"heh, heh, heh, heh.... still smiling... still not Charlie Weis."

Housekeeping item, we’ve been meaning to get around to: Eons ago, probably like about 1-1/2 months back we posted on a possible phenomena of coaches leading their teams to a national championship but then never duplicating the feat. We totally forgot about Michigan coach, Lloyd Carr who won it in his 3rd year back in ’97. And despite what a disaster the first two weeks of the season were for the Maize and Blue, they are undefeated in conference play and thus still in the hunt for the Rose Bowl. Anyway, updated post with a couple more thoughts on the matter can be found here.

In what looked like a possibly “epic” weekend of college football last Saturday around 9 PDT, has been downgraded to merely “very good”. Oklahoma, Texas and Florida fell from the ranks of the unbeaten so the Red River shootout and Florida – LSU will not have the same appeal…. someone though, either Oklahoma and Texas, will be limping out of Dallas with 2 losses so that will be worth the price of admission alone.

And in a broader context, the shocking losses experienced by the Sooners and Longhorns now leads us to question why the Big 12 has been able to slip the criticism that has been levied at the Pac-10 the last few years? All that grief, all that sniping of the Pac-10 being soft, 2nd rate or not-yet-ready-for prime time… that’s been the Big 12! Outside of Oklahoma and an underachieving Texas program, the Big 12 has been a very mediocre to poor conference the past 4 or 5 years.

For us, this LSU-Florida game will be as much about the coaches as the players lining up on the field tomorrow night in Baton Rouge. Even with an edge in talent, we’re confident LSU head ball coach, Les Miles will do just enough to keep this one interesting. Conversely, we gotta hunch that Gator coach Urban Meyer has leveraged his team’s loss to Auburn last week to optimal effect…. Tim Tebow and the boys will be ready. Football…. under the lights… at Death Valley. Awesomeness…

UCLA has a chance to avenge its absolutely inexplicable loss-by-coaching performance of last year (and which inspired this) in South Bend by hosting the winless Irish in Pasadena as 3 touchdown favorites. UCLA remains one of the most hard-to-figure teams in the nation so despite that huge line, anything can and probably will happen in this game.

A banged-up USC team plays Stanford as 40 point favorites. The conventional wisdom is that this “scrimmage” will give the Trojans a breather and thus a chance to mend-up with the injuries to the O-line, linebacking and secondary units. The last thing they need after that 16 penalty performance last week is a breather. Stanford will not inspire a performance required from a team that has to start ramping up the precision and intensity needed for the teeth of the conference schedule. Besides, SC only beats its SEC opponents by 40.

Clemson v. Virginia Tech. Clemson’s run offense vs. Tech’s run defense. Bring a lunch.

Enjoy the games.

Is it Really, "All about the Benjamins"?

“Oh jeez….. another post about Democrats. C’mon. When are you guys going to talk about the Republican candidates….?”

Yeah, we’ll get around to those guys here soon. Its just that they’re so… so boring. So boring and so… white. B-Daddy had his assessment here, but its so much more fun writing about the minority rock stars on the Democrat side, Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hey, don’t look at us that way, Elizabeth Edwards agrees with us.

Besides, outside of Mike Huckabee perhaps (Mike who…?), none of those turkeys on the Republican side have really distinguished themselves from the others.

But hey… for another post.

Wouldya just look at all the money H-Rod and O-Back are rolling in right now? But rather than sounding the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform alarms of “money corrupting the political process” or “money unduly influencing the process…”, the press appears downright giddy in reporting out the millions that are now in the coffers of the two leading Democrats.

According to the article here, Clinton raised $22 million in the 3rd quarter for the primaries vs. $20 mil for Obama, although Obama still holds the overall edge in primary fundraising $74.9 mil to $72.6. The article doesn’t say whether Clinton’s totals include the millions raised by “disgraced Democratic fundraiser”, Norman Hsu, which she promised to give back or anyone else in Clinton Inc.’s “Asian Connection”.

We’re going to keep banging the drum on this but you will never remove money from politics by any degree until you remove power from politics by that same degree. Campaign donations are simply an effort to purchase influence or power in a certain candidate should that person win that election.

And to be honest, don’t know if we have a real problem with all that money Clinton and Obama are collecting. George Soros and Norman Hsu aside, isn’t that money a barometer of sorts for how much they and their ideas appeal to members of their Party? And conversely, doesn’t the relatively paltry amount of money raised thus far by the Republican candidates reflect how little the Party faithful are excited by their guys?

