Happy Thanksgiving

I've always considered Thanksgiving to be the most American of holidays, a sentiment I know many people share (hey, name one other holiday that creates the same number of insane traffic jams, an American trademark and gift to the world). It's also my favorite holiday, even more so than Christmas -- Christmas itself is almost anti-climactic nowadays, since the buildup is almost better than the holiday itself (perhaps this will change someday when I have kids). But Thanksgiving is a day when people make an effort to travel far and wide to see loved ones, to have a meal with them, and rejoice and give thanks for all of the wonderful things in their world.

I'd list all the things for which I am thankful, but such an effort would inevitably miss more than I listed. But I am grateful for the family in which I was raised first and foremost, particularly my parents, who came to this country as immigrants, leaving behind everything they knew, and built a life around their children, teaching them the importance of values, hard work, education and integrity. I'm grateful for being blessed with a younger sister who withstood the traditional teasing by her older brother to become an intelligent and beautiful woman. I'm also blessed by a younger brother who never fails to make me proud of him, and makes me smile every time I see him. I'm also blessed for finding a fiancee who is beautiful, intelligent, strong-willed, kind and has a thousand other virtues -- and for some reason has seen fit to share her life with me, and thankfully, keep me in line. Her decision has meant that I get to join another incredible family -- a large family with a heart of gold that has opened its arms to me. I'm thankful also for all the wonderful friends in my life -- both those who are a part of my daily life, and those whom I, regrettably, see far less.

Those are the things for which I am grateful personally. In the bigger picture, I'm grateful for far more, from the important things (like the troops who sacrifice everything to keep our country safe) to the mundane (the Eagles' 9-1 record). In the end, though, I'm just grateful that I get another year of life, to spend with all the people and things that matter to me. I hope the same is true for anyone reading this, and that they have the opportunity to celebrate that with people they care about tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Bye-Bye, Gunga-Dan

Rather resigns. Somehow, I feel like I should be celebrating a little more. Maybe it's the incomprehensible decision to have Rather remain as an "investigative reporter" on Sixty Minutes. Isn't that the part of the job that he actually screwed up?

The slew of reaction on the Web from the blogosphere is worth reading. Instapundit has a few reactions. Geraghty's got some additional ones here. In addition, Geraghty's own reaction is that it's not nearly enough and far too late. Andrew Sullivan is of a similar mind. ScrappleFace has one of the funniest headlines ever. Powerline is among those wondering what happened to the investigation, but takes time out to make an important point...

Rather and [Mary] Mapes [the producer of the piece] hated President Bush so much that they recklessly threw away their network's reputation--already somewhat tattered, to be sure--for integrity and accuracy. But isn't that a pretty good analogy to what the Democrats did? No one could have made a rational decision that it was a good idea to embrace Michael Moore as the party's house intellectual, or to launch such strident attacks against President Bush that many uncommitted voters must have wondered whether the Democrats had become unhinged. Like Dan Rather, the Democratic Party hated President Bush so much that it just couldn't help itself.

And maybe the folks who found Rather's bais abhorrent (like myself) should be enjoying the moment more. Check out Will Collier at VodkaPundit...

This is a humiliating comedown for Rather. Yes, it's a half-step. It's CBS trying to finesse its way out from under a disgraceful fraud committed by the network's most high-profile employee, but it is still a major, major defeat for CBS, and a crushing blow to Dan Rather. The CBS Evening News, even given plummeting ratings and a long slide in relevance, is still the crown jewel of CBS News. From its summit, Dan Rather has ruled the news division for a generation, effectively shaping a vast amount of the information that's broadcast over the network.

He never--never--would have voluntarily given up that much power and prestige under pressure. No way in hell would Rather give his critics the satisfaction of seeing him removed from that chair if he had any prayer of holding on to it.

The "this is no big deal" spin is a lie. The king is dead, and the blogosphere killed him.

I wonder if Little Green Footballs and Powerline should post Rather's head on the wall of the blogosphere hunting lodge in cyberspace.

The NFL Recap, Week Eleven

I do these every week at work as part of my duties as Sports Czar, so why not share with the public?

To be honest, we’re creatively spent.

