NBA Draft

I've never paid much attention to the NBA Draft before. I watched it a little closer this year because I'm still all buzzed about the Spurs winning their fourth championship and because I had the odd happenstance of running into Greg Oden in a McDonalds here in San Antonio during the NCAA Playoffs.
It will be interesting to see if Oden's star rises in the NBA or if he will be overshadowed by Kevin Durant or some other player who went lower down in the draft.
Looking back on the draft history going back to 1960 I can pick out about a dozen No. 1 picks who went on to become certified superstars:
1960: Oscar Robertson
1969: Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabar)
1974: Bill Walton
1979: Earvin (Magic) Johnson
1984: Akeem Olajuwon
1985: Patrick Ewing
1987: David Robinson
1992: Shaqille O'Neal
1996: Allen Iverson
1997: Tim Duncan
2002: Yao Ming
2003: LeBron James

There have been many examples over the years of superstar players who weren't the top picks in the draft. Looking back now with perfect hindsight the teams that passed on these players look pretty foolish:

1972: Julius "Dr. J" Erving: No. 12
1978: Larry Byrd: No. 6
1987: Scottie Pippen: No. 5
1996: Kobe Bryant: No. 13
1998: Dirk Nowitzki: No. 9
2001: Tony Parker: No. 28

1984 was an especially intersting year for the draft. Some have called the greatest draft year in NBA history. That was the year that Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest player to ever step on the court, entered the draft. And he went at No. 3.
Nobody can really blame the Houston Rockets for selecting Akeem Olajuwon with their No. 1 pick that year. Olajuwon went on to be one the greatest basketball players of all time (if not THE greatest) and led the Rockets to back-to-back championship titles. But the Portland Trailblazers have to still be kicking themselves for taking Sam Bowie as the No. 2 pick that year and leaving Jordan to go to the Chicago Bulls.
1984 was also the year that Charles Barkley was drafted (No. 5) and John Stockton (No. 16).

Freedom reigning

It’s hard to believe that this little farce was played out three years ago.

Three years ago today, the U.S. officially transfered sovereignty to Iraq in a “secretive ceremony” that was moved up two days “to thwart insurgents’ attempts at undermining the transfer.”
Bush was passed a note from National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice that put it this way: “Mr. President, Iraq is sovereign.”
Bush wrote “Let freedom reign!” on the note and passed it back...

As the story notes, 858 U.S. soldiers had been killed in Iraq at that point. As of today, the number is 3,570.

Fred Thompson - Lobbyist

Oh my! This doesn’t seem likely to burnish Thompson’s Reaganesque image:

Fred Thompson, a likely Republican presidential candidate, on Tuesday defended his work as a Washington lobbyist, telling The Associated Press that lobbying is an important part of life because "government's got their hands in everything."
The actor and former U.S. senator from Tennessee added, "Nobody yet has pointed out any of my clients that didn't deserve representation."
Thompson, who likes to cast himself as a political outsider, earned more than $1 million lobbying the federal government for more than 20 years. He lobbied for a savings-and-loan deregulation bill that helped hasten the industry's collapse and a failed nuclear energy project that cost taxpayers more than a billion dollars.

Good thing for Thompson that he has an R after his name. If he were a Democrat this would be enough for the rightwing media to bury him under tons of negative coverage.

Why Congress can't get anything done

Republicans are back in the minority and naturally that means they are back to their obstructionist ways.

Senate conservatives in the 110th Congress are obstructing and blocking legislation at a rate more than double that of the past two Congresses combined.
During the first six months of the current Congress, there have been 13 cloture votes on motions to proceed — “each one wasting days of Senate time.” In comparison, there were just four cloture votes on motions to proceed during the the first sessions of the 108th and 109th Congresses combined.
The result: The House of Representatives has passed 239 pieces of legislation during the 110th Congress yet few have made it through the Senate, with conservatives “objecting to just about every major piece of legislation” that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has tried to bring up.

