The Fighting Faith -- Does It Exist?

It's great to see so many columnists and bloggers have pitched in with opinions regarding Peter Beinart's essay "A Fighting Faith" in The New Republic. As I noted, it's important to have liberals understand and fully enlist in the War on Terror -- especially because without their support, the more anti-war elements of the party will alienate the vast majority of Americans who believe ina dn understand the need for military action. Put simply, it's perfectly reasonable for liberals to oppose the War in Iraq, but to declare it an evil enterprise ignores the reality of what we have accomplished, and to stand against the War in Afghanistan -- as done by MoveOn and the radical left -- defies reality.

However, it appears several liberals still question the basic tenets expressed by Beinart. One of them, Kevin Drum, is one of the better writers on the Web, and one of the few liberals I'd link to in any case. Drum has actually spent significant time responding to Beinart, here and here and also here. His responses are educational, but also dismaying. Jonah Goldberg explains why, in a superb column...

Now, because it's always the case that criticism from your own side gets more reaction than criticism from the opposition, I was curious to see what the response from Beinart's fellow liberals would be. After all, in a broad sense there isn't that much that is new to his argument; the novelty is the source more than the content. Conservatives have been saying that the Left is making the Democrats too dovish for a very, very long time. After 9/11 this became a standard refrain in most of the relevant conservative analysis. And, typically, the response from the knee-jerk Left and liberals was, "How dare you..." How dare you question my patriotism! (Kerry himself offered up that one quite often.) How dare you question my commitment to defense! How dare you assume that conservatives are better at foreign policy! Etc.

One regular source of this sort of complaint was Kevin Drum, the in-house blogger of The Washington Monthly and something of a clearinghouse for smart liberals on the web. He's normally sober-minded, but sometimes he sounds like he's lined up too many fallen soldiers on his airline tray. I still remember when John Ashcroft warned — presciently — that al Qaeda might try to influence the U.S. elections as it had in Madrid. Drum responded, "What a despicable worm. What a revolting, loathsome, toad." The upshot was that Drum took some modest offense at the suggestion that Democrats would be any less resolute in their fight against America's enemies.

So, I was particularly intrigued by Drum's initial response to Beinart's cri de coeur: "What he really needs to write," harrumphed Drum, "is a prequel to his current piece, one that presents the core argument itself: namely, why defeating Islamic totalitarianism should be a core liberal issue." He continues later on: "That's the story I think Beinart needs to write. If he thinks too many liberals are squishy on terrorism, he needs to persuade us not just that Islamic totalitarianism is bad — of course it's bad — but that it's also an overwhelming danger to the security of the United States."

Okay hold that thought.

By my very rough guess, since 9/11 National Review Online and National Review have run probably 500 articles from serious scholars to folks like me on why the threat from "Islamo-Fascism," "jihadism," or whatever you want to call it is real, serious, and likely to endure for a very long time. We've come at it from every angle, too — from narrow arguments about weapons proliferation to deep, sustained, philosophical treatises about the Islamic or Arab worldview and our own.

Of course, NR is not alone. Similar articles or articles on similar themes have proliferated across the mainstream media and the Internet. Whole categories of bloggers — the "war bloggers" — have sprouted up. The op-ed pages have groaned from the weight of serious people explaining how the battle against Islamic fundamentalism will likely be known as World War IV. Countless books from liberals, leftists, many, many conservatives, and a few allegedly "nonpartisan" whistleblowers have been written expanding these arguments. There've been campus debates, symposia, and course offerings. There've been international conferences, speeches, lectures, documentaries. Whole new chairs have been established at think tanks and universities, and there've even been new think tanks established, dedicated to defending democracy against this "new" form of totalitarianism. Two Cabinet positions have been created — with bipartisan support in response to this threat. Both presidential nominees staked their campaigns in large parts on their ability to fight and win the war on terror, a sometimes-clunking euphemism for Islamic fundamentalism.

But, what Kevin Drum thinks liberals need is a really good argument explaining the threat from jihadism. Where has he been these last few years?

