Easy and Difficult

Some things are difficult to figure.  They happen without warning and seem unconnected to things that have previously occurred.  Some of these things have obscure previous histories and therefore seem ever-so-fresh.

Then the history bubbles forth and lo and behold the surprising occurrence becomes not so surprising.  Some of the nonsense with Herman Cain fits into that category.  At first we think of Mr. Cain as a surprising new voice.  His history, such as we know of it, does not predict his stunning surge to the top of the political polls.  Then, suddenly, there are unexpected charges and everybody sighs, here we go again.  But wait, Cain is a black conservative and, therefore, the worst of nightmares for the far-left liberal media.  Whether you like Cain or not, you know, from history, that the media will be gunning hard for him, with the intent to eliminate him as a legitimate threat.  Are the charges bubbling forth connected to the certainty of the left's hard charge.  Do we assume they are or do we wait and see?

Had they occurred when Cain was hardly attracting any political or popular support, you would probably assume they were unconnected to the left's objectives.  But instead, they occurred just at the very moment Cain's months of hard campaigning are paying off and his poll numbers are soaring.  They occur at the very instant he is moving into the lead in the GOP race.   If you are naive you wait and if you are politically savvy, you don't. If you have the least little bit of common sense, you don't wait at all. And sure enough, the first "victim" that shows herself publicly is accompanied by liberal doyen Gloria Aldridge.  If someone making charges against obama were to appear at their first press briefing with, say, Andrew Breitbart or Sean Hannity, would you thing differently? (This isn't to say that either or these two gentlemen are as manipulative as Aldridge, they are not, and I apologize in advance).

How long ago did someone on the left first know there were people out there who could go a long way toward ruining Cain?  Right now we have no factual answer, but don't say you don't have a clue.  If it were 3 am in Washington and someone asks if daybreak will occur, don't say you have no clue.  You have a long history of knowing that the answer to the question is yes, unless hell freezes over.

There are other late revelations on the political front.  In the last week or two obama has officially delayed the huge pipeline project that even the left concedes will produce somewhere between 200,000 and one-half-million jobs  obama cited environmental concerns despite a long history of the safety of similar projects and the desperate need for both the petroleum destined to flow through the pipes and the jobs that will be created to build and maintain the pipeline.  obama said he would consider the project again next year.  the canadians are not waiting and are moving to enter into a similarly lucrative deal with asian buyers.  If this reaction by those injured by obama's intransigence when it comes to energy production seems familiar it is because it is.  Remember when obama refused to reopen Gulf of Mexico oil pumping platforms even though many were not of the kind involved in the recent terrible spill there, and were causing catastrophic job losses along the Gulf coast?  When obama blew off the platforms he didn't count on the oil companies doing all they could to cut to cut their losses.  Many - if not most - of the platforms were simply packed up and floated to places where they could be used at once.  One of the most infuriating places where these platforms turned up was the Atlantic Ocean off of Brazil.  There, the Brazilian government, in conjunction with the oil companies, were exploring and then pumping huge petroleum reserves located there.  The Brazilian government is financing the exploration project with money from guess where?  The obama administration.  So obama won't allow the United States to pump its own oil but is paying for the Brazilian Government to pump their oil?

A few days after obama threw a dagger into the Canadian Job-Producing Bonanza, he did the same thing to oil shale production in the midwest, chiefly Ohio.  He tried to say that ranchers in the midwest were in support of his position even though they were not, but the press, largely, did not cover that.  The only problems with oil shale hydrolic blasting occurred many years ago when early attempts were made at a comparatively shallow depth.  In recent decades that blasting is done at such a great depth that ground water and other natural resources are completely unaffected.  Apparently, such things as proof of safe production doesn't faze a man beholden to far left ideology, which is the most stable part of his badly depleted base.

Let me turn to sports, a much happier subject.  The football game on Thanksgiving night may be a preview of the Super Bowl, but don't tell the sports press which are seemingly married to the line that the Packers are a lock to win it all.  In recent weeks the Packers have seemed just a bit beatable, winning yesterday against a Tampa Bay team that wasn't supposed to stay in a game against the monsters of the tundra.

The game on Thanksgiving is between the once-beaten San Francisco 49ers and the AFC-North leading Baltimore Ravens, holders of a 7-3 record and winners yesterday in a battle for first place with the up and coming Cincinnati Bengals. The Ravens are led by a quarterback often skewered by the national press, an emotional running back who wears his feelings on his sleeve and rookie wide receiver (the Ravens regularly play two from the University of Maryland) whose is only now learning that he might be the most unstoppable offensive weapon in the league.  Both teams are coached by a set of brothers, one the master of delegation and one who can't stay out of anything.  Joe Flacco had one big lead weight around his neck going into this season:  he couldn't beat the Steelers in big games.  It was a misleading weight he was carrying since he had rallied the Ravens to a victory last season in Pittsburg during the regular season and had the snake-bitten Baltimore Team marching to victory at the end of the unbelievable playoff game, also in Pittsburg, when Anquan Boldin, of all people, dropped a ball.   Earlier in that game Ray Rice had fumbled after breaking into the open field and Flacco had fumbled a snap.  This season Flacco has led the Ravens to two wins over his arch-rivals.  The first came on opening weekend in Baltimore and it was a doozy.  Flacco was impeccable.  Then a few weeks back he rallied the Ravens by marching them the length of the field in the waning seconds, and hitting that rookie receiver receiver, Torrey Smith, on a 28 yard strike just seconds after the rookie had dropped a touchdown pass in the endzone.

Yesterday, Smith and Flacco were at it again.  A long completion to the former-Terrapin (and please, as might have guessed, I went to Maryland and I know you are never a "former" Terp) set up a Ray Rice touchdown run in the first half.  In the second half, a beautiful bomb to Smith  - when Flacco threw the ball, Smith had not even caught up to the two defenders also running with him, but when the ball came down in his hands he was three strides past both of them - was the game's decisive score.  The decisive play was made by the game's best pass rusher, Terrell Suggs.  With the Bengals in position to tie the score and playing a first and goal at the Raven 8-yard-line, and the Ravens only rushing three men, Suggs broke through a multi-team of blockers and sacked the Bengals' outstanding rookie quarterback, Andrew Dalton.  As he was falling Dalton made an uncommon mistake under pressure: he threw the ball away.  Since he was still in the box and clearly had no receiver in mind when he let it go, it was called intentional grounding and moved the Bengals back near the 20-yard line. On fourth down, Pernell McPhee again broke through the multiple blockers and hit Dalton as he threw.  The wobbly ball fell harmless to Earth a few feet away and the Ravens won.

To an observer, Flacco has become the leader the Ravens need him to be.  The vets on the defense now accept him as a legitimate big game leader, even if they still wonder about some of the game plans dreamt up by offensive guru Cam Cameron.  The three losses the Ravens "sport" are all to poor teams (Seattle, Jacksonville and Tennessee) and in all three games the offense was to blame because they did not score.  All three came after huge wins the week before over really good teams.  They have lost both games they played the week after beating Pittsburgh, and if they end up not getting a bye or not making the playoffs at all, heaven forbid, those two losses will be the reason why.  In the Tennessee loss the decision to put Lee Evans on the active list for the game was hard to understand. The Titans knew Evans - with his injury = could not get deep and this allowed them to swarm all over Boldin.  The following week Evens was inactive and Smith started and caught three TD passes in the FIRST QUARTER.  It may, perhaps, be hard for veteran football minds to comprehend just how fast Smith is.  His long stride combined with tremendous foot and leg speed allow him to explode past even the fastest defender.  Now that Flacco knows how to use him, it might be Katy Bar the Door.

The 49ers are also a surpirse.  They have pulled off a stunning number of close wins, and believe they are never out of a game.  Jim Harbaugh is their new coach and he has them believing in themselves.  A key factor in the game is whether Ray Lewis can play.  He missed yesterday's game and the Ravens survived.  But they gave up way more yards than they usually do and now the 49ers can use video from the game to see where the difference is between the Ravens with Lewis and the Ravens without the man named Lewis.  I have a good feeling about the Ravens chances.  The game, going in, reminds me of the game two years back (or was it three) when the Ravens went into Dallas the night they were closing the old stadium.  All of the old Cowboys were there and most everyone thought Dallas would roll.  But Flacco kept finding Derrick Mason and Todd Heap and the Ravens broke off two long touchdown runs when Dallas thought they would be killing the clock.  The NFL network had that game, too.  I like the Ravens to win, 34-14.