The legislation being blocked by right-wing senators has broad public support:
– Conservatives blocked debate on raising the minimum wage (54-43, Roll Call Vote #23)
– Conservatives blocked debate ethics reforms (Rejected 51-46, Roll Call Vote #16)
– Conservatives blocked debate on funding for renewable energy (Rejected 57-36, Roll Call Vote #223)
– Conservatives blocked a vote on funding for the intelligence community (Rejected 41-40, Roll Call Vote #130)
– Conservatives delayed legislation fulfilling the 9/11 Commission recommendations (Passed 97-0, Roll Call Vote #53)

In April, Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) acknowledged, “The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail… so far it’s working for us.” It just isn’t working for the American people.

Good poll news

Wonderful news today. George W. Bush’s disasterous presidency is turning our nation’s youth into a new generation of Democrats.

Young Americans are more likely than the general public to favor a government-run universal health care insurance system, an open-door policy on immigration and the legalization of gay marriage, according to a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll....
More than half of Americans ages 17 to 29 — 54 percent — say they intend to vote for a Democrat for president in 2008. They share with the public at large a negative view of President Bush, who has a 28 percent approval rating with this group, and of the Republican Party. They hold a markedly more positive view of Democrats than they do of Republicans.

Actually, it’s not just young people who hold these views. I think most Americans across the spectrum favor these issues. It’s just the decent thing to do — provide a minimum level of health care for those who can’t afford any better; treat the millions of illegal immigrants who are already here and aren’t going to leave like human beings; and allow consenting adults who love one another to get married and keep your nose out of their business. It’s pretty simple. It is only when the right wing noise machine cranks up and begins spewing its paranoid, hateful propaganda in an effort to scare people into opposing these common sense positions that everything gets gummed up.

Last week the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed 52 percent of respondents saying they want Democrats to win the presidency in 2008 while only 31 percent favored Republicans.
That poll also showed Hillary Clinton extending her lead for the Democratic nomination while Barack Obama and John Edwards are both falling back.
Meanwhile, a recent CNN poll shows an overwhelming 67 percent of Americans are now opposed to the war in Iraq and 63 percent want to begin withdrawing troops immediately.

The Liberal Media myth

Did you know that an MSNBC investigative study found 144 political donations by newsroom employees between 2004 and today? And of those 144 donations, an overwhelming number went to Democrats?!? Wow!!! Proof positive that the media has a liberal bias!!!
Yeah, right.
That is 144 donations out of more than 100,000 newsroom employees across the nation. Less than 2/10ths of 1 percent.
Furthermore, it proves nothing that someone may have voted Democratic or contributed to a Democratic candidate or cause as concerns their actual news reporting (assuming they do news reporting - most newsroom employees have nothing to do with political coverage).
What this bogus “study” tells us is that they are desperate to prop up the myth of a liberal media in the face of the overwhelming takeover of public discourse by the right-wing noise machine. The Op-Ed pages and the TV opinion shows are already chock full of conservative wingnuts. They would be happy to throw bricks at liberals on TV, but, other than Keith Olbermann, there are none. They are left trying to invent liberal bias out of the straightforward news coverage, most of which is rigidly centrist and objective to a fault. So rather than trying to demonstrate actual bias in news reporting, they try to infer bias by showing that reporters tend to vote Democratic or donate predominantly to liberal causes. But even in that effort they come up short, as the pathetic excuse of a study by MSNBC so aptly illlustrates.

Robert Parry has a good synopsis exposing the myth of the liberal media. I want to highlight this one part where he talks about the exact thing that the MSNBC study purports to do:

Another way to illustrate the fallacy of the “liberal media” argument is to hypothesize that a survey of editorial workers at, say, Murdoch’s New York Post would find that most editorial employees voted Democratic – not an unreasonable assumption for professionals living in New York City – and a minority voted Republican.
Under the logic of using how journalists voted to determine the bias of the company where they work, such a survey would “prove” that the New York Post was a liberal newspaper dominated by pro-Democratic articles. But it’s a decidedly conservative newspaper bristling with pro-Republican commentary.
The reason is simple: the woman writing obits or the guy doing the copy editing or the reporter covering the police beat – the working stiffs who may have voted Democratic – have only marginal influence over the newspaper’s slant. The content – and especially editorial opinions – are determined in the corporate offices by top editors and executives who report back to Murdoch.

