Naivete shattered

They believed in him.  They REALLY believed.  He was going to ride into Washington on a white steed and undo all of the evil things perpetrated by their enemy, King George the Dim.  He was their candidate.  He was their guy.

Funny how "change" (or, as I called it during the election cycle, the DoublePlusGoodHopeChange) didn't change a thing.

The Justice Department's decision to subpoena a New York Times reporter this week has convinced some press advocates that President Obama's team is pursuing leaks with the same fervor as the Bush administration.

James Risen, who shared a Pulitzer Prize for disclosing President George W. Bush's domestic surveillance program, has refused to testify about the confidential sources he used for his 2006 book "State of War: The Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration."

"The message they are sending to everyone is, 'You leak to the media, we will get you,' " said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. In the wake of the Bush administration's aggressive stance toward the press, she said, "as far as I can tell there is absolutely no difference, and the Obama administration seems to be paying more attention to it. This is going to get nasty."

Waaaaa! The nerve of Il Duce!  How dare he and his dastard administration investigate a member of the Fourth Estate for something as petty as the exposure of classified information!

It's no secret that I am no fan of Il Duce.  But he scores a win here.  I've been waiting for years for SOMEONE in Washington to take leaks of classified information seriously.  It started with Daniel Ellsberg and The Pentagon Papers and has continued unabated since.  And never, EVER, has the Justice Selective Prosecution of Only Those We See Fit to Persecute Department had the cojones to prosecute.  If you or I...you know, the mundanes, as William Grigg has aptly named us....were to leak classified information, we'd spend the rest of our lives in Leavenworth sharing an intimate cell with a guy named Bubba who considers himself our "boyfriend".

But the press, the Sainted Protectors of our Nation, THEY can leak classified information with impunity and, rather than receive punishment, they become famous.

I, for one, hope that has changed.  Congrats, Duce.  You got this one right.

And, to Big Media, let me just say, "Bubba says hi."

Sean Hannity has no sense of irony

As I recently lamented, my morning commute is a poorer experience since the stuffed shirts and empty heads at Fox Sports Radio replaced Steve Czaban with Screamin' A. Smith.  Today I hit the perfect storm of commuter radio hell: all of the usual radio shows I listen to went to commercial break simultaneously.  I punched my way up the XM radio dial until I came to America Right.  They were playing a replay of yesterday's Sean Hannity show.

Now, normally I wouldn't listen to Hannity on a dare.  But, because of the commercial break syncronicity, I decided it was better than listening to Viagra ads. 

The segment I caught was vintage Hannity.  The questionably Constitutional new law in Arizona regarding illegal aliens was the subject du jour.  I find myself somewhere in the middle of the continuum between Hannity's cheerleading for the measure and William Grigg's excoriation of same, though, in truth, I'm much close to Will Grigg's viewpoint than that of the simpleton, Hannity.

As Hannity's unabashed cheerleading screed droned to a close, he welcomed a guest with whom he wanted to discuss the measure: none other than Scamnesty cheerleader John McCommie!

To my utter amazement, Hannity and McCommie discussed the bill for several minutes without once mentioning that McCommie is the leading proponent tool supporting Scamnesty.  To Hannity's credit, he DID ask McCommie at the end of the interview if he (McCommie) had any second thoughts about having supported Scamnesty during King George the Dim's regime.  But he spoke to McCommie for at least 2.5 minutes -- an eternity on radio -- without acknowledging McCommie's immigration stance.

Not only is Hannity intellectually challenged, he is completely untouched by irony.  Who else would fail to see the irony of a segment in celebration of a crackdown on illegal immigration that features John McCommie?

I feel dumber for having listened to that segment.  That's 5 minutes of my life utterly wasted.  Utterly.  Wasted.

Harry Reid is a retard

I apologize to all retards out there right off the bat for my post title.  It is an insult to retards to equate them with Harry Reid.  They're much smarter than he.

Why the shot at Nevada's pox on our nation?  It is the result of this pin-headed statement.

“The most important thing we've done for the country and the world is health care,” he said.

The most important thing.  Not entering WWII and defeating the march of Fascism.  Not staring down the great Soviet Bear.  Not the achievement of our Founders in creating this country from a ragtag group of colonies.  Nope.  It was health care.

How did Nevada ever elect this mentally deficient product of inbreeding?  I just don't get it.  I just plain don't get it.

Congrats, Harry! You just won a Wiener Award!

Draft dodging? Not me!

yodaddy, probably remembering my epic tirade from last year, asks:

WELL!!!!!! I await with bated breath for your comments on the 49ers draft.  I fear that they really have made strides to displace the Cardinals....oh well.

Your evaluation is correct, father. The 49ers DID make strides to displace the Cardinals. That, and the retirement of Kurt Warner, make the 49ers the favorite in the weak-ass NFC West.

So how do I evaluate this draft.  I.  Am.  CISED!!!!!!!   This was a very productive draft in terms of addressing "need" that the team has had in years.  Compared with last year's draft, when "need" went completely unaddressed, it makes the case that Scott McGoobrain was part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Here are the picks.

Round 1 - Anthony Davis, OT, Rutgers
Round 1 - Mike Iupati, OG, Idaho
Round 2 - Taylor Mays, S, USC
Round 3 - Navorro Bowman, LB, Penn State
Round 6 - Anthony Dixon, RB, Miss State
Round 6 - Nate Bynam, TE, Pitt
Round 6 - Kyle Williams, WR, Arizona State
Round 7 - Phillip Adams, CB, SC State

To paraphrase Jerry McGuire, you had me at two offensive linemen in the first round.  No BS prima dona wide receiver this year.  Nope, we got the meat-and-potatoes down-in-the-trenches big nasties that this team has been lacking for over a decade.  That means no more Chilo Rachal getting absolutely no push on running plays in 2010.  This means Frank Gore in the running for the rushing title like in 2007.  This means Alex Smith isn't buying time with his feet, but is able to settle in the pocket to find secondary receivers.