...If Drum needs another argument to be persuaded about the threat, he is flatly unpersuadable. Indeed, if Beinart could surf back on the space-time continuum, he could have used Drum's response as an example of exactly his complaint: that the Democrats don't care enough about fighting Islamic totalitarianism.

But that's not even the annoying part. For the last two years, the main thrust of criticism from Democrats has been that Bush hasn't been doing enough to fight Islamic terrorism. Drum was a big fan of Richard Clarke's book. Well, Clarke's book was a criticism from the right. Bush didn't do enough. The whole "wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time" mantra was shorthand for the argument that Iraq was a distraction from the real threat of Islamic totalitarianism.

Read the whole thing, and also note the position taken by someone who's relatively libertarian, Andrew Sullivan, an unabashed supporter of the War on Terror who's been very critical of Bush in Iraq. Sullivan's no lefty, but liberals could stand to learn from his ability to seperate his distaste with several Bush Administration policies and the GOP in general from his ability to zealously support the War on Terror. Beinart may understand the lesson. It appears several others still need to learn.

Two Big Weekend Stories

I think from now on, every Cabinet nominee should be forced to submit a signed declaration that they never hired a nanny for any reason. It was bad enough with the two Clinton nominees for AG (which left us stuck with Janet freaking Reno) and Linda Chavez in 2000, but adding Bernie Kerik to the list makes it worse.

Well, it's confirmed: Yuschenko was poisoned. If I was Vlad Putin, I would try and pin the blame on Kofi Annan. He'd make a good patsy for the bad guys to use, especially since he's already screwed on Oil-for-Food.

Another Person I've Met Becomes a Celebrity

I need to spend more time watching reality TV. Okay, just kidding, since I consider reality TV the downfall of civilization. But until yesterday, my braindead self didn't even know that one of the competitors on the new season of The Apprentice was a former law school classmate, Jen Massey (actually, three weeks ago, I did walk by the TV while Alli was watching and saw that one of the competitors bore a striking resemblance to someone I knew, but I couldn't be bothered to spend five minutes to find out; I mean, there was a football game to watch). And she's made the final two -- which may be a tribute to the reputation of Harvard Law as a cutthroat place (which is ridiculous), I don't know.

Am I rooting for her? Nah. She seems to have taken on a bitchy attitude for the show. I knew her in passing at HLS, since most guys thought she was the most attractive girl in our class (I'll leave that open to your judgment). She didn't seem like a jerk back then, but I don't know her well enough to know for sure. So she's either a bitch in real life or she adopted said attitude for the show. Either way, I'm rooting for the ex-military guy from the south, especially since my namesake has left the show.

Besides, this is my favorite sentance from her bio: "While at Harvard, Jennifer was heavily recruited by a powerful San Francisco law firm, where she now serves as a securities litigator, working with management teams from startups all the way to Fortune 500 companies." Not to rain on her parade, but at least half of my class could have written the "heavily recruited" part into their own life stories. And besides, I'm still ticked off about not being the most successful guy named Raj from Philadelphia.

The NFL Recap Week Thirteen

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

As we recycle past recap formats, we realized it's time for another session of twenty questions. Hey, it was that or more haiku.

Just remember, this format has rules. Of course, I don't know what they are, and don't care either. It's sort of like Howard Stern and the FCC.

Jokes aside, this primer should tell you everything you need to know about the NFL as of Week Thirteen. And it’s from a totally unbiased point of view.

1. Are the Dallas Cowboys evil?

Answer: Haven't we answered this before? Yes, yes, a thousand times YES! Look at the witchery they employed Monday night to defeat poor Seattle. I mean, who the heck is Julius Jones? Oh, he went to Notre Dame... yeah, right. Last we checked, Notre Dame doesn't play football anymore.

2. Are you going to lay off the Redskins abuse this week?

Answer: Why? Because they won? Look, it's nice that Joe Gibbs and the coaching staff got a victory -- maybe they can take the grandkids out for ice cream to celebrate. But beating the Giants and Eli Manning at this point is like going to war with Andorra. it doesn't matter if you're Morocco, you're still going to win.