I’ve worked in the news business for nearly 20 years in both the liberal Northeast and in the most conservative parts of Texas. I would describe most of my fellow newsroom workers during that period as leaning left, but mostly apolitical. Furthermore, those who were liberal were intimidated by the constant condemnations of the media by right-wing harrassment groups - even in the Northeast. If you were too conservative in your reporting, you were safe. If you were too “liberal” you were risking your job.
There were also plenty of “conservatives” in the newsrooms where I worked. One guy I worked with was an exceptional reporter who gave no indication of his political views. But after I got to know him I learned that he was very conservative (religious right). We became good friends and would debate politics quite often. Then one day an editorial writing position opened at the paper and we both applied for it. I’ll give you one guess as to who got tapped for the job.
That was in Lubbock, by the way. I guess I should not have harbored any illusions that they would allow a liberal to join their editorial board. Nevertheless, my friend was an excellent choice for the position as well, although it added absolutely no ideological diversity to the paper’s opinion section.

Most people who buy into this liberal media myth don’t have the foggiest clue as to how news organizations work. There is a bias to the news media, but it is not based on ideology. It is based on money. The Paris Hilton coverage is a fine example of this. We are getting this endless dreck on Paris Hilton because it sells advertising. That’s what it is all about.

Hillary = Spurs?

Matthew Yglesias surprised me with this analogy. In a post critical of Barack Obama for a position he took on liquified coal, Yglesias says “Obama may be like LeBron (James) but Hillary Clinton is like the Spurs.”
Wow!
But it kind of makes sense. While I like Obama and would not hesitate to support him for president if he won the Democratic primary, I still see him as being too inexperienced to best the more seasoned Hillary Clinton team. Obama may have the star power right now, but Hillary has that core competency thing going and knows how to play the game well on all levels.

Wikipedia vs. Conservapedia

Slacktivist has an interesting post comparing Wikipedia with the new “Conservipedia,” which purports to be a conservative alternative to the Wiki.
The argument from the right is that the Wikipedia is “too liberal,” which means that it actually includes liberal views and opinions along with conservative ones. This is identical to the authoritarian right’s criticisms of the mainstream media. They are “too liberal” compared to Fox News and the Mooney Times precisely because they are not completely exclusionary and one-sided all the time.
Needless to say the “Conservipedia” is a joke as Slacktivist makes clear when you compare its entries with the better informed and more comprehensive Wiki.

AFI Top 100 updated

The American Film Institute has updated its list of the 100 Greatest Movies of All Time. I can’t believe it’s been 10 years already. It seems like just a few years ago that they came out with their first list.
If you go to the website linked above you can download their Top 100 list with a comparison to the 1997 list. You can also download the official ballot with all 400 nominated films that were used to make up the Top 100 list.
Below is the new AFI list followed by my Top 100 list if I had voted using their official ballot. My list, of course, reflects my own personal viewing tastes as well as being restricted to movies that I have actually seen. Also, their list is in rank order while mine is just alphabetical.