These guys are monsters, particularly Iupati, who may be the best offensive guard to come out of college since Steve Hutchenson.  Our entire offense just improved anywhere from 50 to 100% on those two players alone.

As for the rest of the draft, the choice of Taylor Mays is kind of a head-scratcher.  He was the fastest player at the combine - hey, how 'bout that - but he's not a ball-hawking center-fielder type of safety.  He's more of a linebacker-in-safety-clothing man-in-the-box safety.  But Coach Singletary likes him, so I'm at least partially sold.

Navorro Bowman was an exceptional college player.  He's fast and can play inside or outside.  But he had some "character" issues.  A coach like Singletary is ideal for him.  He's projected to be the future replacement for aging Takeo Spikes.

Anthony Dixon was a good pick up as a change of pace for Frank Gore.  He's huge (233 lbs).  He was one of the most prolific rushers in the SEC last year.  Good catch.

Nate Bynam provides depth at Tight End.  Kyle Williams is a long-shot at WR.  Philip Adams?  Who needs a slow Cornerback?

Overall, this draft rates an A.  And after last year's bizzaro draft, that's a very good thing.

The trouble with elephants

I approach this post with a little bit of hesitation.  I don't want to look like I'm picking on a fellow blogger and singling him out as being...how do I say this delicately?...easily duped.  But the posts of this blogger go a long way towards proving a point I've been trying to drum home for some time now.  Please indulge me a little on this one.

The blog to which I refer is called Elephants in the Blue Grass.  Now, I'm sure Mr. "Grass" is a nice enough fellow.  But he needs to cut down on his Kool-Aid intake.

Mr. "Grass" has a real issue with Rand Paul, Ron Paul's son and candidate for the Senate from Kentucky.  I am aware that "Grass" is touting another candidate for Senate, Trey Grayson, who I'm sure is a swell fellow.  And far be it from me to get my panties in a wad because an individual supports a candidate other than the one I would favor.  But I can tell when someone has gone beyond hyping their candidate and "downing" the opponent to a nasty place from which they can only produce hyperventilated girly smear.  You know, the stuff we usually get from Team Donkey.  Thank I'm kidding?  How would YOU characterize his calling Mr. Paul "part of the blame America first crowd."

Mr. "Grass" is quite unhappy with the desire on the part of Mr. Paul (and his dad, I might add) to scale back the mission of the US military to that of....wait for it...defending the nation.  You know, abandoning the Bush doctrine of War Without End.  This causes Mr. "Grass" to lapse into fainting spells. 

He's also just a wee bit butt hurt that Mr. Paul has vowed to vote to repeal the Patriot Act.  Personally, I can think of nothing more patriotic than repeal of the Patriot Act.  But I'm more concerned with personal liberties than in creating an All-Powerful Staat in the image of the Team Elephant Pax Americana pipe dream.

I hate to pick on the guy.  I really do.  He's done nothing to wrong me.  But his wrong-headed jihad against Paul is just baffling.  Rand Paul sounds to me like exactly the kind of guy the Tea Party folks are trying to get elected.  But Mr. "Grass" and the Team Elephant elites are fighting him tooth and nail.

And therein lies my point - the point I've been hammering on like a jackhammer on steroids most of this year.  If you're a person who believes in the principles of the Constitution as written by the Founders, a person who wants to live in the nation they envisioned, you need to leave the Republican party.  Team Elephant is not your friend.  Team Elephant does NOT represent small government, personal liberty, and fiscal responsibility.  They represent intrusive Überwachenden-style snooping, War Without End, and spending til the cows come home...just spending on different stuff than the Donkeys want to spend money on.

A party that thinks Romney-Palin would be a swell ticket for the Presidency is a party in need of euthanasia.  And those who put their faith in such a party need to get used to the idea of serfdom.

A wolf in Caribou Barbie clothing

Those who were reading this blog way back around the time of the 2008 Presidential election (both of you) are aware that I was quite taken with Sarah Palin at that time.  I remarked that, of the four individuals on the major party tickets, she was the only one with redeeming human qualities.

But over time she started to wear on me.  I think the final straw for me was her whiny performance when Rahm Emmanuel dared to use the word "retard" to describe Congression Democrats.  Personally, I can't think of a better word to describe them.  And whining about words is not what freedom fighters do.

And yet, even from that previous low, she has managed to reach a new one.

Conservative superstar Sarah Palin opened the door yesterday to joining forces with Mitt Romney for a 2012 White House run - a hot ticket that has some Republicans licking their chops at the prospect of unseating President Obama.

“Sounds pretty good,” Palin declared at yesterday’s Tea Party Express rally on the Common when asked about pairing up with the former Bay State governor - giving the idea a big thumbs-up as she left the stage after her headline speech.

Last night, as Palin stopped for cannoli at Mike’s Pastry in the North End, she said she was “serious” about the idea.

“I have a lot of respect for Mitt,” she told the Herald.

You have a lot of respect for Mr. Taxachewsetts health care?  You would accept the second-banana role on a ticket under Mitt "I have no principles" Romney?  Madam, have you no shame!

Tea partiers, beware.  Anyone trying to sell you "Mitt Romney, Conservative" is no friend.  That she would do so exposes her as a fraud.  Do not trust her.  Do not put your confidence in her.  Find other, more principled leaders for your movement.  She is not one of you.  She is one of them.

So where DO we go for leaders?  Have they all been compromised, save for one 74-year-old man, marginalized by his own Party, actually hated by some Conservatives, and ignored by Big Media (the BM for short)?

I'm not optimistic for the future.  Who can be?