It’s difficult to come up with appropriate themes each week to recap the football season. We’re saving the "What Each NFL Team is Thankful For" theme for next week, when every sports columnist will have beaten it into the ground more than the Pacers-Pistons brawl. And it’s hard to keep coming up with jokes about the Redskins. Okay, it’s not so hard, but we’re missing our best material. Steve Spurrier is now the head football coach at South Carolina, Danny Wuerffel is running a ministry in Louisiana and Danny’s glove is one of the competitors on the current season of "The Apprentice."

But soldier on we will – and this week, we’ve hit upon a new theme. This week, each game will be summarized by a quote from one of America’s greatest philosophers, a man who should need no introduction – Homer J. Simpson. Please note – we’re skipping the Dolphins-Seahawks contest, since we’re not certain the Dolphins still belong in the NFL.

Score: Buffalo 37, St. Louis 17

Quote:

"If you really want something in life, you have to work for it. Now quiet – they’re about to announce the lottery numbers!"

Summary: Doesn’t this quote sum up the Rams appropriately? We’re starting to wonder if Rams coach Mike Martz may actually borrow Homer’s brain during the games. Meanwhile, Buffalo is a team with a lot less talent, but a ton of heart, and the decaying corpse known as Drew Bledsoe snapped back to life with a three TD performance. This is just a guess, but Bledsoe probably doesn’t have many more games like this left. Then again, Martz probably doesn’t have many games left as a head coach.

Score: Baltimore 30, Dallas 10

Quote:

"Lisa, if you don’t like your job, you don’t strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That’s the American way."

Summary: If you wanted to summarize the Cowboys' season, this would be a good way of doing it. The Ravens are now 7-3, and have a QB whose slow maturation will now lead to coach Brian Billick formally declaring himself a genius, making him even more insufferable than he is now. Yeah, we didn’t think it was possible either, but give him a chance. As for Dallas, the fact that the Cowboys and Bears are playing on Thanksgiving is pretty appropriate on a day when Americans will consume approximately 400 million pounds of turkey (and that’s just in Michael Moore’s house).

Score: New York Jets 10, Cleveland 7

Quote:

"To alcohol! The cause of – and solution to – all of life’s problems."

Summary: This is for the fans of both teams, who had to watch the whole game. Besides, the two teams combined have not won a title since January 1969. Heck, if you live in Cleveland, alcohol probably seems like a good idea any time.

Score: Pittsburgh 19, Cincinnati 14

Quote:

"Maybe, just once, someone will call me ‘sir’, without adding, ‘you’re making a scene.'"

Summary: Every Cincinnati fan must dream of the day that their team wins a huge game against a playoff contender. Some of them might even remember the last time they did it. They just want a chance to feel special, just once, to feel like a top-tier team, like the Steelers. Oh, well. Pittsburgh QB Ben Roethlisberger is 8-0 as a starter, and gets to play the Redskins this week. Some people just live right.

Score: Indianapolis 41, Chicago 10

Quote:

"Trying is the first step toward failure."

Summary: This is how defenses must feel facing Peyton Manning. Manning now has 35 TD passes, and is on pace to shatter Dan Marino’s league record of 48 before Christmas. Oh, wait, he plays Detroit on Thanksgiving. He could conceivably shatter the record by the weekend. As for the Bears, they just started Craig Krenzel against Peyton Manning. I’m not sure Vegas should offer odds in such a game.

Score: Minnesota 22, Detroit 19

Quote:

"Step aside, everyone! Sensitive love letters are my specialty. ‘Dear Baby, Welcome to Dumpsville. Population: you.’"

Summary: It’s time for Detroit to end the Joey Harrington experiment. The man just threw for 91 yards against the league’s third-worst passing defense. We’re reasonably certain that a trained monkey might pull off the same, and with a lower cap number (unless the monkey was a free agent signee by Dan Snyder, of course). Meanwhile, the Vikings offense continues to show that they have great ability combined with somewhat limited intelligence. Expect a first round playoff exit at best.

Score: Carolina 35, Arizona 10

Quote:

"Marge, don’t discourage the boy! Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals! Except the weasel."