The AFI List
1 CITIZEN KANE
2 GODFATHER, THE
3 CASABLANCA
4 RAGING BULL
5 SINGIN' IN THE RAIN
6 GONE WITH THE WIND
7 LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
8 SCHINDLER'S LIST
9 VERTIGO
10 WIZARD OF OZ, THE
11 CITY LIGHTS
12 SEARCHERS, THE
13 STAR WARS
14 PSYCHO
15 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
16 SUNSET BLVD.
17 GRADUATE, THE
18 GENERAL, THE
19 ON THE WATERFRONT
20 IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE
21 CHINATOWN
22 SOME LIKE IT HOT
23 GRAPES OF WRATH, THE
24 E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL
25 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
26 MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON
27 HIGH NOON
28 ALL ABOUT EVE
29 DOUBLE INDEMNITY
30 APOCALYPSE NOW
31 MALTESE FALCON, THE
32 GODFATHER PART II, THE
33 ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST
34 SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS
35 ANNIE HALL
36 BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, THE
37 BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, THE
38 TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, THE
39 DR. STRANGELOVE
40 SOUND OF MUSIC, THE
41 KING KONG
42 BONNIE AND CLYDE
43 MIDNIGHT COWBOY
44 PHILADELPHIA STORY, THE
45 SHANE
46 IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
47 STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, A
48 REAR WINDOW
49 INTOLERANCE
50 LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, THE
51 WEST SIDE STORY
52 TAXI DRIVER
53 DEER HUNTER, THE
54 M*A*S*H
55 NORTH BY NORTHWEST
56 JAWS
57 ROCKY
58 GOLD RUSH, THE
59 NASHVILLE
60 DUCK SOUP
61 SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS
62 AMERICAN GRAFFITI
63 CABARET
64 NETWORK
65 AFRICAN QUEEN, THE
66 RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
67 WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
68 UNFORGIVEN
69 TOOTSIE
70 CLOCKWORK ORANGE, A
71 SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
72 SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, THE
73 BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID
74 SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, THE
75 IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT
76 FORREST GUMP
77 ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN
78 MODERN TIMES
79 WILD BUNCH, THE
80 APARTMENT, THE
81 SPARTACUS
82 SUNRISE
83 TITANIC
84 EASY RIDER
85 NIGHT AT THE OPERA, A
86 PLATOON
87 12 ANGRY MEN
88 BRINGING UP BABY
89 SIXTH SENSE, THE
90 SWING TIME
91 SOPHIE'S CHOICE
92 GOODFELLAS
93 FRENCH CONNECTION, THE
94 PULP FICTION
95 LAST PICTURE SHOW, THE
96 DO THE RIGHT THING
97 BLADE RUNNER
98 YANKEE DOODLE DANDY
99 TOY STORY
100 BEN-HUR

Mike’s List
1. The Adventures of Robin Hood
2. The African Queen
3. Airplane!
4. All the President’s Men
5. Amadeus
6. An American in Paris
7. Annie Hall
8. Apollo 13
9. Back to the Future
10. Bambi
11. Ben-Hur
12. The Birds
13. Blazing Saddles
14. Born on the Fourth of July
15. Braveheart
16. The Breakfast Club
17. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
18. Casablanca
19. Chariots of Fire
20. Citizen Kane
21. A Clockwork Orange
22. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
23. Cool Hand Luke
24. Die Hard
25. Dirty Harry
26. Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
27. Duck Soup
28. The Empire Strikes Back
29. Fast Times at Ridgemont High
30. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
31. Finding Nemo
32. The French Connection
33. The General
34. Ghostbusters
35. Giant
36. The Godfather
37. The Godfather Part II
38. Going My Way
39. The Gold Rush
40. Goldfinger
41. Gone With the Wind
42. The Graduate
43. Grease
44. The Great Escape
45. Groundhog Day
46. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
47. High Noon
48. It’s a Wonderful Life
49. Jerry Maguire
50. Jurassic Park
51. The King and I
52. L.A. Confidential
53. Lawrence of Arabia
54. The Lion King
55. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
56. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
57. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
58. M*A*S*H
59. The Maltese Falcon
60. Mary Poppins
61. The Matrix
62. Meet Me in St. Louis
63. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
64. North By Northwest
65. On the Waterfront
66. The Outlaw Josey Wales
67. Patton
68. The Philadelphia Story
69. Pinocchio
70. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
71. Planet of the Apes
72. Platoon
73. Pulp Fiction
74. The Quiet Man
75. Raiders of the Lost Ark
76. The Road to Morocco
77. Rocky
78. Schindler’s List
79. The Searchers
80. Sense and Sensibility
81. The Shining
82. Singin’ in the Rain
83. Some Like it Hot
84. The Sound of Music
85. Spider Man 2
86. Stagecoach
87. Star Wars
88. The Sting
89. Taxi Driver
90. The Ten Commandments
91. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
92. This is Spinal Tap
93. To Kill a Mockingbird
94. Toy Story
95. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
96. 2001: A Space Odyssey
97. Unforgiven
98. Vertigo
99. Witness
100. The Wizard of Oz

Summer vacations

Excuse the lack of blogging this week. It's not that there is nothing I want to write about. It's just that I have no time. I'm covering for two other people at work this week while they are on vacation. I hope to be back soon.

Champions, again!