Certainly seems that way to us. We welcome opinions to the contrary.

NOW, He gets all Conservative on Us.

The President vetoed a bill that would increase a federal children’s health insurance plan by $35 billion dollars over 5 years effectively adding 10 million children to the dole… err to the roles. Read CNN.com story here.

The Democrats are waiting until October 18 to put this to a vote again and to track down the lone Democrat in the House who voted against the bill and who is now in deep hiding. Props to CNN.com for having the mercy, compassion and respect to not even print the name of this person. "Dead man Walking!!!"

Bush’s logic of wanting to keep healthcare in the private sector has left us wondering what ghost-demon of Barry Goldwater has taken possession of the President’s body. We haven’t heard this sort of talk from him in years. Too weird, man - something’s up.

Of course, this all illustrates why it is so easy to vilify conservatives for being heartless and mean-spirited because how could anyone that denies $35 billion to sick and starving children be anything but.

Since we are confident that there was probably no concrete rationale for how $35 billion dollars was settled on (“…it just kind of looks like a good, nice, round number doesn’t it? $35 bil over 5 years… adds 10 million kids to the plan… the math is easy… Hell, lets go with it.”) we want to turn the argument on it head: Why stop at $35 billion and 10 million kids? Why not $70 billion and 20 million kids? How could the Democrats be that heartless as to leave out that 10 million extra kids they could cover for a measly $70 billion?

As we alluded to, something about all this is not printing out? We're not sure what the President has to gain NOW that he’s on his way out and the fact that this veto reverses a long trend of run-away spending. We’ll be monitoring this but suffice to say, these days, we’ll take these small victories any way we can get them.

You're Just not Feeling Enough of His Pain.

As alluded to in the previous post, it frustrates us to no end, that it takes the Democrats to define what the Republicans should be standing for. David Obey (D – Wisconsin) chairman of the House Appropriations Committee is tired of getting jerked around by the Administration and the Republicans over the war in Iraq…. and he’s not going to take it anymore! Obey (a perfect name for a liberal, we believe) thinks that you should be paying for the war… well, since we already are, perhaps he is thinking that we should be paying for even more of it via a surtax. Read about it here.

And it must've have taken all the earthly and divine powers that could be summoned for Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to fight their Pavlovian impulses to raise taxes by steering clear of this sure loser. For their part, they are not down with this plan… even if it meant taxing the rich.

But here is the depressing part. White House spokeswoman (spokeswoman? Will Bush get any credit for this - another first in the most minority-friendly Administration in history? Yeah, you’re right, probably not) had this to say about the surtax:

"On this idea of raising taxes on the American people right now to fund a war, well, does that sunset? Do they wait for Al Qaeda to wave a white flag and then those taxes are going to go away? Does anyone seriously believe that the Democrats are going to end these new taxes that they're asking the American people to pay at a time when it's not necessary to pay them? I just think it's completely fiscally irresponsible, and the president won't go along with it,"

She’s right by the way, and the “sunset” term she used is in reference to the Bush tax cuts that have an expiration date or a sunset. We want to turn this question back around on the Bush Administration and the Republican lawmakers… “Yeah, what about those tax cuts that will soon expire? What about those tax cuts that as much as any other factor lifted us out of the 'worst economy since the Great Depression' in the wake of the dot.com bubble burst, the accounting scandals and 9-11?”

Tax cuts: More money in your pockets and less money in the government’s. This is a good thing. No, really. It is. Trust us on this one.

We’re fully cognizant of the fact that the Republicans through their own ineptness don’t have control of either House so initiating legislation to extend or make permanent these tax cuts is nigh impossible, but last we checked a Republican, the same Republican who authored and evangelized for these tax cuts is still in the Oval Office. So…? What say ye, President Bush?

At least he gave Social Security Reform a half-assed attempt. He was cut-off at the knees by members of his own party from the geriatric havens of Pennsylvania and West Virginia that wanted no part of it. We have yet to hear anything from his bully pulpit, though, on these tax cuts. And we don’t want to hear anything about him being a lame-duck. For crying out loud, he’s still got almost a year and a half to call-out the Democrats for their inaction on this matter because the Democrats simply doing nothing is essentially an act of commission in raising your taxes.