Visually Impaired Sentry

     Don't get me wrong.  I do not expect anyone to read this and suddenly realize that all along they had been asleep at the switch.  It is not like that.  Instead, I think the folks who are responsible for exposing abject incompetence and total failure are intentionally looking the other way or, even worse, acting in league with those destroying that which so many thousands have died to protect. 
     The year was 1977 and I was getting ready to graduate from the University of Maryland's School of Journalism.  I was very proud of what I had done: earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism.  For four years I had listened to professor after professor rail against abuse of our duty to report the news straight up if, in fact, it was a news story we were intending to write.  Only if the article were to be labeled opinion were we permitted to infuse our opinion on the subject of the article into the article. 
     Every source for the article had to be identified, and if an annonymous source were used, it had to be corroborated, and even then it could be used only if we could convince an editor that we had made a very good faith effort to convince the source it would be far better if he or she were named in the article.  The School of Journalism, as a whole, recognized that all of us were human and that, as such, we had opinions.  If we wanted to be news reporters, however, we had better bury that opinion so deep that no reader could guess what theat opinion was.
     Whatever happened to the profession of journalism in the years since 1977 is 100% beyond me.  I do know the result of these changes, though.  It is the almost complete abandonment of every ethical principle I was taught while a student.  These days, the news story that doesn't swim with far left opinion is that rare exception to the norm.  Every trick in the book is used to get the point across.  Often times, the "trick" is treating conservative and liberal differently.  Just because a liberal does something does not mean that he will be scrutinized in the same way that a conservative is scrutinized for doing the same thing.
     Take, for example, the Herman Cain story.  Cain is charged with what I suppose is womanizing.  In one case it is alleged that he put his hand under a woman's dress while in a cab on the way to his apartment.  Read that sentence and think about it for a moment.  Another charge surrounds the aftermath of a speech the Presidential Candidate gave in Cairo, Egypt.  During the speech a woman questioned Cain about one of his points.  Cain responded appropriately.  After the speech, Cain asked two other women if they would be kind enough to get the woman's name so he could ask her out to dinner.  According to the two women, they feared that he was up to no good and decided to accompany Cain and the woman who asked the question to the dinner engagement.  Cain is said to have been a gentleman during that dinner.  Again, I suggest you read about this second "charge" in its entirety. 
      Now, compare Herman Cain's alleged activity - which he has steadfastly denied - with the admitted or discovered activities of a Democrat who was the President at the time, and here, of course, I speak of William Jefferson Clinton. 
     Monica Lewinsky and Clinton conducted a tawdry affair in the Oval Office even while Clinton's wife, Hilary, was upstairs in the White House.  When it was first discovered, Clinton denied it.  In fact, he and his functionaries had geared up to fully trash Ms. Lewinsky, destroying her and her reputation at the same time, even to the point of telling the general public that she was a mentally unstable hero worshipper whose words were nothing but lies.  Unfortunately for Clinton, there was the matter of stained dress.  It sealed his fate and saved Lewinsky's reputation, or at least what was left of it.  We are told by many who were or are still close to Clinton that he has "issues" when it comes to women.  Those issues lead him to act heavy-handed on some occassions (Paula Jones, Cathleen Willy) and downright illegally in others (Juanita Broderick).  Those issues led his staff to appoint a small and close-lipped committee to handle "Bimbo Eruptions." There is no question that had any prior president been caught in the act in the same way Clinton was caught they would have resigned or been impeached.  But Clinton was so self-centered and brazen that he ignored calls for his resignation from such institutions as the Washington Post and stayed in office even while he was, in fact, impeached by the House of Representatives.  His response to the impeachment was to hold a rally on the White House lawn for legislators enmeshed in his defense.  These pro-Clinton legislators helped him survive the Senate trial and stay in office.
     Many of the same reporters and news organizations are now calling for Herman Cain to drop out of the Presidential Race.
How do they justify this in the wake of their diametrically opposed behavior in the Clinton affairs?  They don't.  And that is part of the point.  The press is so far in the left's pocket that they aren't even called upon to explain their behavior.  And so they don't.  They simply say that Cain should go.
     And that leads to the larger and much more ethically troubling point.  The Press has sat almost completely still during the first years of the Obama administration, even though these uears have seen the unquestioned worse presidential administration in the nation's history.  There has been abject failure on every front, highlighted by economic statistics that are so bad that they actually portend of the end of America's Economic and Political dominance on the international stage.  If his occurs, as it surely will if, God Forbid, obama were to be re-elected and continue with his suicidal policies, the press will have sat by and merely watched without doing a single thing to fulfill their duty as the fourth estate. 
     Point out to me one mainstream news source that has covered Obama the way the national media covered Eisenhour, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Sr., and even Clinton.  At least the press covered the Clinton debacle after trying, at first, to avoid it.  Michael Isiakopf, in his book on the subject, explains how the horrified editors of Newsweek - at that time still a somewhat respected purveyor of analytical news - actually refused to run his accounts of the Lewinsky affair until they were shamed into it by Matt Drudge's revelations on his web site.
     Now, at a time when a burgeoning alternative press has literally made fools of the editorial policies and practices of the mainstream press, the old guard seem unfazed as abuse after abuse of previously canonized press practices are revealed by sources such as Powerline, Drudge, and the two major demons of the mainstream, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh (it is a given that "talk radio" should have substituted for Rush Limbaugh, but Limbaugh was such a trendsetter that his role cannot be overemphasized, and those who followed him: Mark Levin, Shawn Hannity and Hugh Hewitt, although extremely influential and competent, pale in comparison to Limbaugh's reach, effect and profound influence.)
     If ever an objective history is written of these recent years, they will not be kind to the mainstream press.  Each and every outlet has been totally silent to the overall story of extreme incompetence, disasterous failure and complete abandonment of national values, national marks of achievement, national ethics and indeed, national norms.  Last night, while watching the Ravens' football game, a promo ran for the Sixty Minutes episode to show following the game.  The lead story on what used to be a real news show was an investigative piece on congressional conflicts of interest.  No matter what the story was about - and without watching I could predict with almost utter certainty that most or all of the congressman scrutinized would be Republican.  Am I correct?  The real story is how many pieces Sixty Minutes has done over the last three to four years on the utter disaster that is the obama administation.  Each and every area that a national administration influences - international affairs, domestic spending, domestic economies, crime rates and every other area - are areas of total failure by obama and his functionaries.  And not only are they failures, the policies of obama have guaranteed that these areas will be ones of total failure for years to come.  And there is ample evidence that obama intends this to be the case.  His use of so-called czars, which are nothing more than administrators assigned to positions of authority without any oversight by Congress.  How many investigative pieces on the obama administration have been undertaken by CBS, NBC, ABC, NPR, National Public Television, CNN or the New York Times or Washington Post.  Maybe there has been one or two but I don't know of them.  But CBS was out there going after conflict of interest by the Congress, and slanting the story, I'm betting, against the loyal opposition.  Terrific.  Boreish, misleading and slanted, but terrific. 

What has come to pass

     When last I wrote it was the middle of spring of this year (2011).  I was sort of excited about the Orioles and very upset at the state of our nation.  The economy was in the pits of despair, what with high unemployment and absolutely no sign of either signigicant hiring or significant increases in factory orders or the size of available inventories. 

     Many midsize firms were continuing to lay off workers.  The administration maintained that a recovery, of sorts, was underway, and they were actually carping that some companies who could have hired were not.  Though not said, the strong implication was that these employers were in league with the GOP and were not hiring to make the administration look bad.  In otherwords, there were profits to be made and money to be earned for shareholders, but the respective CEO's and boards of directors were holding back to help the GOP in elections that were still 18 months away.

     That is utter nonsense.  Name me more than a one or two of ongoing business concerns that would forego profits and forego paying shareholder dividends simply to help their "friends" in the GOP.  Has even one person come forward to say that this actually happened.  No they have not.  If that had actually occurred, people would be fired.  No person in an American business has that power. 

     That the powers that be in the administration would intimate that, however, did not surprise anyone.  These were the same folk who were suggesting giving businesses a one-time bonus for each new hire.  In otherwords, companies that were not hiring would suddenly begin to do so to get this one-time bonus, a bonus that didn't begin to pay the first year's salary of anyone actually hired.  You didn't need a business degree to know that this wasn't a good idea or even a workable one.  These same economic advisers, of course, were the same ones suggesting new taxes on higher income folk.  Sadly, small businesses - which always are the ones doing the most hiring - are in the same tax bracket as the upper income folk the administration wants to ramp up the tax rate on.  So, in many cases the result would be that a business that got a modest hiring bonus would also find its tax rate going through the roof.  Where is the logic in that?  

     I am not in the upper income bracket and likely never will be, sad to say.  Even so, I hear obama and biden and reid and pelosi constantly speaking of shared sacrifice.  The only ones called on to sacrifice, however, are always in the same income bracket, the so-called upper income one.  The bottom of that bracket has been in free-fall.  And no other group is "sharing" in the sacrifice.

     The economic truth is this:  there will come a point when the tax rate for the ones who are doing the work, doing the hiring, and doing the tax-paying, will quickly get to the point where even they will have little reason to work hard.  If you spend the year running a business and earn, say, $1 million, and the government comes along and takes 75% leaves only a relatively small fraction of the profits left for the chaps who did the work. 

      Here is the hard reality facing the far left:  they are finishing a several year period when they had complete control of the federal government; i.e., two years where they had complete control of the Executive and Legislative Branches of Government and working control of the judiciary, at least up to the Supreme Court, and two more years with complete control of the Executive Branch, one-half of the Legislative and working control of the Judicial Branch.  With this rare opportunity they have force-fed the nation their legislative agenda: tax increases, socialized medicine, wholesale government spending at unprecedented rates and amounts, and many other legislative initiatives.  But with all of these "changes," the economy remains in unchecked free fall.  The left's control of the federal machine during the last four years and going forward is actually much more pervasive, as most have come to know.  Obama's idea of appointing cabinet-level czars throughout the federal bureaucracy has resulted in wholesale rulemaking.  These rules have put America's foot in the free market system in a virtual straight-jacket.  Everyone wants a cleaner environment.  Everyone wants to avoid species depletion, with its concommitant reduction in DNA diversity.  Everyone wants oversight of financial markets.  But no one wants these things at the cost of economic armagedon.  American companies, forced to compete in a world-wide market, find they are playing with lead boots on because they are so hamstrung by these federal rules, often drafted by folks whose ideas never got close to realization under previous administrations, even the Clinton version.  If you don't believe me, get a hold of the Federal Registry and compare the number and volume of new rules during the obama administration to any similar period of time in the past.  The results may astound you.

     Said in another more compact way, the Far Left got every bloody thing it wanted, and none of it worked even a little bit.  The condition of the national economy is ten times worse than it was when obama took office.  Even those in his camp are conceding that he cannot run for re-election on his record.  And the answer to the question always asked during federal election campaigns - are you better off or worse off than you were four years ago? - has a resounding answer that no leftist worth his salt wants to hear.