This photo sums up the Cavs series nicely, I think. Tim Duncan stuffing the ball back in LeBron James’ face in Game 1. That’s when you had the first inkling that it would be a sweep.
I do want to add, however, that I am not a LeBron basher. I went into this series kind of down on LeBron because I thought he was too arrogant, cocky and immature. But after seeing how he handled himself throughout the series, my respect for him has gone up. I think he definitely has what it takes to be a super-duper-star in the NBA.
I’m very happy that the Spurs swept the series. I didn’t want it to go to a Game 5. And we have Manu Ginobili to thank for that. In the fourth quarter last night it turned into the Manu show - with some support from Duncan, naturally. But without Manu’s effort at the end I think the Cavs might have slipped the noose and forced another game. Besides hitting all of his free throws, which were crucial, Manu made two exceptional drives to the basket and hit a big 3-pointer. But the play I liked the best was an assist. Manu had the ball at the top of the key, beyond the 3-point line when he suddenly gave a head fake and then fired a bullet pass right through the heart of the Cavs defense to Fabricio Oberto who had just inched away from his defender and was standing under the basket. Oberto made the easy basket and drew a foul for a 3-point play. Brilliant!
Tony Parker was of course great through the first three quarters and richly deserved his MVP trophy while Tim was just happy to get ring No. 4.
Are they a Dynasty? Damn straight! The Spurs are the most successful sports franchise of the past decade. The core of their team is locked up - assuming Duncan re-ups in ‘08 - through at least 2010. I can’t see the Spurs making any major adjustments over the off season. Duncan, Parker and Ginobili are all superstars. Bruce Bowen is hands-down the best defender in the NBA. Oberto has stepped up to be a valuable addition as a center who fits well with the rest of the team - he practically has a mindmeld going with Manu.
Robert Horry says he wants to play one more year and get his 8th championship ring. Michael Finley has some more good years in him and Brent Barry rounds out one of the best benches in the league with a roster full of 3-point aces. Even Francisco Elson and Jaques Vaughn have held their own as subs who can step in to give the stars a break. The only player on the team who seems to be expendable at this point is probably Beno Udrih.
I think the Spurs will be back next year whether the national media likes it or not. And this business of not giving the Spurs the R-E-S-P-E-C-T that they deserve is starting to make them look rather silly.

MVP prediction

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Tony Parker will be the NBA Championship Series MVP, especially if he outscores Tim Duncan in Game 4. So far, Parker has been the high-point scorer, including last night when he was having an off night. Duncan has been consistent, but Parker has overshadowed him in every game so far.
As for Bruce Bowen, I think he deserves a special award for the defensive hex he has put on LeBron James. The problem with being an excellent defensive player is that most people only notice when you screw-up. Otherwise, all your work is just expected.
Last night’s game was a real struggle for the Spurs. Nothing was going in. Poor Manu didn’t score a single basket the entire game until he hit a few free throws in the final seconds. Fortunately, Bowen and Brent Barry stepped up to nail four and three three-pointers, respectively, to make up for Manu’s sputtering offense. Still, that only kept the team just barely ahead of the Cavs, who fortunately were struggling even worse than the Spurs to make their shots. All in all it was an ugly game, but a sweet victory nonetheless.

Beatles influences

It’s the 40th anniversary of The Beatles’ “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” album and the accolades keep coming.
My introduction to the Beatles came in the mid-80s in college when I picked up a two-album collection called Rock 'n' Roll Music.
It was an awesome compilation put together by George Martin himself. I was literally blown away. I recorded the double-album onto a compact disc and played it in my car until the tape was literally worn out. To this day, “Twist and Shout” is probably my favorite all-time Beatles recording. My first Beatles album I purchased after that was “Abbey Road” followed by “The White Album.” By the time I finally got around to getting “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” it didn’t have the same impact it might have if I had bought it first.
But I had also been exposed to Sgt. Pepper’s years earlier in the form of the critically-panned movie that starred Peter Frampton and the Bee-Gees. I thought the movie was great (I was 12 at the time) and had no clue that all the music was by the same band.
The Express-News had an editorial in today’s paper commemorating the anniversary and in it they note that The Beatle’s musical foundation was based on “Elvis, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley.” Elvis and Chuck Berry, sure. They even recorded a version of Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven.” But Bo Diddley? What about Little Richard whose falsetto “woooooooo” was constantly immitated by Paul? And what about Buddy Holly? If we are going to talk about musical influences, you have to mention the kid from Lubbock, Texas. Paul has said many times that they chose the name Beatles (Silver Beetles initially) because they wanted to be like Buddy Holly and The Crickets.

