Democracy is, like, hard

Back on March 3rd, here’s what the President had to say regarding the way-ahead for passing healthcare reform:

President Barack Obama launched the endgame on healthcare Wednesday, urging Congress to “finish its work.”

Obama said he believes Congress owes the American people a final up-or-down vote on healthcare reform, but did not use the word reconciliation.

Vote. What a novel concept. What say ye, Stretch?

After laying the groundwork for a decisive vote this week on the Senate's health-care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it.

Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers "deem" the health-care bill to be passed.

The tactic -- known as a "self-executing rule" or a "deem and pass" -- has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.

(italics, ours)

Any pretense of democratic accountability has just gone out the window with “deem and pass”. After all, it would be just too much to ask our elected representatives to do what the hell it was we sent them to Washington to do.


And with respect to this “self-executing rule”, we are reminded of the late great John McKay who was the legendary football coach at USC before being brought back down to earth as the coach of the spectacularly hapless expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers. After one particular woeful performance in their inaugural 0-14 season, McKay was asked by the press what he thought of his teams execution. McKay deadpanned, “I’m in favor of it”.

Have at it, Congress.


Does the President have the nerve to dare sign this thing should it make it to his desk in this fashion? Whatever happens, we will hand it to him, though. In our minds, he has officially delivered on his promise to change the way business is done in Washington. Whatever manner of sleazy, unseemly and downright undemocratic and corrupt politics that existed in D.C. before this is now nearly lost to memory as the good ol’ days of D.C. good governance.

Mission Accomplished!

College football Saturday open thread

We’ll miss our hi-def LCD out in the high desert but there is something to be said for scanning the dial and trying to pull in a scratchy AM radio signal out in the wilderness.

A relatively slow weekend as there are only two games featuring two ranked teams: #5 USC goes on the road to another one of those Pac-10 snake pits in Autzen Stadium on the campus of the University of Oregon and #3 Texas goes to Stillwater to take on #14 Oklahoma St.

And we would be remiss if we neglected to mention B-Daddy’s Midshipmen of Navy (6-2) hosting the Temple Owls (5-2).

The Saturday Evening Post

... which will definetely not be a regular feature.

Death, taxes and… USC dropping an in-conference game to a double-digit underdog.

As much as we cannot stand Mike Lupica, he made a highly controversial point on ESPN’s Sports Reporters show last Sunday (after their win at Columbus against Ohio State, no less) that the program has underachieved and it is a point to which we cannot necessarily disagree because we said the same damn thing 2 years ago after SC’s loss to Stanford, a 41 point dog.

This now represents the 4th straight year USC has lost to conference team it had no business losing to and which also scuttled any BCS title hopes. We believe this speaks to the strength of the Pac-10 overall but also to a blind spot in the program. We welcome opines to the otherwise.

But hey, check this out…

Dana Milbank of the WaPo gets a little snarky regarding the First Lady’s high-profile, high-carbon footprint shopping spree/infomercial at a D.C. organic farmer’s market.

B-Daddy has the details regarding this and much more, here.

My Vote for College Football National Champion

B-Daddy here. Now that the college football season is over, I offer my nomination for the national college football champion. I am trying to get an AP vote as a contributor to the famous sports weblog, Beers with Demo, but that's an outside shot.

Wait..... this just in, Dean is telling me that the college season isn't over, Florida and Oklahoma play tonight in some mythical championship game. He's kidding, right? A college bowl game a week after the new year? I had already shifted into NFL playoff mode, especially with the Chargers still alive.

Tough, regardless of who wins tonight's game, the Utes of Utah deserve the crown. Let's review.

1. They are undefeated.

2. They are undefeated against multiple Top 25 and BCS conference opponents - Michigan, Oregon State, TCU (11) , BYU (16), Alabama (4).

No other team can make those claims. The end.

P.S. I love Pete Carroll and USC, but they didn't get it done, sorry.

Dear SEC,

NOW YOU KNOW.