3. Andorra?

Answer: God forbid I try and teach people a little useless geography, instead of just uttering random facts about football. There's only so much that can be said about Kansas City beating Oakland 34-27 in a game no one watched.

4. How about games people watched?

Answer: Well, San Diego took charge of the AFC West by dumping Denver 20-17. Watching Bronco QB Jake Plummer is a bit like watching a Paris Hilton -- you're just waiting for him to do something stupid. This week it was a red-zone interception with three minutes left. Then, the last-second Hail Mary turns into a nine yard completion and the clock running out thanks to WR Darius Watts. Good to see Jake's stupidity is spreading.

5. Let's get the bragging out of the way. What about your beloved Eagles?

Answer: I'm not into gloating. That's not like me at all. But the Eagles are now 11-1 and just beat one of the few teams in the NFC that anyone thought had a chance of beating them... by thirty points. We hereby petition the Commissioner to cancel the NFC playoffs and just put the Eagles in the Super Bowl by fiat. Hey, I don't need another humiliating NFC Title Game or empathy from Bills fans. Just give me a Super Bowl title.

6. Well, what about the defending champions? Aren’t the Patriots the best team in the league?

Answer: Maybe, although using Cleveland as a measuring stick is completely useless. Terry Robiskie took over as interim coach this week after Butch Davis escaped the franchise, the city, and the state of Ohio. That's a great Christmas season for anyone. As for the Pats, their 42-15 blowout was the usual businesslike performance of a team that's waiting for the playoffs.

7. Who will they have trouble with in the AFC?

Answer: Well, they have the Steelers, who won again 17-16 over the Jaguars after trading late field goals and watching a last-second 60 yard try by the Jags float to the right. Rookie QB Ben Roethlisberger is now 10-0, and his last loss was to the University of Iowa in September 2003. He may not lose again until the NFL's expansion team in Des Moines arrives.

8. Anyone else? What about the Colts?

Answer: The Colts offense soars through the stars. Their defense, unfortunately, appears to be in hibernation underground most weeks. Peyton Manning will break some heretofore unbreakable records, and win MVP, and everyone will say nice things about him, even John Kerry. Then his team will lose in the playoffs, and he will take the blame. It's about as predictable as Dick Clark showing up on New Year's Eve before going into an oxygen chamber for the rest of the year.

9. That wasn't much of a joke about John Kerry. Haven't you got anything else?

Answer: Sorry -- I'm trying to recover from watching a few minutes of the Lions-Cardinals game. Besides, you try coming up with jokes about Kerry. There's only so many jokes one can make about his hair, his wife, and his obsession with his service record before Terry McAulliffe starts crying like a little girl. Which of course makes it worthwhile.
10. Back to football. Any other trends you're sensing?

Answer: Uh, yeah. The Dolphins really stink. A.J. Feeley has now thrown 8 TDs to his own teammates, and five TDs to the opposition. Maybe they mis-typed an incentive clause in his contract or something.

11. We could have figured that out ourselves. Don't you have any real information?

Answer: Sure. The Niners really really really stink. They may be worse than their 1-11 record.

12. Jeez, thanks. Next you'll tell us that Carolina is surging to a playoff spot, right?

Answer: Um, no. We hate conventional wisdom and the Panthers, and here the two are in unison, so we're not going to pick the Panthers as the likely NFC playoff entrant with a crappy record. We'll go with... man, these choices are terrible. We again invoke the call to cancel the NFC playoffs and declare the Eagles NFC champions.

13. Thirteen questions in, and you haven't made fun of Cincinnati -- is that a record or something?

Answer: They've earned praise, not derision, after rallying from a 17 point fourth quarter deficit to beat the Ravens in Baltimore. That's the first Bengals road win over a team with a winning record since 1990. Yes, we said 1990. That was before J. Lo got married for the first time. Heck, most of us hadn't heard of J. Lo at the time. Yes, it was a better world.

14. If not Cincinnati, who will you mock, then?

Answer: I don't know. Houston? They got smacked around 29-7 by the Jets. Of course, the Jets are the better team. Then again, Houston QB David Carr has hair that belongs in a shampoo commercial...a women's shampoo commercial.