Chiggers

I had to laugh at this Nacho Guarche cartoon the other day. Considering the infestation of chiggers we are dealing with here this spring, his suggestion of replacing the Spurs’ coyote mascot with a chigger actually has some merit.
Chiggers are nasty little bugs that live in the tall grass and undergrowth and leave little red welts wherever they bite. My wife and little boy are especially susceptible to them.
I’ve been spraying pesticides and clearing brush in our back area, but it only seems to have put a dent in them so far. But I’m planning a major “surge” this week and I’m confident that my backyard will soon be liberated from these parasitic pests.

A positive Spurs column

After reading the New York Times’ front page slobbery kiss-up to LeBron James that barely even mentions the San Antonio Spurs, I was pleasantly surprised to find this excellent column in the Washington Post:

Duncan's Exclusive Company

Now that LeBron James has become ABC's savior of the NBA Finals -- and LeBron says he is honored to be compared to Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Oscar Robertson and Gandhi -- we interrupt this homeroom crush for some genuine education.

The San Antonio Spurs are going to school Cleveland and win their fourth title, in six games or fewer, because they have the best player on the floor in the series. Tim Duncan, despite getting less love than jury duty, is maybe the largest difference-maker since Jordan....

When the Spurs are finished polishing off Cleveland, Duncan will not only eclipse Bird's three rings, he will join Magic and Michael as the only leading men with more than three championships with the same franchise since Bill Russell. Four decades after Russell, Duncan would join a class of three....

The perception of Duncan mirrored his team; he was coming off a season in which his body was breaking down and there simply were too many quick, young big men to rise over.

As usual, his detractors missed the importance of Duncan. His game has never been about explosiveness; it's about efficiency. His degree of difficulty has nothing to do with hang time and more to do with angles and trajectory, all the skill-level amenities missing from contemporary front-court players...

Drama is at a premium for Duncan, too; he's had the same coach, Gregg Popovich, his entire career. Often expressionless and unemotional since his days at Wake Forest, where the Duke student section referred to him as "Spock," there is a monotony to the way Duncan plays and carries himself that doesn't resonate in a culture run by celebrity.

He gets penalized for consistently playing and living between the lines while so many of his look-at-me peers obliterate the boundaries and become more popular for it. Polarization sells; professionalism is so '90s....

LeBron James reinvigorates the "Next Michael" debate after a sterling week of basketball. Meanwhile, if anyone wanted to look long and hard, Tim Duncan belongs at the top of that class more than Kobe, more than Dwyane Wade and certainly more than LeBron. More than any of them, he's won at a higher level.

Damn straight. Tim Duncan is a better ballplayer than James, who, to be fair, is still far too young and immature to make a good comparison. Duncan is just not as flashy. He is not the kind of player who is ever going to do a 360-degree spin, behind-the-head dunk. If Duncan has a clear shot at the basket, he is going to very carefully push the ball into the basket - very efficient, not very exciting. Duncan doesn’t play to the crowd, he plays to win.