What is there to lose in spending these next 16 or so months, nagging and hectoring the Democrats on this issue? Nothing… besides it would be fun and informative. Make them squirm and come clean to the American public about who they really are and what their true motives are.

We ain’t holding our breath, though.

Carrying their water because they won’t….

Got Desperation...?

While Congressional Democrats have busied themselves the past few months criticizing the fledgling Iraqi government for failing to meet certain progress “benchmarks” it has dawned on them recently that they have a few benchmark problems of their own.

(one can imagine the Iraqi parliament feeling like school children given a homework assignment by Head Master Harry Reid and then being nagged and harangued by Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi as to why it wasn’t completed…. yesterday! That is why we applauded Prime Minister Nouru al-Maliki, here, when he fired back at his American study hall monitors asking them to kindly mind their own damn business).

Back in November, the kook netroot crowd was patting themselves on the back and taking credit for defeating the Republicans and providing a mandate to President Bush to end his illegal war in Iraq and to bring the troops home. Of course, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi were going to be the point people to lead their freshly-minted Congressional shock troops in achieving this end.

Well, things haven’t gone quite as planned and the netroots have been beside themselves because of it. Aside from a handful of Republicans they’ve managed to peel off, a combination of military and political success in Iraq with a steadfast resolve displayed by the Administration has made it tough sledding for the Democrats in their attempts to secure defeat there in Iraq.

Of course, this episode is even more evidentiary of how the Democrats won back both Houses, not because of the War, but because Republicans stopped doing what got them there in the first place (the preaching and actual practice at times of government minimalism and fiscal restraint). We welcome, though, the continuing assessments by Democrat strategy-types to the contrary.

So its come to this… their petty and childish behavior towards General Petraeus a few weeks back during his Congressional hearings, MoveOn.org’s ridiculous attempt to discredit the same General (“General BeTrayus”…. BeTrayus – Petraeus… get it?) and their litany of failed resolutions in Congress have all fallen flat with the U.S. voter. In fact, its back-fired on them, so they now attempt to turn the tide of public opinion by attacking talk-show host Rush Limbaugh by accusing him of calling the U.S. service men and woman “phony troops”.

The alleged offending phrase was quipped because there are actual “phony troops” that have been posing as legitimate service men who have tried to secure benefits not entitled to them. Read here.

But, you know… all that doesn’t really even matter because the salient point here is that the Democrats are in such desperate straights to prove to the general public that they support the troops (we had some slight reservations – read here) while simultaneously trying to impress the kook-wing of their Party by standing up to the Republicans that all they are left with is a pathetic stunt like this.

The Republicans, not wanting to be left out of this circus, have put together a resolution praising Limbaugh for his continued support of the troops over the years. We sort of cringed when we read about that… it seems that the best way to combat absurdity is to just leave it alone. However, after the whole of the Republican establishment threw Bill Bennett under the bus for his comments about abortion, blacks and crime that were taken 100% out of context maybe it’s a good thing to see some Republicans develop a spine and challenge the Democrats on this.

One of our favorite quotes of all time is courtesy Economist Thomas Sowell who quipped, "Sometimes the only reason to vote Republican is Democrats". We think this situation applies.

Boy... Did Things Get Out of Hand Yesterday or What?

(Upon waking up Sunday morning and surveying the wreckage in his dorm room, College Football America decides on a plan to rid his skull of his raging hang-over and doing a double take at his acquired company from the previous evening decides whether or not to start gnawing off his arm. Yes, it was that ugly)

Guest author, The Substitute had a saying related to the relative success of the University of Texas football program: “Doing less with more than any other program in America.” It had become a favorite of ours that we felt might have to be shelved because of Texas’ win over USC in that epic Rose Bowl 2 years ago and its subsequent winning of the BCS title.

Well, it appears that we may be able to dust it off as perhaps head coach Mack Brown’s climb to the top of the mountain was due more to the singular excellence at QB of one Vince Young than any break-through of the Longhorn program or by Brown as a coach. Kanas St.’s trashing of Texas, 41-21, has signaled perhaps that Brown and the Longhorns are back to their Red River shootout-losing and underachieving ways as this was the 2nd straight loss to a clearly inferior Wildcat program. O joy.

Not a good day for top-25 teams yesterday. It was like the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan where the troops were disembarking from the LCUs only to get mowed down by Nazi machine gun fire… but replacing G.I.’s with top-25 teams. The carnage started early and just continued through the day.