15. Back to the real news. Who else is any good in the NFC?

Answer: Well, we heard some Redskins playoff talk this week. After we stopped laughing, we thought about Atlanta. Hey, they only lost by 27 this weekend to Tampa. That's better than the Packers' thirty-point loss. It's something.

16. You shouldn't mock the Redskins. What if they somehow beat the Eagles on Sunday night?

Answer: I'll be horribly aggravated and subjected to abuse for a week, then continue planning my therapy sessions for after the next NFC Title Game loss. Redskins fans will spend another year wondering what the playoffs are like.

17. That’s terrible. How can you actually wish for bad things to happen to D.C’s football team?

Answer: Because it generates more material for this recap. Otherwise, I’d spend ten minutes typing jokes about meaningless games like Minnesota tanking at Chicago. The Vikings choke every December -- it's like a sign of Santa's impending arrival. By mocking the Redskins, I get to make jokes about Dan Snyder’s secret plot to ruin the legacy of Joe Gibbs.

18. Didn't you make enough of those jokes in September?

Answer: Was I right or wrong?

19. Why do we read this recap?

Answer: Beats me. Even my parents don't read this drivel, and they claim to like me.

20. Don't you have a life?

Answer: Hey, you're the one reading this. Maybe I should ask you that question.

Nerd News

You know, even though I'm officially a Harvard (Law) grad, you gotta admit it when the other side kicks your butt...

The "Harvard Pep Squad" ran up and down the aisles of Harvard Stadium at The Game Nov. 20. They had megaphones in hand and their faces were painted as they encouraged the crowd to hold up the 1,800 red and white pieces of construction paper they had handed out. It would read "Go Harvard," they said.

But the 20 "Pep Squad" members were actually Yale students. And when the Harvard students, faculty and alumni held up their pieces of paper -- over and over again -- they spelled out "We Suck" in giant block letters the whole stadium could read.

The brainchild of Pierson students Michael Kai '05 and David Aulicino '05, the "We Suck" prank was originally designed for the 2003 Harvard-Yale Game. But rather than hand out the paper in person to the crowd, they taped the paper to the stadium seats before the game began. The prank derailed when security guards, trying to clear the stadium out during a pre-game bomb scare, asked Kai, Aulicino and their cohorts to leave.

Rather than forget the prank, though, the pair became only more determined to have it succeed as seniors.

"We knew we only had one more chance at it," Kai said. "To have to think about it for an entire year was really painful."

But the elapsed time also gave the devious duo an opportunity to rethink logistics. Rather than tape the papers to the seats, they created a system to have the Harvard crowd pass out the 1,800 cards themselves. The "Harvard Pep Squad" went to each row and handed out a pre-ordered stack of the red and white papers. In five minutes, Kai and Aulicino said, all the papers were passed out.

It took a great deal of planning, however, including a road trip to Boston. Kai and Aulicino attended the Oct. 9 Harvard-Cornell football game in Cambridge, simply to scout out the stadium and count the number of rows.

And then there were the disguises, which included "Harvard Pep Squad" T-shirts the Yale students designed themselves and red and white face paint. Cohort Dylan Davey '05 said they even had Harvard student identification cards, created by a fellow Piersonite. Kai and Aulicino declined to say exactly how much money they spent on the prank, except that it was "too much." Davey estimated it to be a few hundred dollars.

"If it didn't work, it would have been pretty sad that we put so much effort and money into it. But all that money was totally worth it," Kai said.

(hat tip: Opinion Journal)

Nothing worse than getting your butt handed to you by Elis. Of course, Harvard won the game 35-3, and has won four in a row. I guess Yale needs a laugh. To quote Monty Burns, "I don't know why Harvard bothered to show up. They barely won this year."

But Nothing on Greedo?

I'm pretty sure the Minister of War and the Lord of Truth will enjoy this site. Essential truths are revealed.

Al Sharpton, Consultant for Hire

Man, I'll bet Dennis Kucinich is ticked off...

All of John Kerry's one-time rivals in the Democratic presidential primary eventually lined up to support him as the nominee, but only one got paid for it — Al Sharpton.