Summary: Sorry, we just wanted to use this quote to weasel out of writing a recap. I mean, who would watch this debacle? Next.

Score: Tennessee Titans 18, Jacksonville Jaguars 15

Quote:

"It’s like that time I could have seen Mr. T at the mall. I kept saying ‘I’ll go a little later. I’ll go a little later.’ Then when I finally went, the men at the mall told me he just left."

Summary: Right now, the Jags are lamenting a lost opportunity. The playoffs beckoned, and the Jags were keeping pace with first place Indy in the AFC South. This division loss, to a beat-up Titans team, will be very costly at the end of the season.

Score: Tampa Bay 35, San Francisco 3

Quote:

Lisa: "Dad! The Second Amendment is just a remnant from revolutionary days. It has no meaning today!"

Homer: "You couldn't be more wrong, Lisa. If I didn't have this gun, the King of England could just walk in here any time he wants, and start shoving you around. Do you want that? Huh? Do you?"

Summary: 49ers fans probably want a gun to put themselves out of their misery. As for the Bucs, Jon Gruden has turned his team into a dangerous opponent down the stretch. Although we’re still waiting for QB Brian Griese to shoot himself in the foot.

Score: Denver 34, New Orleans 13

Quote:

"Stealing? How could you? Haven’t you learned anything from that guy who gives those sermons at church? Captain Whats-His-Name? We live in a society of laws! Why do you think I took you to all those Police Academy movies? For fun? Well, I didn’t hear anybody laughing, did you?"

Summary: The Saints are simply stealing money from their owner right now. This game was so easy, the Broncos are probably wondering why they got a second straight bye week.

Score: San Diego 23, Oakland 17

Quote:

"Son, when you participate in sporting events, it’s not whether you win or lose; it’s how drunk you get."

Summary: The Chargers had to visit Oakland and escaped the drunken louts in the Black Hole with a win. We’re reasonably certain those people have to be drunk, because no sober person would dress and act like that. Well, except maybe Ron Artest.

Score: Atlanta 14, New York Giants 10

Quote:

"Oh, Dad, you’ve done a lot of great things, but you’re a very old man, and old people are useless."

Summary: Eli Manning gets his first start while Kurt Warner sits down. The Giants had lost three straight and yielded to reality, recognizing that Manning could do no worse than Warner. Meanwhile, the Falcons continue to just keep winning while flying under the radar. At this point, this team is the legitimate #2 seed in the NFC, which may say more about the conference than the Falcons.

Score: Philadelphia 28, Washington 6

Quote:

"Lisa, if the Bible has taught us nothing else – and it hasn’t – it’s that girls should stick to girls’ sports, such as hot oil wrestling and foxy boxing and such and such."

Summary: If anyone’s offended, Mark Nelson’s responsible for that quote. As to the Redskins, perhaps they would be better at hot oil wrestling. They couldn’t be worse. Maybe the Redskins will spend the week trying to convince Joe Gibbs to let Patrick Ramsey thrown the ball more than three yards down the field. The Eagles continue their stroll to the NFC East Title -- with a win this Sunday, they would clinch the division before December begins. Maybe every other team in the division should try hot oil wrestling.

Score: Green Bay 16, Houston 13

Quote:

"This is a very, very proud day for us! Especially me, your father, me, who beat City Hall! It's just like David and Goliath, only this time, David won!"

Summary: Brett Favre was down 10 in the fourth quarter in Houston. Packers win anyway. Even David couldn't have won if Goliath had Brett Favre slinging the rock. Of course, Dan Rather is now reporting that he has documents proving Favre is a space alien. Actually, that might be more believable than the plots in CBS prime-time dramas.

Score: New England 27, Kansas City 19

Quote:

Homer: "So I said to him, ‘Look, buddy, your car was upside down when we got here. And as for your Grandma, she shouldn't have mouthed off like that!’"

Lisa: "Dad, don't you see you're abusing your power like all vigilantes? I mean, if you're the police, who will police the police?"

Homer: "I dunno. Coast Guard?"

Summary: Sorry, I just really wanted to use that quote. KC is now 7-11 since opening last season 9-0. The Patriots are 24-1 since opening last season 0-2. Game over.

