Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 214 Editor's Choice: 44
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Declare Victory and Keep Going
[Read the article: Goodbye, Mr. Bush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What struck me about Sid's farewell piece is that this was all planned in advance. The essence of the Bush/Cheney/Jim Baker rhetoric is that they always keep up the pretence of "victory" and their Republican echo chamber/noise machine makes it into the conventional wisdom. George Aiken notoriously suggested as to Vietnam, "Declare victory and get out." These folks declare victory no matter what they do, and keep going, like Energizer bunnies of the right.
It literally started on election night. Remember when the networks were calling Florida for Gore, and the Bush family used the carrot of an "exclusive" interview (oh, my, look, Sheila, they have former President Bush on EXCLUSIVELY!) with the Bush family to get them to reconsider? The whole goal was that at no time would they ever seem to be behind. Brother Jeb and his minions managed the recount process, then Fellow Traveler Scalia notoriously claimed that the "harm" to Bush justifying a stay of the recount was that it would diminish his apparent victory.
From the point of inauguration, no matter what they've done to the country, everything is just more proof of their wonderfulness, their "strength", their "resolve." Miss all the signs for 9/11? Let New Orleans drown and then turn into sickening sludge? Give strength and refuge to Al-Qaeda by turning Iraq into both a base of operations and a daily propaganda dose? Turn the Justice Department into an arm of the Republican National Committee? Treat torture like its a national virtue? Let the currency make greenbacks seem like specie? It doesn't matter. Because whatever they do, whatever it's consequences, all they do is say that it is another example of their virtue and their permanent majority.
The only response to this is courage. If there is a Democrat running above 2% in the polls who has shown it, I'd like to know the name.
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It's the Priorities, Stupid
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The federal government has basically decided it doesn't have the resources to enforce the laws against white collar crime. The President of the United States took time out of his presumably busy schedule to carefully the review the perjury conviction of one man, Scooter Libby, in order to ensure that, even before he filed an appeal, he would never have to face a day in prison. Libby's crime was lying to a grand jury about an issue related to the national security. Meanwhile, the Attorney General resigns after allegations that eight or nine U.S. Attorneys were fired for not indicting enough Democrats for campaign violations just before the 2006 elections.
But apparently the U.S. Attorneys office for the Northern District of California, a financial center where I'd bet a bit of white collar crime is going undetected, apparently has nothing better to do than to convene a couple of successive grand juries to deal with whether a baseball player lied about taking steroids. Which, by the way, fooled exactly no one. And impeded no investigation, since they pretty much had the actual steroid distributors dead to rights already.
The Wall Street Journal and others heavily criticized then New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer for his high-profile prosecutions of brokerage, investment banking and insurance companies. The phase "Eliot Spitzer headline grabbing" gives over 70,000 hits on Google. Yet those were crimes with victims, real people who lost real money to allow people to buy more Guccis than they deserved.
No, I don't think Bonds was right to take steroids or, if proven, to commit perjury about it to a grand jury. But, as I've said many times before in letters to this column, the problem was baseball's, not an individual player's. Barry Bonds doesn't sell me tickets, Bud Selig and his minions do. If they sold me tickets to a game that wasn't on the up and up, it is not for Barry Bonds to make it right.
If Barry Bonds goes to jail while Scooter Libby remains free, it makes you wonder if W. really is still more interested in the commissioner's job than being President.
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Why Kicks Through the Uprights Aren't Reviewable
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A kick, PAT or field goal, that goes directly over the goalpost is no good. Cameras are not set up with correct angles for a replay to show properly whether the ball went over the goalpost or was inside the goalpost if it travels above the top of the goalpost. A replay might give a false sense of correctness one way or the other, but without knowing and tracing the exact angle, it could be very misleading. Thus, the decision was made to trust the view of the officials in three dimensions (and because of the nature of kicks, the officials are always in the right position.
The idea of a ball hitting a stanchion as opposed to the crossbar, on the other hand, they may well have not thought of. Although it happened twice yesterday, I'd never heard of it being an issue before. The ball bounces funny in football, doesn't it. My guess is that they'll change the rule to allow the stanchion while still leaving the upright call out of replay.
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FWIW
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We were at Sea-Tac yesterday at a time when I've seen 40 minutes lines on a random Tuesday in August. The line was seven people long. Why? Because regardless of the number of people in line, every single x-ray line was staffed. It took two minutes to get through, and that included careful scrutiny of our lunch to ensure that we didn't have any liquids in it.
We went to BWI today to pick up our son and saw the same thing: short lines, extra staff. Our son told us the same was true at Logan.
If this, not the B.S. about military air corridors, was the real gift of this Thanksgiving from our self-styled masters in Washington, it was a rare use of taxpayer (and airline) money in a cause that actually benefited people.
I'm fairly sure it won't last.