     The campaign strategy being hatched by obama's operatives appears to attempt to mimick the one used by President Truman in immediate aftermath of World War II: blame everything on the Congress.  In keeping with that idea, he came up with this piece of legislation which, in campaign stop after campaign stop across the nation, he called a jobs bill.  It wasn't.  It was a lie to say it was.  This bill - which only reid would sponsor in the Senate, was nothing more than another round of stimulus spending.  The bill was so unpopular, with elections looming, that not one single congressman or congresswoman would sponsor it in the House, not even pelosi.

     And yet, the minute the bill failed in the Senate obama blamed the republicans for hindering the economic recovery.  Recently obama gave lip service to the certain economic necessity of cutting federal spending.  But when it came time to put the pedal to the metal, he flopped back into the far left clubhouse and, instead, proposed more spending.  The late historian, Barbara Tuchman, wrote an illuminating book some 25 years ago entitled "March of Folly."  In it she recounted instances throughout history where a government has pursued a policy it knew would not work, until that pursuit morphed into the end of that government. 

     It might be well for obama to read that book, instead of golfing.

on the edge and over it

On this May 10, 2011, these things are being discussed: According to Jewish News Feeds, a writer on Twitter, the FBI released documents Monday that indicate the late George Steinbrenner was an FBI informant.  I'm guessing that since it is released by the Obama administration it is supposed to be a bit of bad news about a life-long Republican. But Mr. Steinbrenner was not involved in foreign affairs or international intrigue.  For the life of me, I cannot see the downside to a respected national leader talking with law enforcement officials if there was something he could add to their police duties.  No one has suggested – to my knowledge – that there was any coercion involved. I don't see how this looks bad for Mr. Steinbrenner or his surviving family.

The Senate, by a vote of 56-42, has confirmed leftwing Judge Edward Chen, a former staff attorney at the ACLU, to a seat on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California...the fine folk like Colin Powell and the son of William F. Buckley, who followed their souls and voted for obama fail to realize that this is, in fact, what they are voting for. This, even as obama has requested that the GOP support his immigration policy.  I can't wait to see how many in the GOP will follow their soul down that alley...in Iran, Mr. Ahmadinejad has opined that no international intervention is needed to quell the violence in Syria.  I bet he does;  Damascus today and Tehran tomorrow, in his view.  But really, while we're on the subject, how is Syria any different than Libya? 

In Washington, Colorado Springs Rep. Doug Lamborn, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, said today that it was time for obama to put the Gulf of Mexico back to work and do whatever is necessary to increase American production of petroleum...well said, but who's fooling who?  obama has stated that he is in favor of high gasoline prices, so long as the prices don't go up all that fast.  Even when (if) the Gulf is reopened for drilling, production will be a fraction of what it was before the BP disaster because the oil companies - losing money hand over fist with rigs laying dormant - have packed up many of those rigs and sailed them to places like Brazil (where obama sends billions to increase their oil production) and Africa, where oil wells are being drilled daily.  I'd like to ask one of obama's minions this question: when considering the overall environmental effect on the Earth, wouldn't it be far better if more drilling were done here - where environmental laws are the strictest on Earth - rather than South America and Africa, which have far more lax pollution standards and a third world need to produce products needed in the international economy at break-neck speed.  I understand that uber leftists like obama think the big picture is better served with the United States a less ominous force on the international scene.  But of the people who support him, don't at least a sizable portion see what is going on?  With policies that allow for investment and grants to developing countries to do the same things he won't allow his own countrymen to do, how can you think otherwise?  Now, I know that obama and his regime operatives say they have opened thousands of places for drilling.  Real nincompoops buy into this without bothering to notice that nobody is interested in drilling in almost all of the places obama has opened because there is no oil there.  There is an old saying that is very applicable to the upcoming 2012 elections:  swindle me the first time, shame on you! Swindle me the second time, shame on me!  The United States is the "me."  The 2012 elections are the second time.

Playing Chicken with Scewed Facts

The budget "battle" currently playing out in Congress is really the most simple of affairs to analyze.  It is, that is, unless you are completely ignorant of the overall goals of the two parties waging this "battle." 

For the GOP, the goal is simple: significantly reduce federal spending.  The catch for them is the word "significant."  Tea Party folk not only want big cuts, they want them carried out in certain areas. These 'targets' for curtailed funding include NPR, Public Television, Planned Parenthood, certain 'Global Cooling" initiatives, and, especially, Obamacare.  If the GOP leadership doesn't hold out for real cuts in some or all of these areas and at least $50 billion overall, elements within the Tea Party are said to be ready to bolt the party and form their own conservative party.

The Democrats have their own problems.  The eternal problem for leftists is convincing enough people that they aren't really leftists but just middle-of-the-road centrists.  To this end, the Squirrel himself, Harry Reid (Millions know him as "Dingy Harry")  actually said this within the last 24 hours: republicans are forcing a government shutdown so they can prevent old ladies from getting cancer screenings.  He also said that Tea Party Folk are out-of-the-mainstream hardliners.  Now, forget the fact that the Dingy one (most famous quote, made before the Bush "surge" that wrapped up the winning of the Iraq war: "this war is lost!") doesn't even believe the economy is all that bad, Harry and other uber leftists believe it is their holy mission in life to give away our money until the "poor" are getting enough federal money to make their incomes equal to those who work. but even that isn't really true; the uber left's raison de etre is giving federal money (i.e., your money) away.  They believe that when they can no longer give money away the poor will abandon them and their raison de etre will be no more.).  What all of this means to the now uber-left led Dems is that the only place to cut spending is in the defense budget.  those on the uber left are largely pacifistic and really see no need to buy all those silly guns.

Besides the long-term goals of the GOP and uber left, other things are in play. Several weeks ago Chuck Schumer was on NBC being thrown softballs by host Matt Lauer.  According to Schumer, the GOP wants to make deep cuts in such cash cows as NPR and PBS and global warming programs.  Imagine that!  With the country teetering on the brink of economic disaster, the far left leadership of the democratic party - Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Schumer, Durbin and the like, are trying to protect things like NPR and Global Warming programs from budget cuts. Factories employing the heads of families and single parents are closing everywhere, the unemployment rate is at levels not seen since the Great Depression, and the uber left is trying to fully fund Planned Parenthood and NPR.   The nation's military is deployed, by Obama, in three war zones and yet Obama is seeking to save a propaganda arm of his administration (that would be NPR and Public Television).  In a timely reminder of the truth of the propaganda arm allegation, a top NPR exec was outed by the same folk who did ACORN in.  Posing as "Muslim Investors," they engaged this executive in conversation and listened in awe as the exec forcefully berated conservatives and vowed NPR would never go down that road. 

But the GOP has also come close to fracturing along the fissure between the Tea Party and the old line cocktail brand of republicans.  This later group's poster child is House Majority Leader John Baener.  With talk of a third party to the right of the GOP being formed by disgruntled tea party folk, Baener has refused to get aggressive in the budget fight.  Most people believe that cuts on the order of $50 to $75 billion are necessary to turn the ship of state around, but Baener and company are apparently satisfied with quite a bit less.  Worse yet for those trying to reconcile the two sides, Baener has already publicly disdained the GOP trump card by saying he wanted to avoid a shut down at all costs.

It's the "all costs" comment that has those trying to keep the party together crying in their beer.

flawed and absurd today and every other day since he took office

Had barack obama been any kind of a president and any sort of a decent person, one could have forgiven his little show the other day when he released his birth certificate.  He gloated that he, at least, has more important things to do than worry about such trivialities.  Trouble was, he waited until nearly 4 in 10 Americans, according to several polls, had started to believe the "birthers" were on to something before being goaded into action. 

Many in the loyal opposition (talk about a growing group!) had counseled ignoring the stupid approach - i.e., pursueing the stupid birth certificate - to relieving the country of the burden of obama and instead concentrating on the many unforgivably bad things obama had done as the main path to finally ridding the country of its unforgivably bad electoral choice.  But when the Governor of Hawaii - an obama supporter - promised to find and publicize the certificate, and then admitted that he could not - the momentum felt by the birthers became palpable.  Donald Trump, himself a circus sideshow comparable to obama, jumped on the birther bandwagon and the next thing the crowd of ignarants in the White House knew, almost half the country were believing obama wasn't a legitimate president.

Mark Levin, among others, pleaded with conservatives not to swallow the bitter bait.  There were far too many real substantive issues to lay obama and his administration to waste with without reverting to such a peripheral issue.  Not too many listened.  Thus, obama has his mid-week press conference and used it to tell the country that he is far too concerned with the unfairly high gasoline prices, the unfairly high unemployment rate, the floundering economy, and the country's many and far-flung military adventures, to get involved in such trivialities.  He scolded the country for dipping into partisan pandering.

obama is, if anything, audacious to the point of nihilism. Review the list of issues he says are concerning him and taking up his time.  He personally caused every bloody one.  He had stated publicly that he wants gasoline prices to rise so the country will stop using gasoline and instead turn to his nihilistic alternative energy sources.  The country isn't close to being able to switch from gasoline to anything else and especially to "sources" of energy that are not now developed enough to substitute for gasoline and, in all likelyhood, never will be.  But he has prevented oil companies from tapping the nation's ample domestic resources under the guise of protecting the environment.  I say "under the guise" because we all know that he is actively supporting - using US dollars - the efforts of other nations to tap their own petroleum reserves.  Even now he is pouring billions of dollars into Brazil's efforts to tap oil reserves off its coast and in the Amazon basin (talk about the potential for environmental armageddon).  The effort has attracted so much US dollars that the oil companies have moved many of their drilling rigs there.  Where did they move them from?  Why the Gulf of Mexico, of course.  They weren't being used there because obama has prevented drilling all over the Gulf in the wake of the BP spill.  Even rigs that are in comparably shallow water are kept idle.  So the oil companies - with common business obligations like dividends and wages to concern themselves with - have moved the idle rigs from the Gulf to places like Brazil and Africa, where they are desperately needed and where the oil companies can make money.  How many Americans are invested in these demonized companies, either directly through stock purchases, or more indirectly through mutual funds and retirement funds?  Many many, that's how many.  Still, obama and his minions continue to pummel them, to less and less popular acclaim.  He is like some college student just finding out about the evils of the business world but too immature to realize that this "evil" is the engine of commerce and the very thing that makes his job the most powerful in the world.  Were it not for such enterprises, he and the wife wouldn't be taking these vacations and purchasing all of these high-priced baubles they like to indulge in.

