions endured by some rehabilitating war veterans at the Walter Reed Medical Center, there is an admission that should not be ignored--in fact, it should be shouted from the rooftops.
ABC News anchorman Bob Woodruff--himself a casualty in the Iraqi theatre--reported that there are actually 'two sets of books' recording the number of wounded U.S. service people in this pointless war. The first, for public consumption, puts the count at about 23,000. The second, the one we've never seen, says 205,000.
205,000.
Why the discrepancy? One spokesman explained that a lot of those additional patients are just seeking dental treatment.
Remember, the people who launched this war--those hideous, delusional, treasonous liars--are the ones who tout their concern for our 'brave people in uniform'. But they are, in reality, the ones who ignore them.
Shame on them.
diderot
ABC News anchorman Bob Woodruff--himself a casualty in the Iraqi theatre--reported that there are actually 'two sets of books' recording the number of wounded U.S. service people in this pointless war. The first, for public consumption, puts the count at about 23,000. The second, the one we've never seen, says 205,000.
205,000.
Why the discrepancy? One spokesman explained that a lot of those additional patients are just seeking dental treatment.
Remember, the people who launched this war--those hideous, delusional, treasonous liars--are the ones who tout their concern for our 'brave people in uniform'. But they are, in reality, the ones who ignore them.
Shame on them.
diderot
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Who am I?
Let's face it. We're Americans. Nothing fascinates us nearly as much as ourselves.
But are we who we think we are?
Here's another way to test yourself...and your loved ones, if you can make them promise to reveal their profile (scroll down to the questions).
diderot
But are we who we think we are?
Here's another way to test yourself...and your loved ones, if you can make them promise to reveal their profile (scroll down to the questions).
diderot
Friday, March 2, 2007
17%
When I was in the news business, we aired a lot of stories about 'first woman this', and 'first woman that'. Couldn't get enough of those landmark accomplishments.
You don't hear nearly as many of those anymore. Maybe this is why.
While equality is still some distance away, there's no disputing how far the world has come, on a number of fronts. Progressives are winning.
Now, if we could just get those poor women out of their burkas...
diderot
You don't hear nearly as many of those anymore. Maybe this is why.
While equality is still some distance away, there's no disputing how far the world has come, on a number of fronts. Progressives are winning.
Now, if we could just get those poor women out of their burkas...
diderot
Thursday, March 1, 2007
In Defense of Baseball
In spring, a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of...spring training.
And I have no doubt this baseball season is going to be a trying one, with attention all season long perversely tuned in to Barry Bonds' pursuit of the career home run record. Sort of like the sporting version of the Anna Nicole Smith decomposition. (And how ironic that Bonds reportedly is subjected to constant death threats because his accomplishments are 'tainted' by drug use. It wasn't too many years ago that Hank Aaron, the man who holds the record, was himself subjected to similar treatment because his efforts were 'tainted' due to the color of his skin.)
In any case, this will only ratchet up the complaints of trouble-makers like hortense who proclaim, "baseball is NOT the national pastime anymore!" To which I can only reply, "duh!"
Baseball was dominant in the first half of the last century for a lot of good reasons. First of all, it was effectively the only sport. The NFL was in its infancy. College sports were mainly the concern of the few who went to college. The NBA and NHL and, amazingly, even snowboarding didn't even exist yet.
What's more, the game was woven into the fabric of life. Everyone played in the afternoon. You would probably take your break from the factory floor and run into the sales office, where they had a radio, to get an update on the score. On the way home on the streetcar, you might hear, "yeah, Appling doubled his first two times up, drove in three runs, and we held on, 4-2." At dinner, especially if there were sons in the family, information would be shared on exactly what had happened...and, "by the way, did you hear the darn Yankees won again?" Even a disinterested wife or daughter could not avoid being exposed to the names and the lingo of the game. It had no competition; it did not divide on the basis of politics or religion (and eventually, even on race); and in most places, it was as safe as talking about the weather, even if Cubs/Sox or Yankee/Giant/Dodger loyalties did generate more lively discussion in some cities.
Yes, those days are gone. And in that sense, obviously baseball is no more the national pastime than churning your own butter. But this is different--FAR DIFFERENT--from the erroneous accompanying claim that baseball is no longer America's favorite sport. The elevation of this myth to accepted fact is largely backed by the assertion, "football has better TV ratings." Like a White House spinmaster standing behind his podium, this is a distracting, fallacious claim designed to deflect attention from the actual truth.
