Patterico's Pontifications

2/4/2008

L.A.’s Homicides

Filed under: Crime,Dog Trainer — Patterico @ 11:10 pm



Jill Leovy has this moving Column One piece.

Teflon Don Headed Back

Filed under: War — Patterico @ 8:42 pm



Teflon Don is on his way back to Iraq. He has sent me a couple of chat messages about it but I’ve always been at work. Godspeed.

Bob Knight Resigns

Filed under: Sports — DRJ @ 5:11 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

The Houston Chronicle reports that Bob Knight resigned today as basketball coach for the Texas Tech Red Raiders. His resignation is effective immediately:

“Texas Tech men’s basketball coach Bob Knight stepped down Monday as head the Red Raiders head coach, school officials confirmed.

Knight, who became the first male coach in Division I history to reach 900 career wins last month, apparently gave no indication to the school that he was leaning in this direction until some time early Monday afternoon. Last year, Knight became the all-time winningest Division I coach when he hit 880 victories after 40 seasons.

Knight has spent the last six years coaching at Tech, but he most well known for his tenure at Indiana from 1971 until he was fired in 2000. Knight, who’s 41-year career comes to an with a 902-371 career record, had one year remaining on his current contract with Tech.

Knight’s son, Pat Knight will succeed his father as the head coach of the Raiders. He has been the head coach designated since 2005 and under that deal automatically gets a five-year contract. “

I guess Knight accomplished all he wanted to and he’s decided to turn the reins over to his son Pat. It’s strange to do it in mid-season, though, and it makes me wonder if there’s more to this story. The Red Raider fan sites think it may be health-related.

Then again, it could be classic Bob Knight.

EDIT: Come to think of it, here in West Texas we’ve had more than our usual number of dust storms the past two weeks. Maybe he got sick of the dirt. I wouldn’t blame him for that.

— DRJ

On the Campaign Trail with Hillary Clinton

Filed under: 2008 Election — DRJ @ 2:16 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

A few samples from Hillary Clinton’s recent campaign stops:

In New Haven, Connecticut, Hillary cries at how happy she is to be … Hillary:

“Sen. Hillary Clinton teared up this morning at an event at the Yale Child Study Center, where she worked while in law school in the early 1970s.

Penn Rhodeen, who was introducing Clinton, began to choke up, leading Clinton’s eyes to fill with tears, which she wiped out of her left eye. At the time, Rhodeen was saying how proud he was that the sheepskin-coat, bell-bottom-wearing young woman he met in 1972 was now running for president.

“Well, I said I would not tear up; already we’re not exactly on the path,” Clinton said with emotion after the introduction.”

Outside St. Louis, Missouri, an elderly female fan has an advanced case of Bush Derangement Syndrome:

“An elderly lady in the audience at Hillary Clinton’s town hall outside of St. Louis prefaced a question about a rumored U.S.-Mexico-Canada economic union this morning by saying “Bush the bastard…”

Hillary smiled, head bobbing slightly, and didn’t say a word in dissent. The crowd roared in approval.

The woman, speaking during a question-and-answer session focused on trade competition and pocketbook issues, asked about a widely-circulated conspiracy theory that President Bush was pushing for the creation of a North American “Amero” currency that would replace the greenback dollar.

“He has this all planned for 2010,” the questioner said of Bush.

“Let me say that I’ve heard that story and there’s not a lot of truth to it,” Clinton responded, adding that if it was real she would kill it in a “bird-dog minute.”

And from the same link, fans are swooning at every event:

“Clinton, her voice raspy and ragged from a cold and ceaseless campaigning, seemed exhausted — answering a question about gays in the military with a long dissertation on No Child Left Behind and education policy.

For the third consecutive event, an audience member swooned in a hot, stuffy, jammed hall, and needed to be roused by paramedics.”

Just another day on the campaign trail.

— DRJ

Greg Packer, Giants Fan

Filed under: Buffoons — Patterico @ 12:51 pm



M.E. Sprengelmeyer of the Rocky Mountain News has worn down some shoe leather and managed to dig himself up a true-blue Giants fan: one Greg Packer:

“It’s all about the Giants winning,” said Greg Packer, 44, a retired highway maintenance worker. “I’m as proud as I was in the Yankees dynasty years.”

Don’t forget the Mets, Greg.

And the Jets.

The full Greg Packer story can be read here, along with links to previous sightings. Or just search this site for Greg Packer.

You’d think there’d be a little more media awareness of a guy who is notorious for trying to get his name in the paper — and who admits he isn’t above lying to do it.

You’d think that. But you’d be wrong.

A Special Presidential Candidate Interview on L.A. Radio

Filed under: 2008 Election — Justin Levine @ 10:55 am



[posted by Justin Levine] 

Tomorrow on the Bill Handel Show in Los Angeles, Bill will be conducting a very special radio interview with a certain Presidential candidate.