It would almost be easier to talk about who didn’t lose rather than who did as 4 of the top 7, 7 of the top 13 and a total of 9 top-25 teams wound up on the wrong end of the scoreboard yesterday.

And perhaps most disappointing of all, with Texas, Oklahoma and Florida all losing, it puts a damper on what would’ve been two great conference match-ups next Saturday (Florida plays undefeated LSU in Baton Rouge and Texas plays Oklahoma at the State Fair in Dallas).

As for the victors Saturday, the AP voters were unimpressed with USC’s sloppy win over Washington and placed LSU No. 1 over USC (#2). In fact, they were in a very rewarding mood for those teams that have remained undefeated, vaulting Cal, Ohio St., Wisconsin, South Florida, Boston College and Kentucky all over 1-loss Florida and Oklahoma.

Its early and things will probably sort themselves out as the season progresses but there is no way in hell that any of those aforementioned teams, outside of Cal and Ohio State, are better than a one-loss Florida team. These polls remain a bad joke and unfortunately, there is no real move afoot to reform the process.

"Maybe if I'm real quiet I can just slip my arm.... oh hey, yeah, hi.... hi.... how are you doing?"

....Or Maybe this is the Charger's New Mascot?

(Many thanks to B-Daddy for holding down the fort this weekend as we were visiting family up in Orange County and though it may seem like piling on from what was posted by B-Daddy already this afternoon, we did have a few thoughts of our own… )

Well, this certainly cannot be considered good news by any measure but it has become evident that the Charger players are entirely on their own. Everything that has been lacking from a coaching and leadership standpoint this season was epitomized in a single coaching decision made in the 4th quarter of today’s jaw-dropping loss. Down by 7 and driving, QB Philip Rivers faded back to pass. He brought his throwing arm up and then appeared to start bringing his arm back down out of the throwing motion when he was hit, fumbled the ball and the ball was then picked up by a Chief defender and returned for a touchdown… game over.

“Tuck Rule” was our immediate thought. Head Coach, Norv Turner is going to throw the challenge flag, right? He has to. The obscure throwing motion rule that saved Tom Brady and the New England Patriot’s bacon a few years back in the AFC championship game certainly looked like it may apply here with River’s fumble. And may apply is the key term here. If you let the play go without challenging the ruling as the head coach, you are essentially conceding defeat. But in this situation, if there is just a glimmer of hope that the replay officials may see the play as a “continuation of the forward throwing motion” and thus an incomplete pass……. You Have to Throw the Challenge Flag!

Never happened.... Never... happened. We were dumbfounded – utterly shocked and frankly horrified that we saw a coaching staff just give up on their team. There is no reasonable explanation for not throwing the challenge flag there.

So as we were saying originally, the players are on their own and that ain’t good news because outside 1 or 2 players on this team like LT or fullback Lorenzon Neal we see no one with the intestinal fortitude and heart to step up, take over the leadership void and start infusing the individual players on this team with some heart of their own. Guess its not all about brains, afterall.

Outside of LT’s performance in the 1st half, we cannot think of a single positive thing to say about today’s performance. Even GM A.J. Smith is going to get some as he assembled this pathetic coaching staff… and we couldn’t help but notice that Dwayne Bowe (8 catches, 160+ yards) was the LSU receiver that the Chargers didn’t draft this past spring. But to be fair to A.J. and receiver Craig Davis, Davis wasn’t going against the Charger’s defense.

Home crowd, against a mediocre opponent with your backs against the wall….. If you can’t win a game like that then the spray-painting is on the wall for a very long season.

Coach of the Year? Not!

I am writing this at the break between the third and fourth quarters of the Chargers - Chiefs game, tied at 16. Win or lose today, I am just disgusted at the lack of imagination and abysmal play calling on the Charger side of the ball. As Dean, pointed out before, why can't we see Turner and LT in the game at the same time? Also, when Turner is the running back, OF COURSE, he is going to get the hand off. I know it, you know it, and of course the entire Kansas City Chief defense knows it as well. Hence, the loss for two yards. There is no doubt that the Chargers could be taking it to the Chiefs with their running game to allow Rivers to get in sync. Not happenin' today.
Clearly, the Chargers have way more physical talent than the Chiefs, and they may win this game on that alone. But I hope not. Like an alcoholic that needs to hit bottom before they hit twelve-step, this team needs a shocking loss to wake up their sorry coaching staff.