The Democratic National Committee paid Sharpton $86,715 in travel and consulting fees to compensate for his campaigning for Kerry and other Democratic candidates, according to reports to the Federal Election Commission.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Sharpton said he was paid for travel and he didn't know how much he had been reimbursed.

"They asked me to travel to 20 or 30 cities to campaign, and I did that," Sharpton said. "What am I supposed to do, donate the cost of air fare?"

But records show that while most of the money was to reimburse travel expenses, Sharpton was paid $35,000 as a "political consulting fee" 15 days after the election. The consulting fee was first reported in this week's edition of the Village Voice.

Democratic National Committee spokesman Jano Cabrera said the party paid Sharpton at the request of the Kerry campaign.

Well, that was money well-spent, guys.

In Other News: Elvis Still Dead

My alma mater's school paper publishes a headline that lands in the "Duh" category: "Liberal professors in the majority." Man, it must be a slow news day at Villanova. Can't one of the fraternities display an obscene Rush t-shirt or something?

Here's my favorite part of the article...

Eric Biersmith, president of the University's College Democrats, said the results of the new studies come as no surprise, but he disagrees with Dogan about their importance.

"[College professors] are far more educated and intelligent than the average person and as with other educated and intelligent people, are more likely to be liberal," he said.

Here's the hysterical part about that statement -- the schmuck probably believes it.

The fact that the vast majority of college professors are liberal has little -- or nothing -- to do with their "intelligence." Actors constitute another profession in American life where the individuals involved display exceedingly liberal beliefs. Last I checked, no one's handing out MENSA memberships to those folks.

Personally, I do believe that academics stifle conservative voices on campus and prevent outspoken conservatives from joining their ranks. Then again, maybe I shouldn't complain -- conservatives generally develop much thicker skin than liberals, and better debating skills as well, as a result of having to spend their time speaking out in a very hostile environment. And the Eric Biersmiths of the world find it a lot tougher to debate people in the real world.

We're Not Wild About Harry

The new Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, made his debut on Meet the Press and showed us a bewildering lack of respect for Justice Clarence Thomas...

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to judicial nominations. Again, Harry Reid on National Public Radio, November 19: "If they"--the Bush White House--"for example, gave us Clarence Thomas as chief justice, I personally feel that would be wrong. If they give us Antonin Scalia, that's a little different question. I may not agree with some of his opinions, but I agree with the brilliance of his mind."

Could you support Antonin Scalia to be chief justice of the Supreme Court?

SEN. REID: If he can overcome the ethics problems that have arisen since he was selected as a justice of the Supreme Court. And those ethics problems--you've talked about them; every people talk--every reporter's talked about them in town--where he took trips that were probably not in keeping with the code of judicial ethics. So we have to get over this. I cannot dispute the fact, as I have said, that this is one smart guy. And I disagree with many of the results that he arrives at, but his reason for arriving at those results are very hard to dispute. So...

MR. RUSSERT: Why couldn't you accept Clarence Thomas?

SEN. REID: I think that he has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. I think that his opinions are poorly written. I don't--I just don't think that he's done a good job as a Supreme Court justice.

It would have been nice to see Russert follow up with a question as to which opinions Reid found lacking, but Russert missed the chance. A rare gaffe for a normally tough interviewer.

But maybe Russert was just shocked at the brazen nature of the statement. Keep in mind, this is the same Harry Reid who once praised Robert "The Torch" Torricelli "as a man of class" -- and became the first Dem to pony up for the Torch's legal defense fund. Perhaps Scalia should bring that up if Reid attacks his ethics.

I wasn't a big fan of Thomas' nomination, because I thought it was the usual racial stereotyping that Bush had to nominate an African-American to replace an African-American justice. But Thomas was qualified, and his opinions are not an embarassment by any measure I've seen (unlike, say, Sandra Day O'Conner's ramblings). I thought maybe I was the only one wondering if Reid's opinion was based on the offensive notion that Scalia's allowed to be a conservative, while Thomas is not, due to his skin color. I figured I should give Reid the benefit of the doubt on this one. Then I heard Charles Krauthammer, one of my favorite columnists, last night on Fox News, claiming that Reid was displaying a "plantation mentality" regarding Thomas. Ouch.