Sincerely,
The Pac-10

We are dubbing the 2008 college football season the Year of the Polynesian. It seemed every time we turned on the T.V., there would be a shock of frizzy black hair streaming from out underneath a helmet comet-like and which would be attached to a defender blowing up a quarterback or a wide receiver. This was punctuated in the past two days as USC linebacker Rey Maualuga wreaked havoc on the Penn St. offense in the Rose Bowl and Utah’s Koa Misi and the rest of his mates had seemingly taken up residence in Alabama’s backfield in the Utes' stunning 31-17 rout of the Tide in the Sugar Bowl and which now makes the Mountain West 2-1 in BCS bowl games and which also caps a great year for this non-BCS conference.

Rudy Carpenter, the Arizona St. QB will be having nightmares of Maualuga for years to come. Rey-Rey packed an entire career’s worth of big hits into the 3rd quarters of the last two USC-ASU match ups, all at Carpenter's expense. We saw this year’s game in person at the Coliseum and we cannot ever recall a single defender dominate for entire quarter the way Maualuga did. He unloaded at least 3 vicious hits on Carpenter in that quarter alone and on the last which knocked Carpenter out of the ball game, Rey stood over Carpenter not in gloating but mercy as Rey realized he about broke poor Rudy in two.

So here’s some footage of Mongo’s namesake doin’ his thing. See you on Sundays, Rey.

A bit lighter in the wallet but probably still none the wiser

We never learn. We never learn our lesson and continue to amaze ourselves over the lengths we will travel to invent excuses to pick (and bet!) against USC in their bowl games. Let’s see, what was it this year? Oh, yeah – the Trojans would come out flat and play generally uninspired football because this was their 4th straight trip to Pasadena and as Bill Plaschke of the L.A. Times duly noted, the Trojan senior class had never taken a plane ride to a bowl game… honestly, just how many times can you get up for the Lowry’s Beef Bowl?

Oh, and ignoring B-Daddy’s advise that season openers and bowl games where Pete Carroll and his staff have multiple weeks to prepare for an opponent are near-mortal locks, we drifted into point spread delerium over the wizened and wizardly perception of head coach, Joe Paterno and all the laudatory praise that was heaped upon him and his program by USC’s coaches and players. It was going to be different this year.

And at the end of the day, it was just another Rose Bowl. Just another Rose Bowl where another plodding team from the Midwest (with a young Italian fellow at free safety, no less) gets run over, through and mostly around by an over-qualified USC that tried its darndest to allow Penn St. a backdoor cover (+10 pts.) by taking the entire 4th quarter off and still won by two touchdowns, 38-24. Oh for two crappy quarters up in Corvalis way back in September and what might have been.

(btw, the Figurehead was in fine form in yesterday’s broadcast though we missed those classic late 3rd quarter/early 4th quarter panoramic shots of the setting sun against the San Gabriel mountains as that usual January 1st Pasadena postcard to the rest of the nation was most likely obscured by the fog and haze that returned to the Southland after a week of spectacularly clear weather.)

And how about that Big 10? Wow. Is there any way Ohio St., the lone remaining team from a conference that is 1-5 in its bowl games thus far with an average margin of defeat of 17 points can graciously bow out of its Fiesta Bowl match up against Texas on Monday and save the Big 10 any further embarrassment?

And for all the shots that were taken at the Pac-10 this season (some of which were volleyed from these very pages), the conference goes 5-0 which excluding the USC game involved 4 upsets and which also garners them victors of some ESPN fabrication, the Bowl Challenge Cup.

And did you all enjoy that scintillating scrum in the Orange Bowl between Va. Tech and Cincinnati won by the Hokies 20-7 last night and which featured plenty of tight low angle shots to, hopefully, hide a completely empty upper level (strangely, attendance was reported as 73,602. Those must have been some very long lines at the concession stands).

There was only one reason to watch that game and that was to listen to booth analyst Charles Davis who has a regular gig on the NFL Network’s College Football Now and who is one of the brightest, sharpest and most insightful minds working in all of football. Fox had the game and we are glad they are getting out of broadcasting the BCS bowl games and letting ABC/ESPN take over after the 2010 regular season. All their production techniques and graphics are lifted directly from their NFL games and it simply does not cross over well to the college game.