Moving on, he also said at the press conference that he is just worried sick about the high unemployment rate and floundering economy.  Well sure he is.  Look at all he is doing to revitalize the economy and ramp up job creation.  Economists everywhere - even many from the left - have joined together to urge obama to reign in domestic spending and to avoid, at all costs, any new entitlements that the country can no longer afford.  The nation is so far in debt that many former buyers of United States debt paper are no longer interested in such things.  One of the large debt rating services has cautioned that the day is fast approaching when they will no longer rate US treasury notes AAA.  The announcement last week that China was poised to move past the United States as the world's biggest economy don't faze obama, who, with his uber left view of things, sees moving down that ladder as the most positive thing he can imagine.  Anyone with any sense knows that the economy will not rebound until something is done about the growing national debt, a debt that is chewing up more and more of the nation's GNP and more and more of its money.  Obviously - and even an imbecile knows this - if we are spending all of the tax money we take in on debt payments and entitlement funding we won't have enough to left over to do the things that great contry's are supposed to do.  Soon, too soon, the USA will have to decline sending help to international disaster sites, because we cannot afford it.  Soon, too soon, the United States will have to curtail foreign aid because it just cannot afford the kind of largesse that, in reality, buys such things as peace.  The real problem for the uber left is their absolute refusal to cut income taxes as a way to jumpstart the economy.  Poll after poll shows the obvious: beleagureed families cannot pay their taxes at current rates and any effort by uber leftists like obama and harry reid to raise taxes will meet with popular rejection and election day rebellion (withness the Scott Brown election to Teddy Kennedy's senate seat).  sadly, obama is so locked-in to the far left view of things that he cannot bring himself to admit that the country will not allow him to raise taxes.  Any effort on his part to do so in the next two years will be met with election-day mayhem.  He perhaps thinks he can muddle through until after the 2012 elections, then raise taxes with impunity during his four lame duck years.  If that is his plan - and who is to say that it isn't - then the people who comprise his victory margin should join him in pushing the country off the gangplank.  One hopes that voters are too smart for such pap.  (As I complete this essay the news is out that obama ordered osama shot - and some think that will get him re-elected all by itself.  I hope not.  In fact, within four days of the amazing job by navy seals - the same group he ordered court marshalled after a detainee in a similar operation was punched in the face.  Can you believe this guy.  Imagine, punching someone in the face who wanted to kill you and everybody else around you - the so-called poll bump he expected was so small as to be totally insignificant.)  One thing you can say with absolute certainty about the uber left:  as a group they oppose capital economies and oppose efforts to ramp them up.  If the US economy does show signs of recovery in the next two years, it will be because it is recovering in spite of obama and certainly not because of anything he will do.  My gosh, if obama ever did something rational, like cutting incoome taxes, his soul mates on the far far left would want him drawn and quartered.

The final thing obama said he was too concerned with was our far-flung military exploits.  As i said above, as I complete this essay obama has announced that he has had osama shot.  In making the announcement, the obama administration has grudgingly admitted that informaton developed using so-called enhanced interrogation methods - very limited use of water-boarding on top Al-Quaida detainees - was essential in developing the intelligence that found the terror mastermind.  That admission was like a fresh blast of spring air.  The fact is, while he was a senator - remember those very few days - and before that, obama was out front in opposing every policy and method employed by the Bush administration in the wake of the 9/11 disaster.  Obama and the uber left opposed the Iraq war, opposed the development of technology enabling our intelligence agencies to monitor international phone calls between US phone numbers and suspected Al Quaida sources, opposed enhanced interrogation, opposed every plan to win in Iraq, opposed every plan to develop new weapons in the war on terror, in fact, opposed the war on terror.  But once in office - and while still villifying President Bush at every opportunity - obama and his minions have kept virtually every Bush foreign initiative in place.  Virtually every single one.  Gitmo is open.  Phone monitoring continues for now.  The US is still fighting in Iraq and has ramped up the operation in Afghanistan.  What obama said as a senator - everything about President Bush was bad - and what he has actually done - are so diametrically opposed that those on the far left have joined the growing across the board criticism of all things obama.  Remember when Dirty Harry (Harry Reid) mumbled for world-wide microphones "this war (the Iraq war) is lost!"  Remember when Hilary called General Petreus a liar?  Remember when Lil Dicky Durbin compared US soldiers to Pol Pot?  Now, obama is making President Bush seem like a peacenik.  Where Bush threw everything the country had in the (successful) effort to win in Iraq, Obama has US forces fighing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and, soon it seems, Syria and Yemen.  Talk about spread thin? 

Like we said above: it gets harder each day to fathom how the nation could have elected somebody so obviously ill-equipped to be president.  I remember when the late Senator Edward kennedy announced that he was supporting obama for president, not after the primary cycle, but before the primary elections even began.  His brother was, until obama, one of the youngest presidents.  His policies and his approach were textbook patriotic american and one never doubts that his presidency, had it been permitted to play out, would have been one of the greatest.  But John Kennedy was an old-man when it came to experience when he is compared to obama.  he had been in congress for several terms and he had been a leader of men during the second world war.  he came from a family that had served the nation under many presidents.  he grew up experienced and the nation knew full-well what it was getting when it narrowly elected him over vice-president (and future governor of California and President) Richard Nixon.  They knew he had no aversion to cutting taxes when it came to stimulating the economy.  They knew of his profound anti-Marxist stands on foreign policy issues.  But John Kennedy's brother knew that this new young candidate, obama, had none of these experiences.  he had to know that he had been an anti-american for his entire adult life.  he had to know that he had written an op-ed piece in the wake of 9/11 that insisted the US recognize that its policies were to blame, at least  in part, for 9/11.  he had to know that he would be anti-military, pro-marxist and against the constitution.  Now maybe this last point didn't bother Senator Kennedy; he himself had come to think little of the constitution.  But every other point should have given him room for pause.  But Senator Kennedy and many other people who should have known better came out for obama anyway.  Why?  God only knows.  I have discussed this issue ad nauseum in an earlier essay.  The Republicans had done exactly what every democrat, liberal and independent had been clamoring for them to do for years: nominate a moderate whose pro-liberal pro-democrat stands on many national issues had infuriated many on the conservative side of the GOP.  But people like Colin Powell - who was in the forefront of those calling for someone exactly like Senator McCain to be nominated - supported obama anyway.  Now, the econmy is nearly doomed, the jobless rate is through the roof, the nation is reeling under high federal taxes with more on the way (obamacare.  we haven't even begun to see how heavily taxed we will be under obamacare because obama intentionally backloaded the bill's revenue raising parts until after 2012).

What obama needs to spend his time doing is consulting with every economist who has a passing understanding of the policies that enhance the national good and then implementing those ideas as best he can.  they will include tax cuts to stimulate job growth and the rate of tax return into federal coffers. they will include some regulatory relaxation and certainly some intelligent tort reform.  this writer is a trial lawyer.  I can tell you that there is widespread abuse in the practice of tort law.  Here in Maryland, the legislative committee that acts as a gatekeeper on all things that help the plaintiff's bar is made up of - you guessed it - plaintiff's lawyers.  I have testified many times in front of that General Assembly committee, chaired by Mr. Valerio, Esquire, he of the very large and lucrative legal practice. Just in recent years - as calls for tort reform grow across america - maryland with its pro-left governor and egislature, has enacted a veritable panoply of new laws to make it more profitable to be a plaintiff's lawyer.  I will examine that in a different column.  On the whole, people who operate businesses are very good very American folk.  During obama's time in office they have been raked over the coals enough to last for a century or more.  Put the bad apples in jail when they commit fraud and extortion, embezzlement and theft.  But treat the others like national assets.  Make the people who can lift the country out of its woes the good guys and try to help them.  Its the American thing to do.

I, for one, am glad that the jive concerning the birth certificate has moved off the national stage.  I was sure that if there was ever anything to it there would at least be a few souls that would've come  forward to say that they were around when obama was born, and the birth didn't occur in these 50 states.  its the same reason, really, why there can never be anything to those who think 9/11 was an inside job or that the first moon-landing took place on a sound stage in California.  If any of that were true, at least someone on the inside or close to the inside - say an estranged spouse or grown child - would've spoken out.  Now, talk to me about Roswell...just kidding.  But I have heard some ghost stories that would made believers out of the most out-front skeptic.

Birds Ready to Make a Move?

 There is a very strange wind blowing in Baltimore this early April of 2011.  It started as a very light breeze around the middle of last summer, around about the time that the team announced Buck Showalter as its newest manager.  For the thirteenth consecutive year, the Orioles were in the middle of a losing season, and the people in this old and long-suffering baseball town met the news with resigned complacency. 

But a funny thing happened almost at the same exact moment that Showalter strode into the Oriole dugout, clad in the orange and black uniform worn by legends such as Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Jim Palmer, Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken and, most poignantly, the greatest manager ever to wear a baseball uniform, the nearly mythical Earl Weaver.  This funny thing? The Orioles, these Orioles, the present day Orioles, started winning!

Although they could never recover from the horrendous start to the 2010 season (3-16 at one point) to get anywhere near .500 much less back into the penant race, the improved play under Showalter did raise a few eyebrows.  The most improved part of the Oriole presentation during those last months of 2010 was the pitching.  The Orioles have been drafting young pitchers for several years now and many of them arrived in Baltimore during 2010.  Early in the season they were anything but awesome and some looked overmatched.  That all changed with the arrival of Showalter, who, some think, is more than a little bit like legendary - mythical? - Manager Earl Weaver (of course, many others think compairing anybody to 'da Weave' is nothing short of blasphemous). 

