Fall Classic

REMEMBER THOU ART MORTAL
"Congress is not getting it's work done," President Bush said, flanked by members of the Republican House leadership. "Bush blasted the Democratic-controlled Congress on Tuesday for having "the worst record in 20 years."The House of Representatives has wasted valuable time on a constant stream of investigations, and the Senate has wasted valuable time on an endless series of failed votes to pull our troops out of Iraq."

I'm starting to look at the President in a whole different way, he has gone from being simply goofy to a hysterical cartoon version of a bad leader. I mean you can't make this stuff up. Is he so shameless that he can actually say things like this? Chastising Congress for choosing to question the President? To exercise some of it's Constitutional authority in a balance of powers.

Hey, I'm the first one to say that this entire government is a mess. Unable to show any fiscal responsibility or leadership in any venue, whether it be foreign or domestic. There is a lack of any statemanship and every effort to get the nation's work done is politicized to the point of paralysis.

Perhaps if the Republican controlled Congress and the Democratic minority had showed any backbone in the first six years of the Bush administration we would not have as "much to investigate" and wouldn't be concerned with pulling our troops out of Iraq. Surveys generally show that the American people are frustrated with Congress yet we continue to send back over 90% of the incumbents. Rarely is there a "throw the bums" out movement afoot. Usually voters feel their congressman is OK and it's the others that are filled with pork barrel politicking and mucking up the process.

The lack of effort by Congress in looking at real change and the lack of effort in reining in the President as he led us on the road to war and the road to ruin in fiscal responsibility is nearly criminal. To act as inactive observers bloviating in the press to raise money to ensure their re-election, rubber stamping or simply complaining about the President's inanity and/or insanity.

Certainly there will be some small change in Congress in the next election, some shifting of the deck chairs, some back benchers trying to make some noise, but soon begin carrying the water of the leadership in Congress or from Pennsylvania Avenue, forgetting the power, the Demos, the power that comes from the people and from the Constitution.

Certainly, the Imperial Presidency, retooled after the shame of Watergate and in a time of incessant and perhaps non-ending war has become the center of power in the world, with the City on the Hill and our soft power of the greatest nation on earth has become tarnished.

Where does the next great leader, or in fact group of leaders come from once the Bush nightmare is over?

Sammy, We Hardly Knew Ye

Sam has narrowed the field on the GOP side. Dropping out in the face of his lack of funds and a sensibility amongst most Republicans that the country may not be prepared to make a rapid run further to the right wing. So Huckabee may pick up some of those who see abortion as their one issue, but outside of that small percentage this is just a historical footnote. Opus Dei doesn't get their guy in the White House and the lead warrior against Janet Jackson's nipple gets ready to fight other battles. It remains to be seen who makes an effort to pick up these votes, will it Huckabee, or is he not loony enough? Apparently, Alan Keyes now picks up the mantle of the religious right. Another story for another day.

WOW!
How sweet it is, Red Sox world champions. Now, nothing will ever be as incredible as that run in 2004. But we know that this victory will not be tarnished a week later by the re-election of George W. Bush. Baseball to me is a passion, certainly populated by over priced, sometimes obnoxious athletes, and over commercialized but the beauty of a baseball season is the metronome of my life. For years the Red Sox were the laughing stock, often competitive but predictably always faltering at the end usually at the hands of our fantastically evil older brother, New York. While many will accuse our team of outspending our rival AL and NL teams alike and simply emulating the Yankee success, the stories of our squad will warm my heart through the winter months. Game 4 winner Jon Lester a cancer survivor, the rookies who set the table, the veterans who had seen it all, and our Latino and Asian players who brought the "World" in World Series. Red Sox nation, it wasn't a fluke.

October Surprise

Living La Vida Loca

As I was taking some notes in a meeting I looked down at my pen which is from the W.J. Clinton Presidential library, I started to think, where would President Hillary Clinton build her library? Certainly it would have more interesting stuff than the mechanical bull at the George W. Bush Presidential Magazine rack, but would it be in Illinois?, Arkansas? or her carpetbagger's destination of New York? Who knows. First of all, I don't think it's going to happen.

Here's the rub, I like Hillary. She's a great intellect, has been a great senator and actually tried to figure out health care. You put that early 90's health care bill in front of the US Chamber of Commerce and the automakers today and they'd be on it like me on a pork chop.