BasketBrawl

Hmmm. What can I say about it that hasn't been said already?

By it, of course, I mean Friday Night Fights in Detroit, the fun event held by the Pacers and Pistons at the end of their NBA Game. Next time, though, we really think the Pistons need to promote the event, so fans don't leave the arena early and miss the real action.

Jokes aside, this story keeps getting more unbelievable by the minute. This morning on ESPN (which has shown the fight so often that it now has its own timeslot, just after Pardon the Interruption), we watched Sportscenter spot-shadowing the guy who threw the cup that started the mess. It turns out Artest did indeed punch the wrong guy -- the guy who threw the cup basically moves out of the way and almost escorts Artest right to the innocent guy he pummelled. Better yet, the cup-tosser was immediately identified by the lead prosecutor in the case, since it's his former neighbor. So far this guy has lost his season tickets and held a press conference in front of his home, where he didn't apologize to anyone for getting things started.

As for my feelings... I think Artest's suspension is a tad harsh, but it's not a terrible injustice. Jackson deserves more, O'Neal less (any fan who runs on the court deserves anything that happens) and Wallace more. I could care less about the NBA before the playoffs start (and sometimes after that) and this brawl changes nothing, except it may make me more likely to watch the next Pacers-Pistons game. As for Artest's reaction to the beer cup... Frenchy, I hope you're reading this. Jonah Goldberg posted this at the Corner, from an e-mail. It wasn't me who wrote this, but the Harvard-Philly connection is suspicious...

I think it a simple rule of life: Throw a cup of beer in someone’s face you get your a** kicked. I think this a conservative position; it has been a rule for thousands of years. This rule has been passed down from our Mongol, Viking, even the French forefathers. I have personally observed this rule in effect in the civilized and conservative communities of South Philadelphia and the Harvard campus. Why should we expect 20 year olds to ignore thousands of years of social conditioning simply because they make $6 million a year?

Artest showed great initiative and perseverance in kicking that guy’s ass, a model of individual responsibility in a self regulating society. In fact, absent the subsequent activities of lawyers, I am certain that the a**-kickee will think twice about throwing further cups of beer. To paraphrase Robert A. Heinlein ‘an a** kicking society is a polite society’.

I grew up in South Philly (yo) and strongly believe that ‘taking a beating’ for improper conduct is a social good. During the 1980’s, and I assume to this day, the honorable Philadelphia police would offer a beating as an alternative to arrest for minor offenses. If you took the beating the cops then thought of you as a stand-up kid.

I think I saw at least one person predicting that Artest would be traded to the Sixers. Sounds about right.

A Few Important Links

If you want to try and give back to the folks who defend our freedom, here are a few places that will help:

1. The USO's "Operation Phone Home" -- This service provides phone cards to our men and women serving overseas, so they can call loved ones at home. A great idea and a worthy cause.

2. U.S. Troop Care Package -- This site helps put together and send care packages for our troops.

3. Soldier's Angels -- a chance to contribute either care packages or money to purchase care packages, and the opportunity to "Adopt a Soldier."

4. Operation Gratitude -- more care packages, but you can donate money and let Operation Gratitude purchase the care packages.

Hat tip to The Corner for pointing out all of these wonderful sites.

For the nine or so people reading this, please e-mail me and I'll add more links.

Somebody Fire the Logo Guy

D.C. has a new baseball team. I have no objection to that, and celebrate this as a wonderful day for the nation's capital. But the logo needs work.

Playground Politics?

My friend Greg over at The Project (his blog, which is linked on this sight and is a terrific read, especially if you prefer not to simply digest crazed right-wing ruminations from folks like yours truly) had an interesting post yesterday regarding what he labeled "playground politics." I disagree with much of it, but it's well worth the read. There are a couple portions to which I clearly wanted to respond...

I also happen to think that the Republican demonization of Democratic politicians -- good men, who have done good things for the country, such as Tom Daschle and John Kerry -- has been far more severe than anything that has happened in reverse. I can understand resenting the fact that Tom Daschle played a role, as leader of the Democrats in the Senate, in obstructing much of an agenda that he (and his caucus) did not support. But I am absolutely baffled by the personal animosity that was vented towards one of the most honest, hardest working, and genuinely nice guys of his political generation.

