New Hampshire Republican Debates

B-Daddy here. Stupid me; I switched channels during the Steelers-Jaguars games and found the Republican debates. I spent the rest of the game channel flipping between the game and the debates. Both events got me increasingly agitated. The kids and Mrs. Daddy were yelling at me to get some ice cream and watch a movie, but I couldn't pull myself away from either train wreck. (We eventually watched Danger: Diabolik, an Italian 60's thriller based on a comic book series. Lot of fun.)

I dropped in on the Republicans talking about health care and was appalled. Finally Mitt Romney said something decent about the free market, but I thought they were all incoherent and statist, except Ron Paul, who was merely incoherent.

Some quick takes. Most of the candidates had sharp barbs for Romney, whether out of personal enmity or because they judge him the front runner, I can't tell. For his part Romney looked just too defensive. This will never get him the presidency, because he doesn't look like the guy with sunshine on his face. (That had to go to Giuliani tonight.) McCain attacked the big pharmaceuticals as if he were Edwards. (To his credit, Romney fired right back that the pharmaceutical companies were doing good work trying to save lives.) Huckabee was very smooth, but sounded like a liberal to me on health care and more bizarrely, could only explain how he was actually like Obama, when asked to highlight the differences between himself and Obama. Fred Thompson was principled, conservative and occasionally seemed unprepared. He flat out refused to get suckered into calling for a special profits tax on Exxon-Mobil, but did a bad job explaining why. Also, I want to tag him as Still-in-Bed Fred, for just being too slow with his responses and lacking a grasp of meaningful detail. I liked the way Rudy Giuliani handled himself, again, but he's got a lot of 'splainin to do over immigration. Ron Paul was very erudite on immigration and health care, but I think he lost the audience. I could not fault him on his economics. But he just couldn't help himself from coming off as a crank later when asked about the price of oil he launched into some "we went to Iraq" to get the oil diatribe that I know in my heart he doesn't really believe. I'm really starting to hate this guy.

Best quote of the night: Mitt Romney, quoting P.J. O'Rourke (and giving credit): "If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it's free."

BTW, I have not read or listened to any other reactions to the debates, so if I sound like a country bumpkin, too bad, I haven't yet had my re-education from the spin doctors.

Two Point Madness

B-Daddy here. A quick note to the man at left on the Steelers debacle today and to all NFL coaches for that matter. STOP GOING FOR THE TWO POINT CONVERSION so early in the game! Dean has noted this before, but we need to document this for posterity. The final score was Jaguars-31, Steelers-29. Note also that the Steelers went for the two point conversion twice in the fourth quarter (the first with over ten minutes remaining) and failed both times. 1+1=2, the margin of defeat. This is the NFL for crying out loud. You have to expect to score some points, especially in the fourth quarter. So please stop this insanity.

NFL Playoffs.... Woo-hoo!

Ahhhhh, yes. The NFL Playoffs: where things are decided on the field. Proceedings commence in just a few hours as Wild Card weekend gets underway with Washington going on the road at Seattle.

There’s an axiom about not betting on a team whose quarterback is making his first playoff start (Brother Eli, Chris Simms, Byron Leftwich and though he didn’t play poorly last year, Philip Rivers, are all cases in point over the past 2 years) but does this apply to a quarterback who is a 10-year veteran like the Redskin’s Todd Collins? The Redskins have been playing inspired football since the death of Sean Taylor and we like their defense against a Seattle team that has all but given up on the running game. Take the ‘Skins and the 3-1/2 pts. to keep it close in the rain (love that half-point!).



It appears that the Steelers have had to make some “adjustments” to new coach Mike Tomlin just as the Chargers have to Norv Turner. Unfortunately, its been in fits and starts all season and they do not have any of the forward momentum the Chargers do. Give the 3 points and Jacksonville’s power running game against the Steelers’ nicked-up defense in the slop at Heinz field this evening in the primetime.



Tomorrow… Two competing thoughts of conventional wisdom we’ve heard circulating regarding the New York football Giants visit to Tampa Bay: a) The Giants showed they could play with the best team in football by hanging tough against the Patriots last week – this gives them the confidence to beat anybody they meet in the NFC side of the bracket and b) instead of possibly resting some of their starters, the Giants played their “Super Bowl” last week and will have an emotional letdown against the Bucs. Both are viable opinions though we are siding with option “a”. Take the G-men (+2-1/2) against a Bucs team that has zero momentum going in. This pick in no way reflects the utter contempt we have for Tampa coach Jon “Chucky” Gruden. None, whatsoever.

