The Return of "Sloppy" Sandy

Burger’s back! Hillary Clinton has brought convicted felon Sandy Berger in from the cold to be an advisor on her campaign staff. Read article here. Frankly, we were dumbfounded when we read about this. “Burglar” was convicted of stealing documents from the National Archives while he was prepping for his testimony as former National Security Advisor for Bill Clinton in front of the 9-11 Commission. The documents, written by Richard Clarke, did not shine the kindest of light on the Clinton Administration’s activities (or lack thereof) in confronting the terrorist threat posed by bin Laden and others in the 90s.

So here you have a guy that steals highly-classified documents to cover his and his former boss’s ass now in the inner circle of said former boss’s wife. Not to mention the fact that he may very well hold a high-level cabinet position in Hillary Clinton’s Administration should she win.

Now we know Hillary isn’t dumb… because we’ve been told she isn’t dumb. So maybe the more polite term is naïve’. Afterall, she’s never run for President before and she can’t possibly be expected to know that a brazen maneuver like this could backfire on her.

Or….. is it just sheer arrogance. The same sort of arrogance that the Bush people are accused of possessing. The type of brassy, in-your-face behavior that demonstrates that Hillary Clinton does not care a single iota what you think. Afterall, she is Hillary – dare you question.

We’ll leave this call up to you. Poll is to the right.

Better Late than Never

We make no apologies for our general disdain for coaches, particularly at the professional football level. It seems that they fall into this trap of having to prove to the world just how smart they are…. and how much more clever they are than the other coaches. Brian Billick is the poster-boy for this phenomena. The one-time offensive genius while with the Minnesota Vikings has fielded pathetic offensive units year after year as coach of the Baltimore Ravens (3 field goals and 0 touchdowns against the Niners yesterday, by the way). The man just oozes condescension when he speaks which doesn’t help matters any when we wonder why Billick is held in such great esteem.

And Jon “Chuckie” Gruden isn’t far behind Billick in these respects. All that phone book-sized playbook and play names that take up 20 seconds of the 35 second play clock to recite in the huddle have done for him is one of the most moribund offenses in the NFL.

So the only thing Norv Turner gets any credit for on Sunday is just getting the hell out of the way and letting his playmakers make plays in the Charger’s 41-3 trouncing of the Broncos. Actually, the play-calling and the on-field results were very reminiscent of his days in Dallas as the Cowboy’s offensive coordinator: a steady commitment to the running game and effective usage of play-action to go vertical in the passing game later on.

Even when LT wasn’t experience great success early on in the running game, the Chargers stuck with it realizing that it would (and did) pay dividends later on in opening up the passing game downfield to Antonio Gates and Vincent Jackson. We realize we are biased and we know that Randy Moss and Tom Brady are compiling ungodly stats playing catch in New England right now, but we can’t think of any other player who is having as good a season as Gates is.

Defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell is not off the hook, though. Still not generating much of a pass rush so credit has to be given to the secondary for their much improved play over last week in tackling and pass defense.

So it only took Turner a quarter of the season to figure out how to utilize the talent he has on the offensive side of the football. As we said, better late than never. If the Chargers can beat the Raiders here next Sunday, they will be at least tied for first place in what looks like a very suspect AFC West.

"We've got Stanford here on Saturday, right?"

Its time…. we’re ready to chisel this one in stone: Tis easier to get to the top than to stay at the top. Pete Carroll and his Trojans cemented this proclamation with their inexplicable 24-23 loss to Stanford last night at the Coliseum. This curious phenomena which we observed here, appears to have some legs. Its as if the initial surge of momentum and excitement that a new coach such as Pete Carroll can bring to a big-time program can not be maintained and thusly, in the hyper-competitive world of college football, the next Young Turk is always just around the corner.

We won’t pretend to know what is going on right now inside the USC program but something ain’t right. Going back to their Rose Bowl loss to Texas two years ago, USC is 15-4 and has dropped 3 of their last 8 conference games going back to last season. Whether the players on this roster have let the press clippings go to their head or they show up on campus as freshmen with a sense of entitlement, we aren’t sure. What we do know is that this program can officially be termed “under-achieving” and it certainly appears a degree of stagnation has settled in.

In terms of epic collapses, this upset even gets the nod over the App. State win at Michigan in the first weekend of the season. Forget about the 41 pt. spread - All one needs to know about how this match-up was perceived need only know that USC which has pretty much owned the prime time slots on ABC for the last couple of years was relegated to the Versus network (Versus?) for their game against Stanford. And the L.A. Times which usually reserves the left-side column of their front page Sunday print edition for Bush-slamming “news analysis” pieces, ran a story on the game in that space adjacent to a large color photo of Cardinal Mark Bradford’s winning touchdown grab.

This site predicted that USC would not go undefeated and in fact thought that a 2-loss regular season was in the offing, however, we will take zero credit for predicting what went down last night. We figured the losses would come on the road at snake pits like Autzen Stadium (Oregon) or at Cal later in the season…. not at home to…. Stanford….?

And feeling like they could not be outdone , UCLA allowed Notre Dame to get off the schneid in their 20-6 loss to the Domers out at the Rose Bowl to complete what has to be the most shocking and disappointing day of college football ever in Los Angeles.

College football has always been somewhat the comfort food of American sports. Long-standing traditions and rivalries are the pillars of the game and for the most part, the big-time programs have been that way for a very long time. That is why this season has been so bizarre and admittedly disconcerting as we have had to re-evaluate some long-standing beliefs of our own. To wit, LSU’s come-back win against Florida last night was proof that head coach Les Miles is indeed capable of getting out of his own way and is indeed capable of winning a big game.

So we will take a double serving of the mash potatoes with Texas’ loss to Oklahoma yesterday in the Red River shootout. No shame in losing by 7 to Oklahoma but to Longhorn fans and Mack Brown-doubters who enjoyed a brief respite from the perceived perennial underachieving while Vince Young was at QB, its still…. another loss to the Sooners and a 2nd straight conference loss.

... and this wacky college football season marches on.

"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.