And lest you think it's only conservatives, Noam Scheiber at The New Republic also questions Reid...

So, if I'm understanding Reid correctly, Scalia would be okay because, even though he's really conservative, he's also really smart. Thomas is objectionable because he's both really conservative and really dumb. Since Reid doesn't provide any evidence for his low opinion of Thomas, it sounds to me like he's thoughtlessly embracing the increasingly untenable view that Thomas is an affirmative action case utterly incapable of the kind of deep (or independent) thoughts Supreme Court justices are supposed to think, which has more than a slight whiff of racism.

As Scheiber notes, Reid needs a chance to explain himself. A statement might be nice, Senator.

NASA -- Contributing More to Humanity Everyday

American ingenuity at its best...

They call it the GloThong.

For $49.95 you get a thong that lights up the derriere and almost everything around it for at least two hours. It's water-resistant and comes with a battery wall adapter, or you can buy a car charger similar to those used for cell phones.

You laugh. So did I.

What makes it even more outrageous is that GloThong is the idea of Beau Carpenter, who works at NASA and is an MBA student at Rice University. The avid runner had wanted to create luminescent jogging apparel, but he got sidetracked after finding a slew of thongs on the Internet. "Why not make a thong that glows in the dark?" he thought.

So Carpenter rounded up his posse -- fellow Rice cohorts Chris Harris, an electrical engineering student, and Marcus Brocato, a chemistry lab manager who works with Nobel Prize winner Richard Smalley -- to develop GloThong.

Geeks gone wild? Not really. According to Carpenter, they are just guys trying to make a buck off thongs.

"Being guys, it didn't take us long to gravitate to them," says Carpenter, who gets a laugh every time he mentions the product. "My co-workers find it endlessly entertaining."

The men believe their invention is a hot twist on a fashion classic and hope to develop bras, swimsuits, scuba gear and maybe even dog collars.

To test out GloThong, they took their product to a Dickinson topless bar. "The women liked the product so much that they lined up to give us their real names and cell numbers," Carpenter said.

(hat tip: Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback)

Not only are these guys brilliant entrepreneurs, they're going to be able to deduct the trip to the strip club as a business expense.

A Different Kind of Cat

There's a Simpsons episode where Burns appoints a courageous dog as his Executive Vice-President. I'm thinking that maybe the dog had a degree from Trinity Southern...

The Pennsylvania attorney general's office Monday sued an online university for allegedly selling bogus academic degrees — including an MBA awarded to a cat.

Trinity Southern University in Texas, a cellular company and the two brothers who ran them are accused of misappropriating Internet addresses of the state Senate and more than 60 Pennsylvania businesses to sell fake degrees and prescription drugs by spam e-mail, according to the lawsuit.

Investigators paid $299 for a bachelor's degree for Colby Nolan — a deputy attorney general's 6-year-old black cat — claiming he had experience including baby-sitting and retail management.

The school, which offers no classes, allegedly determined Colby Nolan's resume entitled him to a master of business administration degree; a transcript listed the cat's course work and 3.5 grade-point average.

I doubt there's any significance in the fact that the cat is a black cat. But I guess we know where Ken Lay received his MBA.

Santa Toss

From the lovely future Missus, here's a great way to waste time and stay in the Christmas spirit. Besides, the music kicks butt.

The BCS is A Joke

I have nothing else to say about it. Read about Cal complaining here. Auburn gets ticked off here. Appropriately outraged columnists can be found anywhere people aren't talking about Barry Bonds. Here's one, Pat Forde, with a great line summarizing the entire debacle...

Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for the BCS. Once again, it built a better mousetrap and wound up slamming the thing down on its own neck.

That's about right. For the record, I have no problem with Michigan, Virginia Tech and Pitt getting bids -- they earned them in the system, and it's not their fault the rest of their conferences spent most of the season getting hammered like Paris Hilton at Mardi Gras. As for texas, Mack Brown is making a very effective argument for anyone who thinks he's a better politician than a football coach.

What Annoying Song is Stuck in My Head Today?