Yup, I'm the guy who still thinks it's going to be Edwards/McCain in the general election. Now I like my data, and all the polls shows Hillary beating any of the Republicans in the general election and some national polls have her up over 30 points over her closest challenger. It's just hard for me to imagine Hillary Clinton as President, first just the image of these two royal families controlling the Presidency for at least 24 years is just bizarre. It's not like this is like Lichtenstein or something, we're a country of over 300 million people with the best universities in the world, the largest number of Nobel laureates, and shall we not forget, Hollywood! You would think that some other cream would rise to the top that had not been a Clinton or Bush.

Oh yeah, and this is Hillary, "that woman" is probably the most divisive politician in recent American history. She's the ogre that the right uses to raise money now that Ted Kennedy has become more of an elder statesman in American politics. It's hard to make hay at the foot of a grandfather. She has been branded as a socialist, a communist, a feminist, an abortionist and is a leftist demon to the dittoheads.

I often will ask people why they hate Hillary so much, and often folks will mention the arrogance, like she is the sole owner of arrogance in politics. The other reason is that she is tied to the "corruption" both real and perceived of the first 8 years of a Clinton presidency. Those that see her with a smoking gun in the Vince Foster case or having half of Communist China spend the night in the Lincoln Bedroom. The "vast right wing conspiracy" has haunted Hillary from the beginning years of her husband's presidency, while she has huge leads in the democratic polls, she will unintentionally energize a Republican party reeling from war and scandal against the Democratic nominee in a way that Emily's List could not compete with. It makes the possibility of a more moderate Republican candidate to feast on the center enough to get towards the White House. OK, suffice to say all of the leading Republican candidates are more moderate than the current administration.

Oh yeah, and she's a Yankee's fan. And to make it even worse, a carpet bagging Yankee's fan.

The Queen of Yankee Nation

Gotta hand it to Rudy, the guy plays dressup more than any seven year old girl I've ever met. Rudy is the ultimate opportunist going for the ultimate political prize and the keys to the US treasury. The other day, my friend Bob accused me of "having a Giuliani blindspot". He's probably right, it's the same blindspot I have for my own mortality, the thing that keeps me struggling and striving and not living in a drunken stupor.

I think a Giuliani presidency is just a dangerous thought but frankly I think we have some of the same politics, the urban law and order issues may play well in urban areas if anyone in the Republican party ever owns up to the fact that there are American cities outside of Washington, DC, Davenport, Iowa or Manchester, NH. I think as a big city mayor he does understand the issues facing our cities, even if he was blessed with a Clinton presidency and huge Wall St. tax surpluses during his reign over NYC.

Rudy was a Democrat before he got better in the seventies, likely because that's what urban Catholics did, he seemed to be an early adopter of the Reagan Revolution and benefited his way into a fine job as a US attorney, getting himself and mafiosi in front of the television cameras, beginning his life long love affair with the media, culminating in 9/11 and his brief reign as America's Mayor and a shot of confidence in wary times that he is trying to ride all the way to Pennsylvania Avenue. This opportunism led to the birth of his lobbying firm Giuliani Partners which grew Rudy into a very wealthy man and grown an increasing web of potential ethical entanglements if he is elected President.

I find it hard to believe that he is the best that the Republicans have to offer, certainly there is a certain amount of fame involved and the non-cuckoo GOP'ers that is the more socially moderate but still law and order and fiscal conservatives have someone they can attach too as one of their own, rather than a candidate that is just trying to carry the religious right's water.

Despite that I think that Rudy, if President, well have scandals that make the Teapot Dome Scandal look like a penny flinch from a church collection plate, and what's worse, another Yankees fan.

WHAT, ME WORRY?

THE RABBIT

I'll give Fred this, he was the only one in the debate whose answer to the future of social security wasn't "yeah, we gotta do something about that", which is the equivalent of saying the back 40's on fire and I better get some buckets. (sorry that's about as folksy as it gets around here). Fast Freddie argued that future Social Security recipients may not get the level of benefits that they are expecting. I'm not sure many of the other candidates want to go there, because being very vague and enigmatic is a very important part of retirement planning, along with sound investing and having kids that are going to make a whole ton of money.