And with John Kerry, well -- the demonization campaign began with the Republican negative ad barrage in the spring, and culminated in one of the most depraved political acts I've ever witnessed -- the first Swift Boat ad, and the noxious campaign those poisonous men launched against him. Let me be clear: I have nothing but respect for the service that any of these gentlemen provided to their country. But I have absolute contempt for the personal weakness they showed by injecting their venemous half-truths about John Kerry into this presidential campaign. Contextual criticism of Kerry's role in speaking out against the Vietnam War is perfectly reasonable, especially when the subject has himself made his role in the war a campaign item. But the lies about Kerry's war record, and the insinuation that somehow it rendered his service dishonorable and a disqualifier to be Commander-in-Chief, are absolutely inexcusable.

First of all, I have to disagree with the premise that the GOP and its surrogates were any more vicious in attacking Senator Daschle and Senator Kerry than the Democrats and their surrogates were in attacking President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, et al. on the GOP Side. MoveOn.org and the other minions of George Soros certainly spent plenty of money accusing the President of lying us into war and comparing the current administration to the Nazis in Germany -- I know I read at least a few folks on the left who compared John Ashcroft's Justice Department to the Gestapo (by the way, Soros' picture on the current cover of National Review is hysterical). And the media's run at Bush's service record via fraudulent documents was egregious.

I don't think either side held a vast advantage in the amount of money spent working over the personal image of their opponent -- I think the more important question was which side was more effective. Bush's campaign team successfully branded Kerry as an indecisive flip-flopping machine during the late-spring and early summer months by making effective use of the lag between the primaries and the convention -- a tactic employed very successfully by Bill Clinton in 1996, when his campiagn team effectively linked Bob Dole and the demonized Newt Gingrich at the hip while defining Dole before his convention even began.

I don't know what to say about the Daschle issue here, since I don't know the specific personal attacks Greg is referencing. Daschle is a decent man, but I'm among the cadre on the right who wanted him beaten for being the organizer of Democratic obstuctionism for the last four years in the Senate. I supported John Thune enthusiastically, and Thune's most effective attack on Daschle was the fact that Daschle publicly played up his support of President Bush in South Dakota while consistently opposing him in Washington.

As for Kerry, a few points. There's probably someone somewhere penning a newspaper column, book, or term paper (and the last category would produce a product that would at least show some research, so I'm hoping it's one of those) on the breakdown in civility in politics, and they'll probably find a way to relate it to the breakdown in civility in society in general. Hell, someone will probably relate the whole thing to the Pacers-Pistons brawl.

Personally, I don't think politics by the campaigns is any more vicious than it has been in the past -- I just think we're more aware of the "dirty" tricks than we were in the past. American politics is filled with dirtbag stuff that makes today's charges and counter-charges look pretty tame. I'm working off memories of high school history here, but Grover Cleveland was accused of fathering several children out of wedlock and having a hand in the untimely demise of his fiancee when he was young. There were accusations of Eisenhower participating in war atrocities, and lurid stories about Truman's daughter. Lincoln was accused of everything from fathering illegitimate mixed-race children to employing a cadre of female sex slaves in the White House (and considering the recent claims that he was gay, these charges look a tad more spurious). Nixon might well have been more viciously caricatured than Bush, and that was before Watergate. And let's not get started on Andrew Jackson. I do think there's an alarming level of incivility when it comes to political discourse today in the type of violence we've seen, from the shooting at the Knoxville, TN offices of Bush-Cheney to union attempts to intimidate Republican voters, but I doubt even this is all that unprecedented. Just unreported, as usual.

Save for the last part, I don't think this type of political discourse is some horrible plague on the nation; in fact, I think it's quite normal and even healthy. Let's be honest -- for all the high-minded talk about issues between the supposedly dignified partisans on each side of the aisle, a large number of voters make up their minds for reasons that make no conceptual sense -- from "I've always voted [fill in the party]" or "He smiled more during the last debate." Both parties go to war with negative campaigns because (a) they work, and (b) they work.