Both Weaver and Buck Showalter have fiery demeanors and no-nonsense approaches to the great game.  They also hate - as in "really hate" - losing.  Like Weaver, Showaltre believes that turning a young team around begins with improved fundamentals; in other words, playing the game right, hitting cut offs, backing up throws, running out ground balls, throwing strikes, working quickly, thinking ahead, taking the extra base.   Improved defense was a priority of Buck Showalter, as was improved pitching and improved situational hitting.  Over the winter, Oriole GM Andy MacPhail made a number of truly enlightened acquisitions, most notably the powerful Vladimir Guerraro, a multi-year All-Star with budding Hall of Fame credentials.  MacPhail also coaxed veteran Derek Lee to Baltimore to play first base, J.J. Hardy for shortstop and Mark Reynolds for third base.  He has also taken meaningful steps to beef-up the embattled bull-pen.  If half the moves pay off, MacPhail will look like a genious.

But none of the individual heroics mean a thing if the club doesn't start to win.  That's where the strange wind comes in.  After four games, the Orioles were undefeated and in first place inthe AL East.  Nobody needs to tell the Oriole fans that four wins isn't anything in the big scheme of things. Indeed, last night the Orioles went down to the Tigers and Justin "Mr. Cy Young in waiting" Verlander, 7-3. Several years ago, when the ultra-stoic Lee Mazilli was in town as manager, the Orioles broke on top from the start and were still in first a day before the All-Star break.  But when the second half started they went into a swoon that landed them in next-to-last place and Mazilli in the scrap heap of managers not up to owner Peter Angelos' liking.  Many in Baltimore, including anybody who knows anything about baseball, are quick to remind Angelos that the buck stops in his office, and it is no secret around baseball that the owner's inept meddling is one huge reason for the Orioles multi-year swoon.  Allowing his rotisserie maven sons to play a part in personnel decisions is only one of the unbelievable errors in judgment that the old asbestos lawyer has made in trying to convince those forced to listen to him that he knows something about baseball.

But a 4-0 start means that the club won't be all but eliminated by the end of April, as they were last season.  The really encouraging thing about the start has been the outstanding pitching from both the starters and the bullpen corps.  On opening night Mark Guthrie pitched seven wonderful innings in an easy win over defending Division champ Tampa Bay.  The next night Chris Tillman threw six no-hit no-run innings and new closer Kevin Gregg got a save as the Orioles again beat Tampa to win the series in a place that has been a house of horrors for the Orioles in recent years.  In the series finale, rookie and first round draft pick Zack Britton was phenomanal as the team won again.  Brian Roberts hit a three-run homer after knocking in two runs from the leadoff spot in the second game. 

The magical mystery tour returned back to Baltimore on Monday for the home opener against the Tigers.  A cold winter and a cold and wet March and early April gave way, suddenly, to a warm spring afternoon, and a sell-out crowd roared as Jake Arrieta - yet another of the young guns - kept the powerful Bengal bats at bay for 6 innings in a 5-1 Baltimore rout.  With the score tied at 1 in the bottom of the fifth, Roberts unloaded again with two runners on, leaving the dimutive second baseman with 8 RBI's in four games and leaving him, also, with the league lead in that power category.

Roberts and other Oriole vets - including the outstanding right fielder, Nick Markakis and starter Guthrie - have spoken of late of the difference in the confidence level since Showalter arrived.  Before Buck, the Orioles would go out and strive to play well.  Since Buck arrived, they seem to expect to win and play hard until the chance to do that presents itself.  Even though they lost last night to one of baseball's best pitchers, the feeling was that they were not out of the game despite trailing, 4-0, after three and a half innings.  In the fourth, Derek Lee smashed a two-run homer off of Verlander to cut the lead in half.  But the powerful Tigers came right back with two of their own in the fifth to make it 6-2.  The Orioles again rallied.  With two out in the sixth, Vladimir Guerrero whacked a single, scoring Roberts.  On this night, however, Verlander had too much.  He scattered just four hits over eight innings to get his first win of the season.  Brad Bergeson, a late fill in for the flu-ridden Guthrie, took the loss.

Even the loss doesn't dim the outlook he Orioles have this season.  Although there is plenty of time to screw up again, this team doesn't have the feel of a loser.  With the many solid acquisitions, there is a proven big-leaguer at every position and some of those players - Roberts, Markakis, Guerrero, Lee, shortstop J.J. Hardy and 2010 All Star Adam Jones - are better than average.  Luke Scott, who has averaged 25 homers during his three years in Baltimore, including 27 last season, has been left fighting for playing time. 

The Orioles haven't made the postseason since 1998 and haven't played in the World Series since 1983.  Many fans forgot what the warm and balmy wind of a penant race felt like.  In recent years, interest in the team has waned after April.  About five years ago they climbed to within 7 and one-half games of the wild card spot in mid-August and fans were pinching themselves.  it was a fake.  Getting within a full 7and one-half was the high-point of a team on a downbound train.  So many fans are holding their breath this season that even a winning April will get the juices flowing full-boar.  Watch out Baseball, the Birds might (might!) be back.

Friday morning add on:  The "rubber" game of the Tiger series was played last night at Camden Yards.  Three different times the Tigers and their lethal bats clubbed their way into the lead.  On all three occassions, the Orioles rallied.  Trailing 2-0 in the second, Guerrero unloaded his first homer and Lee also knocked in a run to tie the game.  Trailing 4-2 in the sixth, Luke Scott lashed a double and Adam Jones followed with a two-run homer to again tie the score.  But the Tigers scored again in the top of the seventh to take a 5-4 lead.

The Orioles came right back in the bottom of the inning to tie the score and then score four more times to put the game away.  Roberts singled to lead off the inning and Markakis followed with a walk.  After Lee struck out, Guerrero smashed a single to right to score Roberts.  An error by Tiger right fielder Don Kelly allowed Markakis to make it to third and Guerroro to second.  Kelly had been playing third base at the start of the game, but Jim Leland, with a late inning lead, inserted Brandon Inge to play third and moved Kelly to right.  Luke Scott was intentionally walked to load the bases, bringing up Jones, who had already homered.  He sent a fly to deep center field on which Markakis scored easily to give the Birds a 6-5 lead, their first of the game.  They weren't finished.  Showalter inserted the fleet Felix Pie to run for Scott at first base and it paid instant dividends.  Mark Reynolds blasted a double to left, scoring Jones from second and Pie all the way from first.  Daniel Sclereth was then brought in to pitch to Matt Wieters, but Wieters worked him for a walk, moving Reynolds to second.  The ninth hitter of the inning, light hitting Cesar Izturis, inserted into the starting line-up at shortstop after J.J. Hardy's side tightened up during pre-game workouts on the cool and damp evening, smashed a two-out single, scoring Reynolds.  When the Tigers came to bat in the eighth, their late inning lead was gone, replaced now by a four-run deficit.

Jim Johnson, injured much of last year, had replaced Jeremy Accardo in the seventh after Accardo had allowed the fifth Tigers' run, returned for the eighth and got the Tigers one-two-three.  He retired all five Tigers that he faced.  Koji Uehara replaced Johnson to start the ninth, and he also retired Detroit in order.

With undefeated Texas coming to town for a three game weekend series, the Orioles, at 5-1, sit atop the AL East by a single game over the Yankees and Blue Jays, each at 4-2.  The Red Sox and Rays are both mired in last place with winless 0-6 records.  That's right, the powerful Sox and the defending divisional champs have yet to win, while the Orioles, perennial doormats, lead with a nearly perfect record.

Monday morning update:  the Birds lost the weekend series to the Rangers, two games to one, but there is no panic in Baltimore.  First and foremost, despite the loss, the pitching continued to be strong.  After a Friday night rain-out, the teams played two on Saturday, at a time we used to call "twi-night".  In game one, rookie Zach Britton fired seven and two-thirds shut-out innings and Nick Markakis and Mark Reynolds each homered - Reynolds' was of the three-run variety - as the Birds rolled, 5-0.  The win by the Orioles ended the Rangers' opening season winning streak.  In the nightcap, the Orioles broke on top, 1-0, in the second inning on Adam Jones' line-drive home run, but Jake Arrietta, so impressive in his first start - a win at Tampa Bay - was anything but sharp in a 13-1 drubbing.  Arrieta gave up six runs to the Rangers in the third inning, erasing the Orioles' narrow lead, then was charged with two more Rangers' runs that scored in the fourth inning.  Josh Rupe, in relief, restored order but the Orioles could not take advantage of the opportunity.  Then Buck Showalter summonsed Chris Jakubauskas - just added to the roster earlier in the day - and left the new acquisition in as the Rangers took batting practice.  All told, the Texas bashers scored 13 times on 13 hits.  The rubber game of the series was played Sunday afternoon, and fans looking for another big hit festival were disappointed.  Jeremy Guthrie, the Birds' opening day starter, was back from a bout with the flu and showed no signs of distress.  He and Rangers starter Derek Holland locked in a classic pitchers duel into the seventh inning - the only blemish being a fourth inning homer by Adrian Beltre.  In the seventh, Ian Kinsler smacked a two-run homer to push Texas' lead to 3-0.  If anyone thought the Birds would go quietly, they were wrong.  With Buck Showalter showing his managerial prowess, the Orioles came within an eyelash of tieing the game.  There were two out and nobody on when Mark Reynolds and then Adam Jones drew back to back walks off of the Texas' left-hand submarine pitcher, Darren O'Day.  Showalter had Jake Fox ready to hit next and this appeared to be a good opportunity for the Orioles what, with Fox's record of pinch hit homers.  Seeing this, Rangers' manager Ron Washington went to the pen and got his closer, Neftali Feliz.  Showalter had his proverbial gun fully loaded, however, and when Washington brought in Feliz he countered with one of the games' premier power hitters, Luke Scott.  Scott proceeded to work the count full.  The next pitch looked for all the world like it would end up tieing the game, but alas, Scott, though he hit it hard enough, did not pull it enough.  On the warning track in straight-away center field, the Rangers' fleet outfield, Julio Bourbon caught up with the ball and ended the Orioles' chance.