So even though Fred is not ahead in the polls, he may see himself as the rabbit in the race, that one or two guys who gets way ahead in the Boston Marathon running 4 and half minute miles only to burn himself out after a few miles, tiring of setting the pace, in some ways having the rabbit is great, it gives you something to talk about for an hour or so. If this helps him to save what he feels is the heart and soul of the Republican party, true conservatism, whatever that is, all power to him. Hell, I think it's kind of humorous in a dark way that the Republican Party has become the party of drunken sailorism, from the free spending ways to the brothels to the toilet stall rendezvous's. Get me a picture of Ted Kennedy riding an elephant and we're off to Minneapolis in 2008, I can't imagine that Larry Craig will make an appearance in his old stomping grounds.

THE JENA DISTRACTION

What do we need, y'all?l think we need a new leader. We ain't had a black leader in a while. In a long time. Somebody that moves you. You know, we had Martin Luther King,Malcolm X... and ever since then, a bunch of substitute teachers. We ain't had the real thing.l want a mf'er to move me. CHRIS ROCK

First things first, one of the hardest things to talk about honestly in this country is race. Frequently you hear stuff like, "I don't care if he's brown, black, white, blue or polka dotted." And we all know that's dumb and if you see someone blue or polka dotted get him a damn doctor or something. There is a myth of colorblindness, like a few years of affirmative action, a diversity training, dancing with a black guy at the club and a Black friend at work can clear everything up. In fact, most Americans appear to self-segregate, I'm not sure if it's intentional, just the nature of years of economic, religious and racial segregation that has manifested itself in the culture of today, I actually think things are getting better, but it's going to take a lot of time. But I digress.

Recently thousand of activists, largely African American descended on the small town of Jena, Louisiana, where three idiot kids had hung nooses from a tree. These kids were given the "boys will be boys" slap on the wrist in a severe lack of judgment of idiotic school officials who somehow missed the symbolism and fear of one of these country's greatest collective crimes of lynching. In the "if I close my eyes this will go away strategy" that seems to be so big a part of how we address race in this country, the town didn't appear to address the problem which grew into greater racial strife, that ended up with a white boy being beaten by 6 black boys in a schoolyard fight which gave us the illustrious heroes of the Jena Six.

The Jena Six in normal times would be seen as common thugs beating on a single boy, but these common thugs were charged with crimes likely far beyond what would have happened if it was a intraracial crime or if it were in normal circumstances say like fighting over a girl or a football game. Once again the authorities overreached and added fuel to the fire.

But let's get real here for a second. I'm am outraged at the outrage. Where is the outrage at underperforming schools? Where is the outrage at overwhelming unemployment rates, particularly for young, Black males? Institutional racism is just not a sexy enough issue for folks. Where are the thousands that could be marching on their local city halls demanding a quality education for all children?

Where is the outrage on the part of poverty pimps such as the Rev.'s Sharpton and Jackson when it comes to the near genocidal levels of Black on Black crime. Over 50% of murder victims in the United States are African American, it seem like on a weekly basis in our own City of Boston, another child is killed by senseless violence? Where is the outrage? When a Haitian woman is gang raped and assaulted by up to 12 youth in Palm Beach, where is the outrage at this heinous assault?

This, is not part of the conversation, certainly because the Jena Six case will become one of many of the left's cause's celebre's, something you did during college that becomes a great story at the reunion, but no real change or anything.

FAITH AND FREEDOM

One of the most annoying words used by politicians that I hear is "freedom". Most of us have no real concept of freedom as to most of us as Americans, it is like the air that we breathe or the water that comes out of our faucets, expected, clear and most clean of contamination. As an administration official will claim that we are fighting a war for freedom while ignoring other cries for freedom, you have to become a bit jaded. When you see thousands of monks lining the street, you hope this Saffron Revolution can turn the tide towards democracy and end the military dictatorship in Burma but alas this is not the movies and a vicious crackdown of guns and batons and a closing off of information appears to have nipped this move towards freedom in the bud. I got nothing really to say about this other than a deep admiration for those who have risked their lives unarmed in the hopes of lighting a fire of freedom across their country, hopefully their faith can help us to have that same faith and support freedom at home and abroad.