And last but certainly not least…. A caller in to Hacksaw’s show yesterday noted the karmic reversal of fortune as it was the Titans who were accused of cheap-shotting the Chargers when they played early in December and it is now the Titans who enter their game against these same Chargers as perhaps the most banged-up team in the playoffs. Titans head coach, Jeff Fisher, says the starting QB will not be named until right before the game

tomorrow. Whether this is truly to allow more time to assess Vince Young’s quadriceps injury or just gamesmanship is indeterminate. We prefer to see a hobbling Vince Young (first playoff start) to the veteran Kerry Collins who is perfectly capable of the “veteran-backup-pulls-off-the-stunner” routine. The Chargers are about as healthy as they have been since the start of the season, but…. jeez, we Charger fans are developing a complex… barely enough tickets were sold to avoid the T.V. blackout. We were in the Murph just 3 years ago when the Chargers laid an egg in the rain against a 9-point dog in the New York Jets. We’re hedging: like the Chargers to win in a sloppy game but take the Titans and the 10(!) points.

… there’s something called the International Bowl (from Toronto) on right now between Rutgers and Ball St. If we can execute a portion of BwD’s foreign policy plan by annexing parts of Canada… the cool parts like British Columbia, the oil fields in Alberta and T-Town itself, we can just rename it the National Bowl and avoid the horrible exchange rate.

Internet Watch Pt. I

This nasty little gem of a website was brought to our attention via Little Green Footballs.

If the unholy miscreants at Weasel Zippers aren't careful, they just may wind up on our (far)right hand margin "watch list".

Hey, we've got the duty this weekend and we're not happy about it. Its late... hand over that six-pack and give us some more "War Porn".

The Internet.... Still not Their Friend.

Despite all the glitz, glam and flash of the internet and particularly the internet of the hard-left netroot crowd, its influence and effectiveness is once again being called into question. After first failing to get Howard Dean more than a few feet off the launch pad back in ’04, they were unable to affect any substantive changes to the approaches to the War in Iraq and the broader War on Terror despite the Democrats taking control of Congress in the ’06 mid-terms. Now, Obama’s victory in Iowa is being viewed as yet another blow to the clout that the ‘roots wield as they view Obama as not sufficiently grounded in their whack-camp. We had some thoughts on this phenomena here from back in September. And regarding the current assessments with respect to Iowa/Obama click here for a piece from the Heritage Foundation and here to knock off a piece of the Weekly Standard.

Also, our home-cat, KT had some thoughts of his own regarding Obama and the issue of race in this country.

Mike Huckabee IS the 3rd Party Candidate

In this Washington Time's article from back in October, it opined on the possibility that Mike Huckabee's evangelical supporters might bolt from the Republican Party to form a 3rd party if they weren't getting the proper respect from the Republican establishment. Those inside the Party feared, of course, that this would automatically hand the Presidency to the Democrats.

Well, with Huck's victory tonight in the Iowa caucus, its apparent that he is getting the respect from the Republican party voters but that does not make him any less of a 3rd party candidate.

We don't want to be a tease but its late and there will definetely be more on this later but.... Huckabee has wound up as a defacto 3rd party candidate precisely because he wants to be a 3rd party candidate. Any legitimate questions of his record as Governor of Arkansas have been viewed by he and his supporters as either attacks from "the Establishment" or "the Beltway" of the Republican Party or attacks on Huckabee because he is an evangelical Christian and they have spared nothing in publically expressing the same.

He has purposefully played the victim role to set himself outside what his campaign portrays as the establishment of the Party and that's what rubs us the wrong way and that is what may possibly divide the Republican Party just as effectively if he split to run on a 3rd Party ticket.

Its the issues, stupid... We nor any fellow (R)s we know hold Huck's fervent Christianity against him but that is precisely what he wants people to think. Its going to come with a price, though - either for him or the Party. The longer he plays the victim role, the more primary voters are going to be turned off by it. Its now just a race against time to see whether or not he can secure enough delegates to win the nomination before everyone wakes up to his schtick.

Bill and George's International Roadie.... On Hold?

“Himself”, Bill Clinton, quipped about 3 months ago that if Hillary won the Presidency, the first thing she would do is send he and former President George H. W. Bush on a world-wide goodwill tour to mend the all the fences destroyed by the current Administration and to remind everybody that once again, “America was open for business.”

Of course, this was news to the other principals involved but no matter…. it appears that some of our most strategic allies have beaten “himself” to the punch by placing conservative, pro-American leaders at the heads of their respective governments. Read here for article from American Thinker about the heads-of-state trend in Canada, Great Britain, France and Germany that runs counter to the conventional wisdom.