The Good News is that the Orioles remain in first place.

How Did We Do This to Ourselves?

BALTIMORE, Maryland, March 25, 2011 - If you have read any of my posts on Twitter or comments on Power Line through the years, you know that one of the greatest mysteries for me is exactly how we, as a nation, came to elect someone like Barack Obama as president. 

Put differently, how did a nation that was the most advanced, free and prosperous on Earth choose to elect someone who was that young, that inexperienced, and that far out on the wing of the political spectrum with not a scintilla of evidence that he could or would be able to moderate those very very radical propensities to counter-balance his ultra-radical presentation. 

Obama is not a moderate.  He is not even a liberal as most of us understand that term.  A liberal, for instance, is one hundred percent in favor of a free press.  A liberal is one hundred percent in favor of seeding democratic governments anywhere on Earth where presently a dictator holds sway, and one hundred percent in favor of the right to collective bargaining while understanding that limits to that right exist where other obligations of government are directly threatened.  These are not traits of Obama.  Obama, by contrast, is an "uber" leftist; like other fringe leftists he favors silencing media sources which espouse ideas contrary to his.  An "uber" leftist sees a lot he can approve of in fascist dictators like Chavez of Venezuela, Kadafi of Libya, that lad down in Honduras who stirred up trouble by declaring himself "President for Life," and, of course, the dictator of all dictators, Fidel Castro.  And an uber Leftist like Obama sees nothing wrong with the kind of 'thugism," vandalism and 'boot on the throat' intimidation that have been taking over the union playbooks in recent decades.  He traffics in the kind of ideas that have been mocked and scorned in the past when other similarly inclined non-mainstream political hacks suggested them and took up their cause.  Ideas like cap and trade, spread the wealth and obama-care have never been part of the national conversation because they were "too far out."  The place where you would go if you were interested in such thinking was the Communist Party Newspaper, a politics class at Columbia, or a "rally," the kind of which materialize whenever the participants find out the G7 is due in town.

The current popular but extremely shallow explanation for the election of Obama is that we, as a nation, were looking for a way to wash away a big national guilt trip stemming from those many years when we allowed slavery, followed by those many years that we stood silently by while some practiced open discrimination and conducted lynchings and other grotesque practices. According to this theory, because Obama had one African parent, by electing him we were making amends for those terrible atrocities.

At first glance this explanation sounds sort of plausible and possible, but only at first glance.

Think it through:  according to some, we, with the 'we' being the citizens or the voters of the United States, elected obama as a way of paying reparations for the years that we allowed slavery and discrimination to exist in this land.  Can that really be true?  Think about the theory in reverse.  Nothing that this generation can do will ever erase the fact that slavery was permitted for the first 86 years that we existed as a nation.  Nor is there anything we can do today to erase the fact that there were lynchings and other atrocities in this land well into the 1900's.  If the people who elected obama were really trying to make amends for those years, it was a weak and pathetic gesture.  The fact that all these many years later, when the people who actually engaged in the reprehensible behavior are, for the most part,  long-since dead and buried,  their descendants elected someone who was not a descendant of the victims to a high political office is, about the most lame and pathetic gesture possible and certainly not a cloth with which to wipe the race record clean.

There are other ways of looking at the proposition.  Let's say that you own a company and this company is successful and profitable, but only because of the shared sacrifice of its employees, and the deft leadership of those making the business decisions.  As the owner, would you then be willing to turn this company over to someone who had no background in running such a company, who had no real familiarity with the business, the market it operated in or the issues it would face in the coming years, and who, in fact, had a very mysterious background and a lot of really scary ideas that he has openly discussed and which anybody with an ounce of sense would know will not work?  Would you let this person run your beloved company just because, well, just because, maybe he spoke nicely and maybe he sounded sincere (in the way a used car salesman sounds sincere)?  You would not.  Not on your life.  You would not take a chance on having such a business, in a highly competitive market, implode because you wanted to "feel good" about the person you chose to lead the company. 

It was clear to most of us by 2007 and 2008 that America would elect a woman, a minority person, even a gay person, if that person was, in fact, the best candidate, if that person's ideas were in sync with those of the voters, and if that person had a record that indicated he or she was capable of being president.  The Republicans - the butt of all the uber left's "racist" innuendos, were already actively courting an African American female - Condoleeza Rice - to be their candidate, and only because they had failed to convince Colin Powell to run.  Racism, being the moral failure that it always is, will never be a thing of the past, but at least by the lead up to the 2008 elections, Americans were not going to let it stand in the way of getting the right person to be president.  Of course, in writing this I have not forgotten the long-time Democratic strategy of mindlessly telling Americans that every conservative leader, or most conservative leaders, are little more than closet Klansmen.  It's just that by the run-up to the 2008 General Elections very few people with a grain of sense still believed it.

Until obama came along, the USA had a long history of electing people to the presidency who at least on the surface were amply qualified.  Obama's predecessor, W - like him or hate him - was pretty highly qualified.  He had been the successful governor of one of the largest states, he was the oldest son of a previous president and had served in that adminstration in an unofficial way, he was a stable person whose moves, choices and ideas were predictable, and, even though an admitted alcoholic, he had conquered the insidious condition and lived a stable, dry life for over a decade.  He was open and candid about his failings.  Who didn't feel that they knew the man, whether you liked him or not.    Bill Clinton was also a governor, and before that, an attorney general, he had been publicly scrutinized and investigated with zeal and abandon.  The same things can be said about Bush Senior, Reagan, Carter, Ford and even Nixon.  These things are not true about obama.  He had zero credentials.  He had been a United States Senator for literally a few days.  Before that, his government experience was confined to the state legislature.  He was as green as green could be when it came to government experience and not one rival candidate was less qualified.  Swill that one around; of all the so-called serious presidential candidates in 2008, obama was the least qualified.  It wasn't even close.  His two books are full of things that would give even the most left-wing voter pause.  What's worse, the fourth estate chose not to participate in the election process in any meaningful way.  In fact, the overall behavior of the fourth estate was an abomination.  Just when the country desperately needed real journalists to fully vet an unknown candidate so that the electorate would know as much as possible before it voted, America instead was provided with a press that jettisoned its responsibilities and took on the role of public relations manager for obama.  Obama really didn't need a stephanopoulos or rove because he had the new york times, npr and nbc.  A few days before the november election, Tom Brokaw appeared on Charlie Rose's show and both sat there admitting that even they knew very very little about obama.  we still don't.  Even a little bit of digging would have showed that obama was very good at dirty politics, very good at stabbing opponents in the back and getting them off of the ballot.  Even a little bit of digging would have showed, conclusively, that instead of the moderate he was panning himself as, he was instead a very hard left idealogue who knew nothing of compromise, nothing of diplomacy, nothing of leadership, and a whole lot about every far-left talking point that was traffiked at every SNCC, SDS and Black Panther meeting in the last forty years. 

Even the liberal press wasn't blind to obama's strategy of doing everything possible to get opponents off the ballot.  When he won the democratic primary for united states senator, his expected opponent in the general election was forced to withdraw because of revelations of some long-ago sexual piccadilo, the source of which was the obama camp.  Some would say, so, this is politics.  Some would say that.  Some - many, in fact - would lament the fact that an opportunity to truly vet an unknown candidate for high political office was wasted.  When the GOP got Maryland-based political gadfly Alan Keyes to run instead against obama, it was clear that obama and his minions wouldn't even have to break a sweat.  In the Democratic Primary, the fifty percent of all Americans who didn't like Hilary Clinton gave obama a proverbial license to kill.  Even the Clintons, America's No. 1 practitioners of the dirty trick, were shocked at the level of dirty play engaged in by obama and friends.  Bill Clinton, who thought himself America's first Black President, was openly branded a racist by obama and friends.  And if they didn't hesitate to tack that title on Clinton, just think what they were prepared to do to a GOP challenger.  Meanwhile, the press, as recounted above, jumped on the obama bandwagon and closed their eyes extremely tight to all of the multitude of reasons this man shouldn't have even gotten within a country mile of the land's highest office.
Unaffiliated polling sources like Pew Research have been telling us for years that the United States, on the whole, is unabashedly conservative.  Yet the United States elected obama when he was - despite his half-hearted protestations - further left than 90% of all Americans.  Once in office, with approval ratings that caused even hardened opponents to shut up and shut down (except for Mr. Limbaugh), obama went about appointing a staff and staffing agencies with people so far left that they weren't even on the liberal radar screen.  But in the vacuum that was the mainstream press, he did all this with impunity.  Some people, laughably, thought obama was unaware that some of these people he had personally appointed were so far out in left field that most people had never heard of them.  Obama chose these people!  And he did so because they thought like he did.  Obama had given interviews where he was openly critical of the constitution, saying it limited what government could do instead of empowering the government.  He made open statements in favor of just the kind of health plan he ended up ramming through Congress despite a groundswell of national opposition virtually unheard of in modern America.  These are the kind of things that people on the political fringe think are good ideas.  What other politician, what other 'kind' of politician, would so openly flaunt public opinion?