Maverick McCain

Why isn’t John McCain doing better in the Republican primary race? I predicted earlier this year that McCain would be the GOP nominee in 2008. He has the most experience; solid name recognition; he’s the closest thing to a Reaganite conservative in the race; he is firmly in the “pro-life” camp on abortion; he is an ardent defender and apologist for the War in Iraq; etc, etc.
So how is it that he now finds himself lagging behind the liberal former Mayor of New York and the used-to-be-liberal former Governor of Massachussetts?
Is it because of his reality-based position on the immigration issue? I thought it was quite admirable that he stood up to the bullying of the other GOP candidates to defend the compromise legislation now in Congress. None of the other candidates have a realistic approach to the issue. All they can do is mouth idealistic pieties and pretend like this would somehow make the whole problem go away.
I suppose the immigration issue is the best indication as to why McCain is not doing well. His willingness to break away from the lock-step formation of the party faithful on issues such as immigration, gun control, campaign finance reform and the environment has given him the “Maverick” label which is would be an advantage in a national campaign, but is actually a disadvantage in a primary race.
But is this really enough to overshadow McCain’s solid conservative positions on other issues? According to his Wikipedia entry, McCain has “a strong pro-life voting record, a strong free trade voting record (including a 100% rating from the Cato Institute), wanting private social security accounts, being against socialized health care, supporting school vouchers, supporting the death penalty, supporting mandatory sentencing, and supporting welfare reform.”
All in all, a miserable record by my standpoint, but apparently not pure enough to suit the party faithful. So how is it that they would instead turn to a guy who is pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-gun control, etc. etc. as the alternative?
I’m flummoxed. I just don’t understand these people.

Senate succession

I have to agree with Matthew Yglesias that the Wyoming law on U.S. Senate succession is fair.
The sudden death of Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., might have given Democrats an opportunity to expand their razor-thin majority in the Senate, but state rules in Wyoming require that the governor, a Democrat, appoint a replacement from the same party as the prior office holder.
Other states should consider adopting this kind of rule.

Jefferson indicted

As I suspected, the reason Democrats didn’t immediatly jump up and denounce Rep. William Jefferson after his indictment and demand that he be stripped of his committee assignments was so that he could do so on his own.
Hopefully, Jefferson will now have the decency to resign from Congress and not drag his constituents and his party through a protracted fight. In the meantime, everyone should remember that when former Speaker Tom DeLay was indicted the Republican response was to award him a choice seat on the House Appropriations Committee.

Bush's surge

Bush’s surge in Iraq is cleary not working and even the Wall Street Journal can see the writing on the wall.

Can the Iraq 'Surge' Be Salvaged?

When the Bush administration decided to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Iraq, the strategy rested on an unspoken trade-off: U.S. troops would risk greater casualties to tamp down violence and buy the Baghdad government time to make the political compromises needed to reconcile the country's warring factions.
But a resurgence of sectarian violence and attacks on U.S. troops, coupled with little to no progress on crucial Iraqi political goals, is already spurring discussion about whether the current strategy can succeed.

Unpatriotic

In another thread at All Things Conservative my old friend Mark Harden has been having a grand old time calling me a “dumbass” and “unpatriotic” because I had the temerity to challenge Bill’s assertion that the sudden dismissal of terrorism charges against a 20-year-old Gitmo detainee (Age 15 at the time of his incarceration) is somehow supposed to be a sterling example of our “fairness.”
I asked how it was fair that this kid was left to rot at Guantanamo for 5 years before ever being brought up for a trial, only to have all the charges thrown out on a technicality.
Either way you look at the case it is a travesty. If the kid did nothing wrong, it’s a travesty that he spent the past five years at Gitmo. If he is truly a threat to the United States, then it is a travesty that they can’t seem to get their act together and bring charges against him.
And the last thing anyone would say about this case is that it is a sterling example of U.S. jurisprudence and “fairness.” But I’m apparently unpatriotic for saying that.

Banished

It seems I’ve been banished from my perch as one of the liberal punching bags over at All Things Conservative. I was in a bit of a snit the other night when Bill threw up one of those inane posts questioning whether Hillary Clinton has had plastic surgery recently. I sniped that it was a sexist thing to obsess about and noted that it never seemed to be a big issue that Ronald Reagan dyed his hair black for eight years. Well, Bill took that as a personal attack and went ballistic calling me “pathetic” and claiming that I always say something insulting whenever I post a comment over there.

Mike, you get pissed off at just about everything I write. You do so because you are either an angry, sad person, or you just want to rock the boat. It's getting old.
So you can take your sexist comment and shove it. How dare you sling that kind of insult at me.

He went on to conclude that “We don't HAVE to hear from YOU on EVERY single post.”

So I have to interpret that as a “you’re not welcome around here anymore, take your ball and go home” comment. And it is Bill’s blog so I will respect his wishes.

In the meantime, I suppose I should spend more time posting on my own blog.