Some Bowl Season Thoughts

As the bowl season winds down to its merciful conclusion (rumor has it there will be a championship game of sorts sometime next week), we had some thoughts about the games, teams and programs we’ve watched thus far:

Outside an epic collapse against Stanford, the ’07 season had to feel like Groundhog Day all over again for the USC Trojans. An 11-2 season, 2 conference losses, another thumping of Notre Dame and all other non-conference opponents and another ass-kicking of a hopelessly out-classed Big Ten team in the Rose Bowl made it a virtual mirror image of the ’06 season. And take a look at their schedule next year and ask yourself if a “three-peat” is not in the offing.

And for you BCS supporters out there, after watching SC destroy Illinois (and their spread-option offense), ask yourself if you really think this BCS thing works. We know it’s a slippery slope to play the comparative win/loss thing but SC humiliated the team that Ohio St. loss to and Ohio St. will play a LSU team that will probably be the first (and hopefully ever) 2-loss national champion. What a great system!


Oklahoma…. We don’t want to say Bob Stoops is on notice…. but Bob Stoops is on notice. We commented before the regular season that though Stoops was not on the hot seat, Sooner fans were starting to get a little edgy that Oklahoma had not appeared in the BCS title game since beating Florida St. after the 2000 season. And that fact itself would not be so bad if the Sooners had not dropped 4 of their last 5 BCS bowl games including a 20-point loss last night to West Virginia, the epic upsest loss to Boise St. last year and a 55-19 thanks-for-showing-up-and-collecting-the-game check "appearance" against USC 3 years ago in the BCS title game. For one of the 6 or 7 mega-programs in the nation that expects to compete for the championship every year, this is entirely unacceptable.

In fact, as opposed to Oklahoma, its precisely because USC shows up to not just win but abuse their BCS opponent every year, that makes these multiple loss seasons much more tolerable (a 5-1 record in their last 6 while outscoring their opponents by an average of 23 points in those 5 victories).

Great win by 10 pt. underdog Michigan in Coach Lloyd Carr’s last game against Florida in the Gator Bowl. What was up, though, with incoming coach Rich Rodriguez (formerly of West Virginia) on the Michigan sideline? We understand that Rodriguez was invited by Carr himself but the class move would’ve been to politely decline so as to not be a distraction and to allow Carr one last moment of glory as a Michigan's Man.

Kansas (and perhaps the largest man you will ever see roaming the sidelines) takes on Virginia Tech tonight in the Orange Bowl for your antidote to the Hawkeye Caucii. Orange Bowl... hmmm... Hey, do you think we'll see these guys?

Too Little, Too Late?

For the first time that we have heard, a Republican candidate has heeded B-Dadddy’s advise to run against Congress and not against Hillary. Click here for Fred Thompson’s Iowa caucus “closing argument” video that we found at Instapundit. Its about 15 minutes long (the potential Democrat presidency/disastrous Democrat-controlled Congress nexus is made about 4 minutes in)… yeah, Fred’s a different cat, alright, but we admire anybody in these 30-second sound-byte times that will actually spend a little sit-down time with us to explain who he is and what his positions are.

Contrast that with a clip from a recent Hillary Clinton ad and the ensuing “analysis” by paid professionals generally making (sexist) asses of themselves on Hardball. Click here.

... But Maybe its Because Being a Guy is Just More Fun

Evan Thomas, the assistant managing editor of Newsweek, made some very revealing remarks regarding the ’04 Presidential election. In separate interviews he claimed the media’s treatment of both candidates, John Kerry and George Bush, was worth 15 points for Kerry, then he claimed 5 points for Kerry and then later said those claims were “stupid” while retracting them both. Uhh… OK.

Now, Evan doesn’t think the wussification of America is proceeding as rapidly as he would like. Read article from Newsweek here.

2008. What to look forward to…. Well, in the short-term, 6 absolutely meaningless bowl games. Any New Year’s wishes…? For starters, blowup this travesty of a mockery of a sham called the BCS and go to a full-blown playoff system or just go back to the old bowl format circa 1980. And the presidential candidates have been out on the campaign trail in earnest (but mostly Iowa and New Hampshire) for 6 months now with 10 more to go until the general election in November…. can we do something about that?

“New Year’s resolutions”, anyone? We’ve never been much for them so no reason to start now.

(A Mongo update: An “Up With People” sighting at the Rose Parade. He swears it. We believed we saw their swan song performance at half-time of the Holiday Bowl about 3-4 years ago. These khaki-clad, polo shirt-wearing individuals with the chemically-enhanced smiles were the self-affirmation shock troops of the 70s. We put them only a notch above clowns for the ability to cause “unease” among children and a notch above mimes and magic tricks for “general benefit to society.” By the way, the update was provided by a phone call… on a land line. No text, no email, no smoke signals. Just wanted to point that out.)

Happy New Years, everyone!