Nowhere was obama's unpreparedness to be president more apparent than in the area of foreign affairs.  To exlain the extreme mess that passes for a foreign policy you do not choose either incompetence or far-left zealotry.  You combine the two.  It is that combination that provides insight into such mindless and, really, embarassing choices as the ones he made in Honduras, Georgia, Iran, Israel, Egypt, Libya, and so on.  This lethal combination that adds up to pre-ordained failure was never more obvious than in the obama lecture in cairo.  It was humiliating, as much so for liberals as for conservatives.  According to obama, it was the fault of the united states that led to world-wide jihad.  to make amends he told a largely musim audience that his administration would lead the way in promoting the recognition of muslim social, political and scientific accomplishments.  In short order he changed the mission of NASA from space explanation and astronomical research to being a scientific liason to the muslim world.  Yikes! Next up was his humiliating decision not to speak out at critical junctures when freedom-seekers were in the streets of Tehran and Tripoli.  He is so-enamored by some of the world's most notorious totalitarian dictators that he refused to inject this nation's considerable moral and diplomatic support into the popular revolutions started in those nations by the underclasses.  Where as the reviled George W. Bush promised the United States would stand with any group seeking democratic reforms and democratic governments, Obama seems to prefer wild-eyed dictators like Chavez and Mo Kadafi.

There are other failures in other areas, but the point is, obama is not a good president.  He is not even a mediocre president.  He is, in fact, a profoundly extreme leftist who got himself elected president.  How? Even today, I sit here and wonder how, given the choice of obama and Senator McCain, we elected obama.  You would think that responsible members of our citizenship, responsible university professors, responsible politicians, would want to know how it happened so it will never happen again.  Sadly, way too many of these people can't even bring themselves to admit what a folly the choice of obama was.  It's one thing to choose an obama at the outset before the predictable explosion of failure, it's quite another to witness the failure, to see that the choices that led to the failures are not being changed but instead of being "doubled" and re-made.  Here, of course, I'm speaking to the likes of General Powell and certain Congressmen (in Marylalnd, for instance, we have a Congressman Rupersburger, who purported to be a representative of the working man but instead voted for obamacare without so much as a word of remorse that he had done so in direct contradiction to he will of the people who elected him).
I believe that these are the factors that were in play in what, in retrospect, is an indescribably awful and irresponsible decision to elect obama president: a. there had been a relentless drumbeat from the left and from the mainstream media against President Bush.  The movement to make Bush a national pariah started the day he became president, but didn't pick up steam until he was elected for a second term.  Then, for four years, all voices in favor of staying and winning the Iraq War were met with uniform disgust and vilification from Democrats in Congress, the entire mainstream media and far left elements from every other walk of life.  Even though Bush's central policy choices - win in Iraq, keep taxes low, fight terrorism everywhere with grit and determination - never changed, his approval ratings plumeted.  Bush's refusal to fight back, even he now admits, was a huge gaffe and only added to the success of the donkey party's strategy of laying Bush to waste.  By the time of the 2008 election, the GOP was so far behind that it would have taken a miracle to pull it off. 

McCain's choice of running mates was almost that miracle, but after initially stumbling, the main stream media stepped in and did a trashing of Alaska Governor Palin that made Bill Clinton and Sidney Blumenthal proud.  That, and the financial crisis that set in during the fall, and Sen. McCain's failed strategy in dealing with it, was all she wrote.  Obama was going to be president.  It should never have happened.  My party cannot take comfort in the idea that they had gotten a man elected, which was their duty, and that is the end of it.  Nero got himself made into the Roman Emperor.  Neville Chamberlain got himself elected British PM.  Just because the Dems could get obama elected did not in any moral way mean that they should.  I believe that the failure of the Democratic leadership to clip obama's candidacy in the bud amounted to nothing less than a moral failure.  Way too many of the people who facilitated that event knew that there was a distinct possibility he would do serious longterm harm to the United States,  You do not put a person in charge of a great nation who hates virtually everything that the nation stands for, who has actively worked in the recent past to subvert that nation, and who has espoused many many ideas that are directly counter to long-held and distinctly moral national virtues. 

To be sure, the approximately half of the democratic party leadership that was not in support of Hilary Clinton and was actually tired of the two-headed Clinton "monster" with all of its heavy-handed, low-brow and sometimes illegal tactics, would have done anything to defeat her in the primaries.  When obama began to gather momentum, they were so quick to jump on the bandwagon that one wonders just how far they would've gone to defeat Hilary.  One thing receiving virtually no thought was the effect of a young stubborn uber leftist on the health and well-being of the United States.  More than a few democrats realized, however late, that obama was a terrible choice.  To know that you only have to examine the primary season.  Obama broke on top when little was known about him.  Once the uber liberal tendencies began to play themselves in public (the "slip" of the tongue with Joe the Plumber and the obscene subsequent decision to investigate the mere citizen for simply asking a question, the campaign decision to tag Bill Clinton as a racist, and obama getting himself audio-taped at a "private" gathering of super-rich California supporters wherein Obama arrogantly  describes the yahoo in Pennsylvania who, in times of stress, still cling to their bibles and their shotguns.  Playing into this late nose-dive was the continuing line of questions in the so-called new media about obama's long association with the marxist pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright).

Everybody who knew anything about obama knew he hated the constitution.  As a lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, he had made that greatest of western achievements a target of unceasing derision.  He openly criticized the very idea of a constituion that - as he viewed it - was a set of what he derisively called " negative rights", or, put plainly, placed limits on what the people could force the government to do.  He was wholly opposed to the Bill of Rights and vilified Jefferson, not for his sexual behavior, but for his failure to draft a document that would have set the stage for a marxist revolution in the last quarter of the 1700's.  Conservatives scoff at Hilary Clinton's senior thesis from college, the one where she praised marxist agitator Saul Alinsky.  But Obama's radical statements and writings make Hilary's senior thesis seem almsot moderate.  He was openly friendly with the people who were arrested for trying to bomb the Pentagon in those surley days of the late 1960's and early 1970's, he attended church at the pulpit of Anti-Almerican Doge, Jeremiah Wright.  In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist atrocities of 9/11 he wrote an op-ed piece stating that America had to accept part of the blame for the attack.  Imagine, if you will, the media circus that would've surrounded any other sitting president making such statements, having such associates or trafficing in such ideas.  But, name one mainstream article from the New York Times, Washington Post, or one mainstream report on nbc that gave any credence to what is really a known fact:  obama didn't used to be a radical revolutionary, he still is.

Still is?  When the BP rig in the gulf blew, sending rivers of crude rushing into the still pristine Gulf of Mexico, Obama was slow to the switch when it came to civil defense mobilization and meaningful leadership of the effort to cap the leak.  But he and his confederate, the extremely radical Eric Holder, wasted no time reverting to full radical mode when it came to attacking the corporate leaders of BP as if they wanted the bloody thing to blow.  Obama actually muttered that full radical phrase, promising to "put his boot on BP's throat."  He led a frenzied effort to vilify the company, even though it was the employer of thousands of Americans and thousands more in America's traditional and closely held ally, Great Britain.  Things quickly got so out of hand that the British Government had to warn obama to back off of the personal attacks.  Even as BP spent many billions trying to cap the leak, obama actually sent "a team of lawyers" to BP headquarters, openly seeking evidence of some sort of criminal act.  what did that cost?  It cost millions of taxpayer dollars and not one single indictment resulted.  Really, what did they think they would find? A plot of start the leak?  In fact, obama administration officials had awarded BP just weeks before the leak started for taking a leadership role in protecting the Gulf Environment.  That was almost as ironic as the blizzard that starts in every town Al Gore goes to to shill his warm weather jive.  (I am not a disbeliever in global warming.  I am actively against all things Gore because he is nothing more than a used car salesman with a resume.)  Or, if we leave the Gulf, how about obama gussying up to the Venezualean Dictator and the Libyan Dictator, the Iranian Mullahs, Castro and the Chinese Communists.  Were he only so nice to our friends - and being friends with the USA is anything but easy these days - like England, France, India, Honduras, Israel and Georgia.

We could go on and on, but again, the point is, how did this person get elected president.  We are like a nation playing the role of the young man who tied on a serious drunk one night and woke up married to a woman he normally wouldn't get anywhere close to.  He's a frenzied radical with no experience at governing or leading and we elected him.  Is the electorate disineterested to the poijnt that they really don't care?  Does the electorate get its political information via Hollywood or their children's elementary school teachers?  It's worse than that.  If you look back, there was no limit to the number of nationally recognized persons who actually endorsed him for president over Senator McCain.  General Powell, Senator kennedy,  One of William F. Buckley's sons, and on and on.  (Some of them have fallen on their proverbial swords and admitted they made a terrible mistake.  Some, like Gen. Powell, against all logic, have not.  For him, I suggest reading Barbara Tuchman's landmark work, "The March of Folly."  If you know what that is about, nothing more need be said.

In summary, obama was elected for a combination of reasons:  the United States has always felt better when the Presidency switches parties regularly, and the electorate, with the help of the far-left mainstream media, was tired of a President who would not defend his policies against relentless democratic carping.  Add to that the usual cry of the voter for change to somebody who isn't "part of the club."  Through effective use of the media sources like the internet and a comliant news media, obama was able to largely disguise his uber left portfolio and thought process and convince many out-of-touch voters that he was a moderate of a different ilk who intended to get along with everybody.  Add to these, the fact that many who had ill-gotten reputations as independent and rational thinkers who came out in support of obama when he needed such support to contravene his leftist background.  And, to wrap it all up obama was somehow able to don the cloak of redemption for the country's past sins against Africans forced here under the yoke of slavery and forced to live even longer with open government-sanctioned discrimination. What we got is obama, a leader worse than any previous american president no matter how they are judged.






  

It starts here. It starts now.

I have really really struggled with the idea of starting a blog.  Weighing against the decision is a reticence to commit the time necessary to make it viable.  I do not mind writing for a small audience.  I will not be so conceited as to suppose anyone wants to read my musings on a regular basis, or on any basis, for that matter.  But I will not post something that other's might view unless I am proud of the product.  Some postings, probably most, will require research. 

