Sports Report
October 9, 2003

I miss Howard Cosell. Let me explain.

When current events get too weird (Conan the Governor?) or really scary (Israel's "security" wall - Warsaw, Berlin, or Pink Floyd?) or just plain depressing (W. is still President and John Lennon is still dead), I do what all red-blooded American males do: seek refuge and relief in sports. Fortunately, it's October in Atlanta. So, here we go.

The Atlanta Braves have once again tanked in the post-season. Local sports fans and pundits alike are speculating as to who is to blame and what is to be done. There's surely enough blame to go around.

In my opinion, informed or not, Braves Manager Bobby Cox over-managed the club right out of the 1996 World Series with the Yankees. And last year, I bore witness as Braves hitters stranded 12 runners in game 7 of the playoffs against the Giants. But who to hold responsible this year?

Well, how about the Chicago Cubs? The conventional wisdom is that good pitching trumps good hitting. Correct. It is very difficult to win a 5-game series against any team with two overpowering pitchers. I maintain that the Cubs really should have been favored to take the Braves, which they did.

As to improving the team next season, I have only one suggestion: get rid of the "Tomahawk Chop." It's insulting, unoriginal, and, frankly, stupid. Oh yeah, and re-sign Javier Lopez. In the meantime, suck it up and root for the Cubbies.

Football, anyone? The Falcons are just plain up against it. The defense, which is usually suspect at best, no longer has QB Michael Vick (sidelined with a broken foot) to keep them off the field. Vick's a great player and we should all hope he actually gets to have a career. I offer no predictions as to who will win the Super Bowl, but Tampa Bay can definitely be had. My current, purely emotional faves are the Colts, quarterbacked by Peyton Manning, and the Titans with Steve "Air" McNair.

Surely the most fun to be had in sports recently has to be the demise of Rush Limbaugh as a commentator for ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown. Rush decided he would comment on the issue of race as it pertains to the qualifications of Eagles All-Pro (and African-American) QB Donovan McNabb, comments during which he exhibited a demonstrable ignorance of actual sports-type facts. (Talking about race in sports is like taking a stroll through a well-sown mine field.) Later, Limbaugh was charitably described by one Philadelphia Eagles player as a "jackass."

To be fair, Limbaugh's commentary was not remotely in the same league as, say, Coach Adolph Rupp's racist ruminations about black basketball players. Closer it was, in my opinion, to Isaiah Thomas' idiotic comments about Larry Bird. (Kudos, by the way, to McNabb and the ESPN commentators for showing a lot of class throughout the whole affair.)

Anyway, apparently believing he was obliged to bring the same level of objectivity to ESPN as he does to his own show, Limbaugh proceeded to blame the whole McNabb "situation" on the (I-think-we-may-confidently-infer Liberal) sports media. Big, dumb-ass mistake. As a consequence, Rush resigned, and is now busily marketing his martyrdom to legions of gullible listeners. (Yet another rich, WHITE MALE VICTIM. Perfect.) Well, I say good riddance. We'll miss him as much as "Monday Night Football" misses the intermittently-funny Dennis Miller.

That naturally brings me to Howard Cosell. I loved Cosell. He was an original; very smart, very knowledgeable, and possessed of a refinement of perspective not usually apparent in a sportscaster, Bob Costas excepted. (Costas' eulogy for Mickey Mantle was a masterpiece.) Cosell was occasionally (OK, often) grating and that rug was something to behold, but he knew his stuff, had a distinctive voice, and was a great entertainer. He was also a person of conviction, witness his standing up for Muhammad Ali before it was the fashion.

And I will always be grateful to Cosell for the way he broke the news of John Lennon's assassination to me and millions of other football fans on Monday night, December 8, 1980. The most sensitive and graceful remarks ever delivered by a sports commentator. Ever.

So for what's it's worth. Our wars may go on forever, our economy may stay stuck in the toilet, and we all really might have to work until we die, but there is sanctuary in American sports, and even an occasional miracle. Myself, I'm pulling for the Cubs to face the Red Sox in a 7-game World Series. Howard Cosell would have loved that. And he would know just what to say.

(October 9 is John Lennon's Birthday. He would have been 63.)


An Open Letter to the Democratic Leadership Council
April 5, 2003

Ignore this at your peril.

Not because I am an important person. I'm just one guy, one more frustrated Democrat, one of many who are angry and have had enough. I have watched for years as the soul of my party has been co-opted, blow-dried, sanitized, and rendered irrelevant. And, to no small extent, I blame you.

I have been a registered Democrat for 37 years and am proud to call myself a Liberal. I believe that the federal government has an obligation to help make it possible for all of our citizens to lead productive lives. I don't expect (or want) the government to solve all our problems, but I do expect it to make a positive difference whenever possible. That idea is not politically correct these days, but that doesn't make it wrong.

What is wrong, then? From my point of view, the Democratic Party, primarily due to the influence of the DLC, has decided that the best strategy for retaining political power is to steer a course to the right and be more moderate. As in more like the Republicans. What in the hell are you thinking? If people want a Republican, they'll vote for one. One of the results of this policy has been to alienate millions of people like me who constitute one of the Democratic Party's core constituencies.

This philosophy of the New Democrat has also resulted in Republican control of the entire elected federal system. (Bill Clinton was an aberration and would not even have been elected in 1992 had it not been for Ross Perot. In any case, he governed like a liberal Republican, at best. But I digress.) A major reason the Republicans were able to steal the Presidency in 2000 was that disgruntled Democrats in Florida abandoned Al Gore for Ralph Nader. And then it got worse.