I won’t say the name up front, but just to give you a few hints – this candidate is an African-American male who refused to throw in the towel when nobody gave him a chance against the Clinton slime-machine, and is currently being described as one of the most dynamic orators on the campaign trail…

(more…)

John McCain: The Myth of an Electable Candidate

Filed under: 2008 Election,Dog Trainer,General — Patterico @ 7:02 am



Steven G. Calabresi and John O. McGinnis argue today in the Wall Street Journal that Republicans concerned about the judiciary should should vote for John McCain. Their argument rests primarily on McCain’s supposed electability:

We believe that the nomination of John McCain is the best option to preserve the ongoing restoration of constitutional government. He is by far the most electable Republican candidate remaining in the race, and based on his record is as likely to appoint judges committed to constitutionalism as Mitt Romney, a candidate for whom we also have great respect.

We make no apology for suggesting that electability must be a prime consideration.

It’s my view that McCain only seems electable because of his media image, which will collapse once the country actually gets to know him in the general election.

For example, the clueless boobs at the Los Angeles Times endorse McCain with this comment:

But the Arizona senator’s conservatism is, if not always to our liking, at least genuine.

They obviously haven’t bothered to read their former colleague Matt Welch’s book on McCain, McCain: The Myth of a Maverick. Welch demonstrates that McCain is far from a straight-talking maverick and Man of the People. Rather, he is a condescending elitist, prone to bending the truth to a remarkable degree, and unnervingly trusting in the power of Big Government to change our lives for the better.

For a taste of Welch’s views of McCain, go here for a recent article by Welch on McCain’s re-emergence. Keep in mind: these are not the rantings of some disgruntled conservative. This is the informed opinion of a libertarian with some lefty leanings, who knows more about McCain than 99.9% of the people in the country:

Here’s the funny thing about independent voters: They still love John McCain, think he’s a straight talker. No matter how many times he claims to run a positive-only campaign on the same day he releases an attack ad; no matter how many ways he violates the spirit of his own campaign-finance legislation (do yourself a favor and Google “The Reform Institute”); no matter how unconvincingly he stammers his way through wanting to make permanent the same tax cuts he eviscerated in 2001 and 2003; no matter how inaccurately he slimes Romney and others for insufficient support of “our troops”; no matter how many immigration bills bearing his name he now opposes; and no matter how many times he confesses to manipulative, ambition-driven lies in his own damned books, independents still come out for their maverick — 42 percent of them in open-primary South Carolina, and 39 percent in New Hampshire.

The thing is, I don’t think the dissonance between the image and the reality will survive a presidential campaign. Welch reinforces the point I make above: because of the media’s love affair with McCain, voters in love with his image don’t know who they’re voting for:

McCain’s momentum heading into the national primary could make him the first GOP nominee widely loathed by grass-roots conservatives since George Bush I back in 1992.

For many of us non-Republicans, that can seem like a perfectly good deal. After all, the enemy of Rush Limbaugh and Tom DeLay surely has a better chance of being my friend, right? Don’t be so sure.

It’s impossible to assess McCain accurately without first dealing with the fact that he’s probably been the beneficiary of more flattering media attention than any national Republican in the past four decades. . . . Newspaper endorsements — many featuring errors of fact — are gaining momentum: The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the L.A. Daily News, The Sacramento Bee, the San Jose Mercury News, and on and on. [Add the L.A. Times to the list. — Ed.]

As a direct result of his long media honeymoon, much of what we think we know about McCain is wrong.

Indeed. But in a Presidential campaign, some of that is going to come out. Many voters will eventually learn that McCain’s image is nothing like the reality. People who know nothing of McCain except his image are finally going to sit down and watch a debate. At that point, a lot of them are going to say: “Holy crap! That’s the guy I thought I liked?!” The antiwar crowd will finally realize he makes George Bush look like Neville Chamberlain. And everyone will see McCain’s smug condescension, born of a background of elitism and privilege. It will manifest itself in that self-satisfied mockingly contemptuous grin that he can’t hide.

Calabresi and McGinnis write today:

[T]he nomination of Mr. Romney could easily lead to a Goldwater-like debacle, in which the GOP loses not only the White House but also its ability in practice to filibuster in the Senate.

It could. But I believe that the nomination of John McCain is far more likely to create the same result.

We always pretend that we know how things will shake out in the future, based on present circumstances. Then, months later, we look back and think: how could we have thought that? As Welch notes, six months ago, John McCain was written off completely. Everyone was sure he was politically dead, based on what was known at the time. That was wrong. Now, everyone is certain that he is the most electable Republican, based on what is known now. I believe that is wrong.

I urge those who say John McCain is electable to read Matt Welch’s book, and at a minimum, to read the article linked above. Then ask yourself one question:

How much of this do you think we’ll be able to hide from voters through November?


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