Inevitably, negative campaigning gets classified as a dirty trick for crossing some imaginary line, but the line is one we in the political information marketplace draw ourselves. If some attack is so outrageous that it crosses the boundary of good taste for the majority of citizens, the party producing the attack will suffer accordingly at the ballot box. Maybe we're defining deviancy down at this point, but I think the problem may be one that exists in our society as a whole. If we want this to change, we as political consumers need to be more vigilant about it. In a generation, it'll probably be considered okay to call your opponent by profane names in a debate. And it would be our fault, because we're the consumers who accept it.

Finally, a word on the Swift Boat Vets -- not every claim they made about Kerry's war record was a lie; in fact, most of their claims are impossible to disprove, while at least one (Christmas in Cambodia) is completely true. I'm tired of the demonization of men who were sickened at the prospect of John Kerry as Commander in Chief, and further disgusted by his incessant use of his Vietnam service as proof of his fitness to serve as President and as a testament to his character. If the charges were untrue, then they should have been refuted. Some were. Many were not. To the extent that Kerry could not disprove the claims, his own credibility was measured against that of the Swift Boat Veterans -- and in many cases, it was Kerry who was found wanting. (watching Kerry partisans like Lawrence O'Donnell turn into raving lunatics when facing Swift Boat speaker John O'Neill didn't help the perception that all the Kerry side had in response was screaming fits).

The answer to the Swift Boat Vets would have been refuting their charges point-by-point. The other side failed to do so for a number of days, and eventually spent more time demonizing their accusers than refuting their charges. The lack of a correct response cost the Kerry campaign dearly.

One Theory Oliver Stone Never Checked Out

Courtesy of the The Corner, we found this article in the L.A. Times, which tells us what really killed JFK...

Members of Kennedy's inner circle had often witnessed the painful ritual that Kennedy endured in his private quarters before he ventured in public, when his valet would literally winch a steel-rodded canvas back brace around the president's torso, pulling heavy straps and tightening the thongs loop by loop as if it was a bizarre scene out of "Gone With the Wind."

Once in it, the president was planted upright, trapped and almost bolted into a ramrod posture. Many would wonder how JFK could ever move in such a contraption. And yet move he did, and, besides his painkillers, his corset contributed to the youthful, high-shouldered military bearing that he presented glamorously to the world.

But this simple device imparted a fate almost Mephistophelean in its horror to the sequence of events in Dallas 41 years ago.

In researching my biography of Gov. John Connally of Texas 15 years ago, I was put on to the critical importance of Kennedy's corset in the ghastly six seconds in November 1963 by a former Texas senator, the late Ralph Yarborough, who was in the motorcade that day.

Yarborough growled softly about that "damned girdle," and this led me to the remarks of two doctors, Charles James Carrico and Malcolm Oliver Perry, buried in Volume 3 of the 26-volume set of testimony that attended the Warren Commission report.

In November 1963, Carrico was the youthful, 28-year-old resident in the emergency room of Parkland Hospital who first received the injured president in the trauma room; Perry came quickly to the emergency room to supervise the case — and then to pronounce the president dead half an hour later.

Before the Warren Commission, Carrico told of removing Kennedy's back brace in the first seconds after his body arrived in the hospital. He described the device as made of coarse white fiber, with stays and buckles.

Apart from the never-ending controversy over how many bullets Lee Harvey Oswald actually fired from the Texas School Book Depository, most experts agree with the Warren Commission that Oswald's first bullet passed cleanly through Kennedy's lower neck, missing any bone, then entered Connally's back, streaking through the governor's body and lodging in his thigh. This was the first so-called magic bullet.

When Connally was hit, he pivoted in pain to his left, his lithe body in motion as it swiveled downward, ending up in the lap of his wife, Nellie.

But because of the corset, Kennedy's body did not act as a normal body would when the bullet passed through his throat. Held by his back brace, Kennedy remained upright, according to the Warren Commission, for five more seconds. This provided Oswald the opportunity to reload and shoot again at an almost stationary target.

Killed by a girdle. You know, that does tend to dent the mystique a bit.

The funniest part of the article is where it mentions Arlen Specter questioning the doctor on this point. I just figured he spent most of his time with the Commission generating the Magic Bullet Theory.