Happy Negro

Recently, Juan Williams, pictured here was called a "Happy Negro" by Boyce Watkins. As usual, when a black man wanders off the reservation and doesn't tow the liberal party line, he is labeled with some epithet questioning his authenticity as a black. Some quick background; on his radio show, Bill O'Reilly made some nice comments about Sylvia's, a restaurant in Harlem where he lunched with Al Sharpton. Juan Williams was a guest on the show at the time. Later, the lefty blogosphere put the comments in the high spin cycle and out came a racist interpretation. More on this here and here. Later, Williams defended O'Reilly as an actual witness to the conversation. Hence the vitriol being slung his direction.

My point here is the consistent racism on the left. Yes, you heard it here first, left wingers are more likely to be racists than conservatives.
Exhibit one: Conservative blacks are labeled Uncle Toms or worse. The underlying racist attitude is that blacks can't be conservatives, that's reserved for whites. See the poo flung at Michael Steele, black candidate for the Senate in Maryland, 2006.
Exhibit two: Affirmative action/racial preferences in hiring. The underlying racist attitude is that blacks and other minorities can't make it without special help, that they are somehow inferior because of their race. If that isn't hidden racism, I challenge the readers to tell me what is.
Exhibit three: The welfare state, which disproportionately created dependency among minorities. Often we are lectured that a policy is racist if it has a discriminatory outcome (like using SAT scores for college admissions.) The racist outcome of the welfare state was the creation of a disproportionately black permanent underclass.

I say it again, the left is more racist than conservatives. The prosecution rests.

Coach of the Year?

At halftime of this evening's win over West Virginia, I was thinking that, if his Bulls won this game, USF's Jim Leavitt would have my vote for coach of the year. On the first drive of the third quarter, I changed my mind. With fourth and inches on their own 30 yard line, the Bulls went for the first down. That cinched it for me, win or lose, he had my vote. Not because I believe in recklessness, but because the man has game sense. As documented else where in this column by Dean, coaches don't seem to watch games, just game film. Coach Leavitt seems to be the exception, he went for the jugular with a team he believed he had to put away early. Later in the game, sitting on an 8 point lead with under three minutes left, USF BLITZED!! Hooyah! No sitting in the prevent and letting the back up quarterback drive down the field. I am convinced that bringing the pressure sealed the victory.

It is well documented that football coaches as a group, especially at the professional level, are more risk averse than circumstances warrant, almost always punting on fourth down for example. (See debunking of this proclivity here.) Great to see a coach with the fortitude to not worry about the critics, but ot just think, "How can we win this thing."

Gettin' that Love Train back on Track

From Hollywood to the Upper West Side and spreading out to college campuses across America, a huge sigh of relief was exhaled… its safe to swoon for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad again. You see, after that unfortunate little slip-up at Columbia University regarding the lack of gays in his country our boy made a nice recovery by visiting fellow thug dictator Hugo Chavez of Venezuela on Thursday. It was a regular ol’ love-in as the two showered each other with praise and took turns slamming the “imperialist” Americans.

This follows closely on the heels of a visit by American actor Kevin Spacey to pay his respects to Hugo. Other actors/thug apologists such as Sean Penn and Danny Glover have also made trips to Venezuela.

Whether its Chavez, Castro or Sadaam Hussein, its almost a knee-jerk reaction for some folks in this country to cozy-up to these people. We figure the only reason there hasn’t been a George Soros-sponsored “peace and understanding” junket to spoon with Kim Jong-Il is that the weather in Pyongyang is crappy six-months out of the year. C’mon, Havanna or P-town? It’s a no-brainer.

But as we were saying, it was good to see Mahmoud taking the necessary steps to right the ship and get the usual suspects here in our country back in his corner.

At the beginning of the week, we had no intentions of posting about this guy. And never ones to be mistaken for serious journalists, we now know however, what is meant by that adage of a “story just writing itself.” His performance here was just too good to pass up (his quote regarding gays, "In Iran, we don't have this phenomena. I don't know who told you we have it." is one of our favorite lines of smack we've heard so far this year). So we extend our warmest regards and gratitude to Mahmoud Ahmedinejad for making our little hobby here so much easier. Thanks, bro… you’ll be missed. Looking forward to next time.