If I need to suffer with a song stuck in my head, why shouldn't you have to do the same? Sometimes they're good, most times they're bad... but no matter what, they make you suffer. So I like to share the suffering whenever it happens.

Oh, the '80's. A bastion of bad music. And memorable bad music. I let Alli take the car out this weekend, and she left XM on the '80's station, leading to an encounter with some old friends -- Loverboy.

Shudder.

When I was a summer associate at another law firm in the 1990's, someone sent around an e-mail noting that a "Loverboy" CD had been left in the library. That was over seven years ago. I'm betting it still hasn't been claimed as of today. Here they are...

Everyone's watching, to see what you will do
Everyone's looking at you, oh
Everyone's wondering, will you come out tonight
Everyone's trying to get it right, get it right

Everybody's working for the weekend
Everybody wants a little romance
Everybody's goin' off the deep end
Everybody needs a second chance, oh
You want a piece of my heart
You better start from start
You wanna be in the show
Come on baby lets go

Everyone's looking to see if it was you
Everyone wants you to come through
Everyone's hoping it'll all work out
Everyone's waiting they're holding out

Everybody's working for the weekend
Everybody wants a little romance
Everybody's goin' off the deep end
Everybody needs a second chance, oh
You want a piece of my heart
You better start from start
You wanna be in the show
Come on baby lets go

You're welcome.

More From the Tabloids

Jim Geraghty at Kerry Spot (I personally hope he keeps the name, or at least changes it to Ketchupboy Corner) notesd that the folks at CBS are feeling a little nervous about the upcoming results of the investigation of Rathergate, a.k.a., the Black Eye for Black Rock. Geraghty, the Godfather of the Pajamahadeen, has some suggestions for CBS...

And CBS could go one of three routes from this point. One, they could try to clean up their act, stop behaving as if their job is to drive President Bush from office, cover viewpoints beyond the left, and attempt to break up the groupthink that has calcified their news judgment.

Two, they could define themselves as the left-of-center news channel, and aim for the blue state audience. Instead of trying to prevent bias, they could embrace it, and make it part of their brand identity. "CBS News: The channel that progressives prefer."

Three, they could define themselves as the tabloid news channel, rushing things to air without checking, and intentionally eroding their standards for accuracy in the name of being first. They could be one part supermarket checkout line tabloid, one part Drudge, one part Wonkette, one part British Fleet Street scandal sheet... They could make corrections part of each night's newscast, and become really entertaining, if only partially factual. (Right now much of CBS News is boring and only partially factual.)

I kinda like the idea of Dan Rather anchoring the news with a tabloid reporter hat, kinda like Drudge on his TV show. Except Drudge had real information, I guess.

Things We Don't Need in Virginia

Oh, great. Look what the University of Virginia will have available....

The Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia is to announce plans today to record an oral history of the life and career of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a six-year, multimillion-dollar project that is the center's first effort to chronicle the history of a sitting senator.

Kennedy, who suggested the project and will raise money to cover its $3.5 million cost, will sit for 75 hours of talks with the center, which also plans to interview more than 100 of the veteran senator's former and current staff members, colleagues from both sides of the aisle, family, and other notable figures who have known him.

While the center has completed an oral history of President Jimmy Carter and is completing similar projects for presidents George H. W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton, it has never made a senator the subject of a historical study. Kennedy will be able to provide insights into the presidency of his brother, John F. Kennedy.

Although the senator, who earned his law degree at the University of Virginia, will raise money to fund the project, he will not control who is interviewed or what questions are asked, said Stephen Knott, associate professor at the Miller Center.

Historians said they could not recall a case in which such an exhaustive project was undertaken for a senator, especially a sitting senator.

''This is very unusual. Even an important senator or president will write a memoir or do some interviews with a ghost writer, and that is basically it," said historian Michael R. Beschloss. But the oral history project Kennedy will participate in ''is just the way an historian would like to see it done -- without fear or favor," he said.

Kennedy said the project does not presage the close of his 42-year Senate career. He intends to run for a ninth term in 2006, he said.