Another fear is that the entries will end up being a collection of "I", as in "I did"  or "i have been" and "I think," and, worst of all, "I want" and "I wish for."  I hope, really really hope, that these essays have very few inclusions of the word "I".  But look at the first word of the first paragraph and there it is, "I". 

What will be added to the national psyche by these entries?  There is a theory that folks with views that tend toward liberal but not toward leftist are not being heard today.  The kind of liberal of which we speak, here, is the John Kennedy type.  The noble idealistic, profoundly American President espoused viewpoints very similar to those many (I believe most) people espouse today, but you would never know it if you follow the mainstream press, be it printed or broadcast. 

Kennedy hated racial prejudice and was dedicated to ending it.  To him, ending racism began with purging it from the way the government worked.  He worked hard and, was, indeed, dedicated to rooting out all vestiges of government-backed racism.  It was Kennedy's belief that in the public domain color had not a thing to do with a person's right to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Kennedy fought to end all vestiges of Jim Crow legislation and all vestiges of government institutions favoring one race at the expense of another.  State Universities would be open to all.  Public accommodations would be open to all.  Employment opportunity would be color-blind.  Housing opportunity would be color-blind.

Kennedy was also profoundly anti-communist.  Today's leftist is either openly communist or so close to it that he or she trips over themselves trying to keep the line from blurring.  Kennedy did not support McCarthy-style vigilante practices but he did oppose national communist states like those behind the iron curtain, the one in Cuba and the one in China.  Kennedy realized, like most Americans still do today, that communism and capitalism were anathemas to each other.  The existence of capitalism almost guarantees that communist states will fail, sooner or later.  The European Communist states - the ones behind the iron curtain - have already failed.  The Cuban "Communist" state is really a dictatorial totalitarian state where the press is crushed, political discussion is choked, free-thinking, liberty and other freedoms taken for granted here are non-existent there. Most believe that states which start out calling themselves "communist" end up being fascist dictatorships like Cuba.

Some leftists in Hollywood, in the White House and on the campus scene have this bizarre idea that Cuba is Utopian.  According to these "removed from reality" types, Cuba really has totally free birth-to-death health care for all.  The truth is that there is more and better free health care here than there.  Any American, rich or poor, can show up at an emergency room and be treated even if they have no way of paying.  The hospital may attempt to be compensated later but they will provide the care now, even if they know from the git go that they will never be paid.

Liberalism, as I have always understood the word, is the idealistic pursuit of all things noble.  Liberals believe in providing a voice to those who aren't heard by the powerful, providing care for the helpless and safety for the endangered.  Liberals believe in trying to be the best person you can be, of being selfless in a world that is rife with materialism.  The kind of liberal that this blog will espouse believes in the best things about this nation; it's freedoms and liberties.  This Blog endorses American Exceptionalism and believes that the ideas of liberty and freedom for all  are things worth dieing for.  The fight to keep America free and unfettered is the most noble of the secular causes.  The kind of liberal supported here also believes that freedom of religion is just that, the freedom to believe in God and to practice your religion in the way God has commanded us to.  The freedom of religion spoken of in the Constitution reflects, to a T, the idea that state-supported religion is the opposite of freedom of religion, but freedom of religion is not in any way, shape or form, the use of government to curtail or impose upon religion.  A government that nurtures liberty and freedom for all is, to religion, what a fertilized field is to the seeds sown by a farmer. 

The far-left today is anti-Christian.    They are, at least, open and obvious about it.  But the far-Lefts idea that government is a kind of anti-religion is not what the founding fathers favored.  To state that the founding fathers believed that government should curtail religious practice is a total perversion of the ideas of the founding fathers.  Such a perversion will not be favored here.  Christianity will be favored, fought for, defended and, maybe even spread, in this blog, and thank you Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Adams for the freedom to do just that.

This blog will also address every other topic of interest that you can imagine.  There will be short bursts and long essays, and there will be lots and lots of ideas suggested, floated and analyzed.  Sports will be spoken of fondly here, for a gym rat is writing this blog.  Art and Music are also in for discussion.  There will also be a lot of words devoted to books, writing and plain old reading.  Reading is one of man's most civilized and advanced functions. It is one of the things that is a true marker for civilized advancement, for a society that recognizes that reading is the foundation of learning is a society that inevitably will seek the same kinds of things the founding fathers sought: liberty, freedom, and the opportunity to be happy. 

There will also be discussion of science and scientific advancement.  This is one devout Christian who hates the idea that those who believe in and follow Christ must take stands against science.  Evolution is a scientific fact and is not in the least intellectually challenging.  Whether and to what extent modern man escaped the primeval world through evolution is a wonderful and challenging field whose purveyors are among the most advanced thinkers on earth. 

This is a world filled with wonder and excitement.  It is a world still waiting to be discovered.  Each new idea, each discovery, and each new conclusion is another page in the story of humanity.  We get but a second, in the big scheme of things, to live in and discover it for ourselves.  The most cutting edge of today's scientists and thinkers are those folks engaged in the quickly developing theories concerning dimensional realities.  These are the people who postulate and try to prove that the universe is not merely three dimensional, and that there is every possibility that there are parallel universes much closer in some ways than many of us can imagine.  These scientists use advanced mathematics and other advanced ways of thinking, measuring and calculating as they forge ahead in their effort to understand reality. 

To really understand where science is and where it is going, one owes it to himself or herself to make an effort to track this field of science because it is possible if not likely that the most fantastic new advances in the way humans live, think and communicate will occur because of advancements here.

As mentioned above, the writer is a sports nut; a long-time and devoted follower of the Baltimore Orioles, the University of Maryland Terrapins, and the Baltimore Ravens.  The writer, in fact, is pretty goofy when it comes to the Terrapin Basketball Team.  It's difficult and sometimes impossible for him to sit through a whole game and its downright traumatic for him to revisit the second-round NCAA Tournament loss to Michigan State last spring.  In that game, the Terps were down nine - as in 9 points - with less than two minutes to play.  They were down throughout the game.  Michigan State was a lot bigger than Maryland and every time it would look or feel like Maryland would make its move, State would fight them off, usually under the boards, but sometimes with a three-pointer.

Then came the charge.  It was one of the most incredible and inspiring rallies this long-time basketball nut has ever witness.  Sitting here now, thinking about it, it seems like it took place over ten or even fifteen minutes.  The truth is, it was 110 seconds of the most scintillating basketball ever played.  Say what you want about Greivis Vasquez, he took over college basketball in the second half of last season.  Nobody and no team could stop him for a whole game.  He was tenacious.  He was cool under fire.  He never stopped going directly after each opponent.  He was extremely tough and he never, ever gave up.  A sub-.500 shooter from three point range for his career, he caught fire as his senior season wore on.  In the Michigan State game, the last two minutes were his.  He made threes, he made driving one-handers from impossible angles.  He wanted the ball with everything on the line and he came through when he got it.  He combined with Sean Mosley, Cliff Tucker and Eric Hayes to steal the ball from State's guards time after time during that last 110 seconds.  Finally, with about 20 seconds left, Vasquez hit another runner and Maryland led by one. 

State came down the floor, and, being a great team with a great coach, they retook the lead.  Now there was less than ten seconds left.  Again, Vasquez got the ball and put up a runner from right of the lane.  It went in.  Maryland led again and now only six seconds remained.  You know the rest.  State got a long three at the buzzer, a shot Landon Milbourne contested but couldn't block, a shot that almost never happened because another state player ran between the shooter and the player who passed the ball to him.  But at the last instant this Spartan ducked under the pass;  It is possible that in doing so he charged into a Maryland player, but even the most ardent Maryland fan would have made that call.  When that bloody shot went in it was like somebody punched every Maryland fan in the gut.  How could a team come back from nine down with less than two minutes left and take the lead not once, but twice, and still lose?  Many years ago when Albert King, Ernie Graham, Greg Manning and Buck Williams were playing for Maryland they lost a regular season game at Notre Dame just like the State game.  They were in the middle of the conference schedule during that season, and then had to go to South Bend to play the highly ranked Irish.  For most of the game they looked dead in the water and then they caught fire.  Albert King was unstoppable.  There has never been a college player who seemed so easily able to play above the rim.  Whatever his vertical leap was from a standing position, it looked like he could make those heights with no effort at all.  He seemed to be in his proper natural state when he was way up in the air.  In that long-ago Notre Dame game, the Terps got the lead, finally, with about six or seven seconds left, only to lose when an Irish player drove the length of the floor for a lay-up.  My memory of that game doesn't provide me with the certain identity of the Irish player who made the winning shot, but I do believe it was Adrian Dantley.  Everybody in the gym thought Digger would call a time-out as the Irish raced up the floor.  But Digger knew Lefty - who had used up his timeouts during Maryland's frantic rally - would use such a timeout to set his defense just so and he decided he was better in a transition situation.  The old Digger did get that decision correct.  State and its coach, Tom Izzo, had no such decision to make because they also had exhausted their time-outs in that last desperate Maryland rally.  When you watch the replay you see that a non-guard actually brought the ball up the floor for State and this briefly befuddled the Terps.  The player assigned to apply ball pressure to the point guard moved towards the ball but saw it was not his man and backed off.  Whoever was supposed to pick the ball up was slow to react in the wake of the Vasquez shot.  This allowed State to dribble the ball up the floor in just a few seconds, and then they also had the good fortune of the non-guard seeing the open shooter spotted up and calling for the ball.  The shot left his hand a split-second before the buzzer.  To their credit, the officials did check that at the scorers table.  Vasquez had led Maryland from nine back with less than two minutes left by making a series of spectacular shots.  Had the Terps won, it would've been them and not State that made it to the final four.  The nation would've had the privilege of seeing Vasquez play in several more really big games, and there is no doubt here that he would've wowed them.  With six seconds left, it all seemed to be falling in place.  A tough old coach with a chiseled group of over-achievers, led by the flamboyant and spectacular Vasquez, playing for all the marbles.  It would've been Basketball Nirvāna.