Yes, on a Sunday afternoon in Cincinnati in the middle of October, more people are going to be watching the Bengals game on TV than were viewing the Reds play on a Tuesday night a couple months before. But so what? The NFL plays one day a week. The NBA and NHL a couple times a week. Colleges follow a similar schedule. Baseball plays virtually every day for six months. Detractors claim that makes for an 'unfair' comparison. So what? You want fair? Have the NFL play six times a week.
It seems obvious to the point of absurdity to compare how many people actually buy tickets to attend sporting events in a season--period. (And total TV ratings follow in lockstep). Isn't this the way leadership is judged anywhere else? Is the nation's 'number one' automobile determined by how many vehicles are sold after 7pm? Do corporations report their sales and earnings just based on what happened south of the Mason-Dixon line? "Top" is the equated with "total".
So stop for just a second and guess how many total people annually pay to attend (or view on TV) the following sports: Major League Baseball; minor league baseball; the NFL; college football; the NBA; and college basketball. Rank them in order in your mind.
Then take a look at this and understand who unquestionably is #1:
diderot
And I have no doubt this baseball season is going to be a trying one, with attention all season long perversely tuned in to Barry Bonds' pursuit of the career home run record. Sort of like the sporting version of the Anna Nicole Smith decomposition. (And how ironic that Bonds reportedly is subjected to constant death threats because his accomplishments are 'tainted' by drug use. It wasn't too many years ago that Hank Aaron, the man who holds the record, was himself subjected to similar treatment because his efforts were 'tainted' due to the color of his skin.)
In any case, this will only ratchet up the complaints of trouble-makers like hortense who proclaim, "baseball is NOT the national pastime anymore!" To which I can only reply, "duh!"
Baseball was dominant in the first half of the last century for a lot of good reasons. First of all, it was effectively the only sport. The NFL was in its infancy. College sports were mainly the concern of the few who went to college. The NBA and NHL and, amazingly, even snowboarding didn't even exist yet.
What's more, the game was woven into the fabric of life. Everyone played in the afternoon. You would probably take your break from the factory floor and run into the sales office, where they had a radio, to get an update on the score. On the way home on the streetcar, you might hear, "yeah, Appling doubled his first two times up, drove in three runs, and we held on, 4-2." At dinner, especially if there were sons in the family, information would be shared on exactly what had happened...and, "by the way, did you hear the darn Yankees won again?" Even a disinterested wife or daughter could not avoid being exposed to the names and the lingo of the game. It had no competition; it did not divide on the basis of politics or religion (and eventually, even on race); and in most places, it was as safe as talking about the weather, even if Cubs/Sox or Yankee/Giant/Dodger loyalties did generate more lively discussion in some cities.
Yes, those days are gone. And in that sense, obviously baseball is no more the national pastime than churning your own butter. But this is different--FAR DIFFERENT--from the erroneous accompanying claim that baseball is no longer America's favorite sport. The elevation of this myth to accepted fact is largely backed by the assertion, "football has better TV ratings." Like a White House spinmaster standing behind his podium, this is a distracting, fallacious claim designed to deflect attention from the actual truth.
Yes, on a Sunday afternoon in Cincinnati in the middle of October, more people are going to be watching the Bengals game on TV than were viewing the Reds play on a Tuesday night a couple months before. But so what? The NFL plays one day a week. The NBA and NHL a couple times a week. Colleges follow a similar schedule. Baseball plays virtually every day for six months. Detractors claim that makes for an 'unfair' comparison. So what? You want fair? Have the NFL play six times a week.
It seems obvious to the point of absurdity to compare how many people actually buy tickets to attend sporting events in a season--period. (And total TV ratings follow in lockstep). Isn't this the way leadership is judged anywhere else? Is the nation's 'number one' automobile determined by how many vehicles are sold after 7pm? Do corporations report their sales and earnings just based on what happened south of the Mason-Dixon line? "Top" is the equated with "total".
So stop for just a second and guess how many total people annually pay to attend (or view on TV) the following sports: Major League Baseball; minor league baseball; the NFL; college football; the NBA; and college basketball. Rank them in order in your mind.
Then take a look at this and understand who unquestionably is #1:
diderot
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