And speaking of the NFL, Mongo dialed this up after the Rose Bowl and though we had not heard it in probably 25 years or whenever it was they discontinued it, we recognized it immediately as one of the great intro music pieces in television history. It’s the Figurehead along with Jayne Kennedy and Jimmy the Greek at the Big Sombrero prior to our Los Angeles Rams' only NFC championship victory, a 9-0 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in January of 1980.

It's Rivalry Week and yes, Evil walks among us once again.

Because of some scheduling shifts and down years for fabled programs (Michigan vs. Ohio St.), this year’s Rivalry week ain’t what it once was but… it’s still Rivalry week.

First, the BCS rankings going into this weekend:

1. Alabama .9787
2. Texas Tech .9698
3. Texas .8911
4. Florida .8755
5. Oklahoma .8388
6. USC .7873
7. Utah .7643
8. Penn St. .6957
9. Boise St. .6559
10. Ohio St. .6154

Obviously, the biggest game this weekend is the defacto BCS quarterfinal matchup between Texas Tech and Oklahoma in Norman. If Tech wins then it’s on to the defacto semis in the Big 12 conference championship against Missouri and then to the BCS title game. Tech, of course, controls its own destiny but does Oklahoma? Will an Oklahoma victory (currently, a 6-1/2 pt. favorite) vault them over Texas to whom they lost by 10 earlier this year? We’re going to find out because we like Oklahoma at home though we’re finding it difficult to root against the magic carpet ride that has been Tech’s season thus far.

We're ready. Consider it done. After contemplating this move since before last season, we’re pleased to confer “Evil” status upon Florida Gator head coach, Urban Meyer. After a 56-6 pasting of South Carolina and the last coach to hold “Evil” status, Steve Spurrier who also coached at Florida while wearing the crown, the symmetry was too perfect to pass up. Just one year seperated from winning the BCS title, Meyer has reloaded, is absolutely crushing his opponents since that loss to Ole Miss at the end of September and is ready to get back to the BCS title game with victories over the Citadel(?), Florida State and ‘Bama in the SEC championship game. Obviously, there are no guarantees but Florida is, as they say in the biz, “playing the best football in the nation, right now”.

But, “USC fatigue”…? Stewart Mandel of SI.com points out that the country’s infatuation with Pete Carroll’s Trojans has faded somewhat as the Big 12 South has garnered, and rightly so, the lion’s share of the country’s affection. No superstars (Bush, Leinart), a weak conference and more baffling in-conference losses the past 2-3 seasons have the viewing and voting public casting their gaze elsewhere. Look, SC is still a hottie but college football fans are always looking to upgrade.

And for all you BCS haters out there and we know you are legion there appears to be a simple solution to all the potential confusion, particularly for those non-BCS conference teams like Utah and Boise St. who, should they win out, might find themselves conveniently air-brushed from history.

"Yes, Boise State and Utah are undefeated, but if there are no such teams as Boise State and Utah, considering them for a national title shot becomes a nonissue," said David Frohnmayer, chair of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee, who acknowledged that many BCS voters already used a limited version of the technique."

Oh, don’t laugh, Oklahoma. You may be getting the same treatment should you go all chaos on the BCS and beat T-Tech on Saturday. More here from The Onion.

Enjoy the games!

Without Columbus, none of this would've been possible

It was an absolutely gorgeous weekend that is spilling over into a Holiday Monday that celebrates the bringing of disease, involuntary conversions, enslavement and overall conquest of the peaceful native Americans by the White Man from Europe. So to properly recognize the occasion, we’re taking the day off!

By the time you read this, we will hopefully be out in the East County somewhere in the hoopdie playing around in the dirt/sand and taking pictures that we hope to share with you all later.