When the Supreme Court appointed George W. Bush, the Democrats rolled over. When Bush nominated John Ashcroft, a religious zealot with his own moral agenda, to be the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, the Democrats rolled over. After 9/11, the Bush junta submitted The Patriot Act, which is proving to be as dangerous to our civil liberties as many of us feared. The Democrats rolled over.

Now the war in Iraq. And what is the DLC response to the left wing of your own party, many of whom (along with 30% of all Americans) still oppose the PNAC-inspired Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive aggression? You propose your own version of Democratic Internationalism and relegate everyone else to "sort of the Unclaimed Freight Outlet of Democratic politics, retailing every failed or outdated lefty idea with a fierce and touching passion."

What arrogance. What shortsightedness. What cowardice. As long as the DLC insists on treating Liberal Democrats as victims of Vietnam era nostalgia, as long as the DLC continues to take our votes for granted, and as long as the DLC continues to put forth candidates who are afraid to take strong and possibly unpopular stands on important issues, the Democratic Party will continue its slide into irrelevancy.

And so will you.


Surviving the New Political Correctness
March 19, 2003

Political Correctness (PC) is alive and well and insidious.

I mean the real Fascist PC, not the Liberal stuff. Real PC dictates that we Americans must have faith in our Commander-in Chief and his war, to the point of doing really dumb ass things like renaming French fries and destroying our Dixie Chicks albums. Real PC dictates that questioning the wisdom of Bush's war is not only pointless, it borders on treasonous. Real PC is dangerous to the future of a free society and with the war media in full swing, you can bet the voices of reason are not going to get much airplay.

[Speaking of which, who would have imagined we'd find ourselves on the same side of a debate with the Chinese, the French, the Russians, and the Pope? Amazing.]

Anyway, I would like to offer these modest suggestions for dealing with the ongoing and rising tide of Fascist PC.

Suggestion #1: Consider your remarks carefully. Be wary of the off-hand casual comment such as George W. Bush is a warmonger. Be ready to back up your position with a few facts. In this case, they won't be hard to find.

Suggestion #2: Choose your moment carefully. When you take a stand, try to do so at a time and place of your own choosing. Especially if you are a so-called Country music performer.

Suggestion #3: Stand your ground. One of the biggest problems we Liberals have is that we try to be too accommodating. Forget it. Take your stand and if someone objects, ask him or her why. If they refuse to discuss it and begin questioning your patriotism, tell em to stick it in their ear. It's still a free country, and if they don't like it they can bloody well move to Spain.

[An aside: Why is it that celebrities who espouse a left-of-center viewpoint are looked upon as airheads or spoiled children while any reactionary yahoo can spout off at length to great huzzahs? What a bunch of crap. Any person, especially someone who pays taxes and votes, deserves to have their say.]

Onward. This is a strange and stupid time for the whole world, but in the interest of truth and clarity, we should at least call things what they are. Political Correctness in America is a reactionary phenomenon. It is predictable, it is pervasive, and it is here to stay. Resisting it is not always easy, but it is the patriotic thing to do.


Farewell to Senator Miller. Please.
February 25, 2003

I blame the Marines. Let me explain.

I'm glancing at the Atlanta Journal Constitution the other day and what do I see but a photo of His Illegitimacy, President Bush, in town to flog his latest sorry attempt to change the tax code so that rich people can become even richer. On the dais with him are Republican Governor Sonny Perdue, Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss, and Republican, excuse me, Democratic Senator Zell Miller.

Turns out that Senator Miller has stepped up to the plate as the Senate Democratic sponsor for Bush's tax proposal. While this is indeed a revolting development, it comes as no surprise. In his short but brief tenure as Georgia's senior Senator, Miller has managed to align himself with the Bush administration approximately 100% of the time. Miller has served as a Democrat in name only and, even worse, bears significant responsibility for the defeat of former Senator Max Cleland, Vietnam war hero and actual Democrat.

You see, while Miller had his head firmly in lockstep with Bush's ass, Senator Cleland was running in a tough race with Chambliss, a man with only one important qualification for the job: he was the President's boy. By the time Miller reacted to Chambliss' excremental attack ads accusing Cleland of supporting terrorism by daring to question Bush's overreaching Homeland Security legislation, the damage had been done. Miller had already cast his lot with the President, not the Democrats and not Cleland.

[An aside: Just who in the hell was running Cleland's campaign? As a Democrat and a veteran, I was insulted by the campaign run by Saxby Chambliss. How dare this blow-dried chickenhawk impugn the patriotism of a man who sacrificed three limbs for his country. And how dare Cleland and his advisors let him get away with it.]

Onward. So why is Miller, who was, by the way, a pretty decent Governor, come to this sorry state? This brings us back to the Marines. My theory is that Miller, an ex-Marine, suffers from an unquestioning faith in the concept of "chain-of-command." When he was the boss, he could call the shots and act like a Democrat. Now he's just one of the troops, and we're at war after all, so he has decided it is his duty to give the President whatever he wants. Sounds a bit simplistic, I know. But take it from someone who's seen it up close, the military mindset can frighteningly non-complex.

Senator Miller says he will retire in 2004 and go home to north Georgia, presumably to write his memoirs or count his tax savings or do who-knows-what. Good. As a Democrat, he has been worse than useless. It frustrates and saddens me to think of the years that he has wasted playing the loyal soldier to a truly unworthy Commander-in-Chief.