More good news at the end there. Look, maybe Kennedy will raise the money to pay for the project in full, but I tend to doubt it. Besides, couldn't he raise $3.5 million to make the bridges in Virginia safer?

Oh, yeah, like you weren't thinking the same thing.

NPR Should Take Some Lessons From... W?

Tavis Smiley, in his interview with Time, was explaining why he left NPR, and threw in this gem...

WHAT'S MORE DIVERSE THESE DAYS — NPR OR PRESIDENT BUSH'S CABINET?

Bush's Cabinet. It is ironic that a Republican President has an Administration that is more inclusive and more diverse than a so-called liberal-media-elite network.

BUT DO BUSH'S MINORITY SELECTIONS REFLECT THE VALUES OF THE COMMUNITIES FROM WHICH THEY COME?

There is a distinction between symbolism and substance — Zora Neale Hurston once said, "All my skinfolk ain't my kinfolk." But whether one likes or loathes the people Bush has chosen to be part of his Administration, he is reaching out.

Hmmm. Maybe NPR should hire Colin Powell.

The Steroid Scandal

Baseball and steroids. Goes together like Oreo cookies and milk, don't it?

All right, maybe not. But that's where the game has been for (at least) the last decade, and everyone's been tip-toeing around the issue for years like nothing's going on.

Get a clue. When a guy comes into spring trainiong having added 25 pounds of muscle, something's not kosher. And it's not like these guys are simply developing cartoon biceps -- take a look at a picture of Barry Bonds or Mark McGwire when they first started playing ball, and compare their pictures ten to twelve years later. Yes, they're older, but is it really normal to see a guy's jawline change like that?

Personally, I don't know that steroids are the reason Bonds stroked 73 homers in 2001, or that McGwire slammed 70 in 1998, or that seemingly everyone, his mother, and Brady Anderson spent most of the 1990's banging out 50 homers in a season. I think it adds to power, but does it really add to the quickness of the bat, which has been the key to Bonds' hitting? Hey, from the rumors going through baseball now, it sounds like pitchers are juicing too, mostly to allow them to return from injury quicker. Maybe this will also add three MPH to their fastballs, but I tend to doubt it.

In the end, I think media outlets will play this story to the hilt. It's bad now, but it will be even worse when spring training starts. And they may even be right -- most people are truly outraged by the whole thing, and justifiably so. There is is an easy column for anyone to write (as evidenced by the fact that I'm writing one) about this story. You can condemn the players as moral cretins for betraying the innocence and integrity of the game and shattering the hero-worship of kids who look up to them. Or you can muse about the unfairness of the situation and how the players are only indicative of our society's need to win at all costs. Or you can claim the press is blowing the story out of proportion.

Personally, since all those points will be made ad nauseum over the next few months, I'll say the following. First, Congress apparently wants to get involved in this mess, with folks like Sen. John McCain apparently stating that Congress would introduce legislation that would mandate drug testing in baseball. McCain even believes President Bush would sign the bill (and he's right, because it would idiotic politically to oppose the bill). This is a very bad idea on a number of fronts, which is why it has such widespread support -- when Nancy Pelosi and Bill Frist agree on something, you know you're in trouble.

Jokes aside, do we really want Congress getting deeply involved in baseball (or any professional sport)? I can see the need to drug test airline pilots, Amtrak engineers and nuclear power plant personnel. But baseball players getting tested for steroids is a little beyond what I think our legislators should tackle. Hey, it's an easy stand for a politician to take -- it's about as courageous as taking a stand against teenage alcoholism and infanticide. That doesn't mean it's worthy of federal legislation.

Second, regarding the integrity of the game, Barry Bonds will be inducted into the Hall of Fame someday, despite this black cloud. Anyone think Pete Rose doesn't deserve the same consideration?

Third, I find it surprising that people ahven't been quite as outraged about the fact that grand jury testimony leaked. If you're not a lawyer and don't know what this means, go ask one. I haven't got enough time to talk about why this is a huge problem, nor do I think anyone will discuss this issue nearly enough.

Fourth, does anyone else think that this is what they meant when they believed the apocalypse would occur in baseball if the Red Sox won the World Series?