In the meantime, a few quick thoughts on this weekend's activities:

- USC did not play like a team that is currently ranked #6 in the nation on Saturday against Arizona State. Aside from some singular moments of excellence by running back Joe McKnight, the offense was sluggish and out-of-synch. QB, Marc Sanchez threw 2 picks in the 3rd quarter deep in his own territory that were about as bad as we’ve seen in a while. Playing like they are, currently, there is no way they beat the five teams above them in the polls.

- USC linebacker (and contributor/faithful commenter Mongo's nick-namesake) Rey Maualuga is a very bad man. His 3rd quarter alone would be a highlight reel for an entire season for most linebackers in the nation. On one play in that 3rd, he shot the gap on a play-action fake and swallowed whole the ASU running back (seriously, no one has seen Keegan Herring since) and upon realizing Herring didn’t have the ball, he lept to his feet to track down Rudy Carpenter, the QB, for a sack. An amazing play. And in that same possession, he knocked Rudy Carpenter out of the game for the 2nd straight season.

- The Chargers played an entire game for the first time this season against the Patriots last night. LT still looks a little wobbly with that bad big right toe and the great debate now is on whether or not to sit him for a week to let the toe heal. Because they are now only 3-3 and go on the road to Buffalo and then to England (England!) to play the Saints, they may not have that luxury.

- Exit question: Everyone says the Chargers/Pats have a “rivalry” going. Don’t you have to beat that team in a truly meaningful game (i.e. the playoffs), something the Chargers have not accomplished against the Pats, for there to be a rivalry?

Programming Alert

We’ll be up in L.A. this weekend taking in the USC/Arizona St. game with friends so unless we are able to check in remotely, the posts over the weekend will be a collection of scheduled posts and guest contributions.

Doing Things the Hard Way

B-Daddy here. Despite showing flashes of brilliance, USC repeated their loss at Corvallis of 2006 by giving up a big lead early and then having a come back fall short. These guys are hard to fathom, but give some credit to the Beavers, whose running attack, led by Jacquizz Rodgers, pictured at right, rolled up 178 yards of rushing.

USC, who looked like the unstoppable national champs against Ohio State, got manhandled in the first half by the other OSU. For personal reasons, I watch the line play more closely than the average fan. In the first half, the USC defenders just could not get off the blocks of the Beaver lineman. What looked like bad tackling of the low to the ground rusher, was really due to the fact that USC's defense was never in good position to make a tackle. On offense, USC never got much of a ground attack going, and this really killed them in the first half, with too many three and outs.

USC put up 21 points in the second half, but the last and very impressive one minute drive, was going to be too little if they couldn't get the ensueing onside kick, which they did not. Dean has previously pointed out what great half time adjustments USC usually makes, and tonight was no different. They need to make those adjustments sooner.

I don't think the Trojans are out of contention, but they have again given themselves an uphill battle. And no, I don't think the pollsters were wrong to have them at number one. This is the joy and the agony of college ball, with all of its unpredictability.

Finally, congratulations to Oregon State for playing some great football.

This is what happens when you put Ohio St. on the schedule.

A soft schedule and hard finish for top-ranked USC?

An undefeated, 12-0, USC team shut out of the national championship game? Doubtful but definetely not out of the realm of possibility and just one more reason to love the BCS.

It happened back in '04 when an undefeated Auburn team got left out of the BCS championship game that was played instead by USC and Oklahoma. That is to say, USC played and Oklahoma got lost on their way to the Orange Bowl in a 55-19 drubbing where Osceola CC suited up in the Crimson and Cream.

With the Pac-10 stinking up the joint this year, the Trojans will be rooting for the Buckeyes to run the table in an also-pretty-suspect Big 10 (plus 1). Shouldn't be a problem as USC may need every one of those computer points should teams from both the Big 12 or SEC emerge undefeated.

And because of what we saw last year with LSU and idiot-savant coach, Les Miles, winning the whole shooting match with 2 losses, we would only be mildly shocked if the BCS puzzle palace spit out an 11-1 Missouri vs. an 11-1 Georgia for the championship game with an undefeated USC on the sidelines.