Posse Incitatus

The players RichRod wants can't get into U-M

Oh, the irony.

For years Spartans were told that we attended Michigan State because our grades just weren't good enough for U-M.  It's a favorite talking point even now, when the whole notion of spending four years at a Big Ten (12?) school is increasingly something for only the idle rich to contemplate.

Still, no one ever accused Skunk Bear fans of being original.

RichRod has already earned a place as the worst coach in U-M history, but his one salvation has been the recruits he's getting.  "Oh yes, wait until next year."  This we are told time and again.

Well, here are two kids we won't be seeing next year.

Let's review:  humiliating losses, worst record in school history, sanctions and now the recruiting follies.

My fellow Spartans, enjoy.  I just doesn't get any better than this.

The Unraveling of Liberalism

Don't look now, but the libs are on a big-time losing streak.  So much so, that sales of Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft are bound to be booming in the coming months.

First there were the crushing electoral defeats incurred by liberals in early 2010: Republican Scott Brown winning the seat formerly occupied by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts; Chris Christie defeating New Jersey incumbent Gov. John Corzine, as well as several victories by the same Tea Party activists the mainstream media has relentlessly mocked and disrespected.

President Obama's campaigning for Brown's opponent proved about as effective as his Copenhagen pitch for Chicago to host the 2016 Olympics.  It seems the old magic is gone.

The more than $1 trillion of Keynesian spending to try to stimulate the economy proved ineffective, as unemployment actually rose from 8 to 10 percent in the past 16 months or so.  In the aftermath of economic meltdown in Greece, the longtime welfare states of Europe are preaching fiscal discipline, insisting that deficit reduction and a reining in of entitlements must be priorities. Even Obama supporter and lefty columnist Bob Herbert of the New York Times is bitterly disillusioned.  Gee, what happened to hope and change you can believe in and yes we can?

Many liberals who thought Obama would feel for the common man are livid that he's stacked his inner circle with former Wall Street tycoons, and shoveled hundreds of billions into Wall Street banks.

The gay rights movement is dissatisfied with the pace of change as far as movement toward legalization of gay marriage and the elimination of "don't ask, don't tell" from official military policy.  It seems The Annointed One is trying to straddle the fence on gay rights, not wanting to totally tack left as the 2012 election draws nearer.

Liberals like James Carville and even Chris Matthews of MSNBC have been harshly critical of President Teleprompter's pathetic response to the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.  Many environmentalists feel betrayed because just a couple weeks before the BP oil rig exploded, Obama embraced offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East, Iran has moved steadily closer to developing nuclear weapons, rebuffing Obama when he offered an extended hand during the first year of his presidency, and several Islamofascist spokesmen have recently issued threats against the United States, often replete with insults directed at The Annointed One with the Muslim middle name.

Afghanistan is not going well, and there seem to be plenty of signs that many of the rank-and-file soldiers in the field do not think much of the civilian "leaders" in Washington, D.C.  Obama's professorial, ivory tower-tainted judgment blinded him to the folly of sending troops to Afghanistan with the announcement that withdrawal would begin in July 2011.

Taken at face value, that means we don't have the will to stay the course and stick this one out through the tough times, as we did in Iraq. The enemy will simply wait us out.  And the people of Afghanistan, fearing hideous retribution by the Taliban should they side with us only to be abandoned 15 months later, are loath to cooperate with our soldiers.  So much for winning hearts and minds.  And then there's the insane rules of engagement, which make many of our infantrymen sitting ducks.  It's an all-out cluster-hump.

As I've stated before, it can be instructional to read the comments of liberals who respond to lib columnists and bloggers.  On several occasions, I've read statements to the effect of, "I didn't think anyone could be worse than Bush and Cheney, but now I'm not so certain".... or "I never dreamed I'd be saying this, but I almost wish Bush was back in the White House."

Of course, some of those could be fake comments; one never knows in cyberspace. But I get the feeling that there is growing consternation on the left.  Many whose expectations for The One were off the charts are waking up to the fact that he's in way over his head.  They are feeling a dreadful letdown, a bitter dismay, and perhaps a sense of hopelessness, i.e., "All my life I've worked so hard for liberalism and believed in it with all my heart, and now look what's happening."  Obama in the White House, solid majorities in the Senate and House, and look what's happening.  Even many liberals realize that blaming George W. Bush gets old after a while.

Think of the parents who are so proud of their son who finally gets to start at quarterback, but then look on in horror and empathy when he throws four interceptions, fumbles a couple times, and gets sacked umpteen times.  Or the parents of the lead character in a school a play who flubs his lines and botches up the performance.  That sense of humiliation and alarm must be permeating many of the Yes We Can cult members whose ridiculously idealistic hopes, coupled with the mainstream media's gushing love affair with The One, propelled the Celebrity-in-Chief to victory in 2008.

Reality bites. Hard.

Feminism dies from global warming

The sexual allegations against Al Gore would be hilarious if they didn't involve harm to an actual woman.

Instead, they are yet another datapoint proving that feminism is nothing more than a hobby for upper-middle class white women.

Mark  Steyn has noted many times that the same double standard about "women's rights" comes into play in the Muslim world - even when that world comes to the United States.  Beaten by a husband?  Trapped in an arranged marriage?  Threatened with death for speaking with your own voice?

Don't call NOW, they aren't interested.  They're busy watching re-runs of "The Burning Bed" on Lifetime.

What is so striking about Al Gore is not the allegations, but the reaction to them.  The victim was held up to ridicule, urged to keep quiet - in short treated just as predicted by stereotypes that 40 years of feminism were supposed to destroy.

The ever-pithy Hated Instapundit nails it:  

“Suzy, if you tell what Joe did to you after the dance, we’ll lose the big game!“

The Chameleon Left

No sooner had President Obama named Gen. David Petraeus to take over the Afghanistan theater, then left-leaning media commentators were gushing with praise about what a brilliant pick it was.  These were the same folks who badmouthed generals while President George W. Bush occupied the White House.  Remember the disgraceful "General Betray-Us" ad in the New York Times?

Then there's President Obama's steadfast opposition to the surge in Iraq when he was Sen. Obama, and now he's the architect of a surge of sorts in Afghanistan, albeit a half-hearted one.  Apparently it's okay to send tens of thousands of troops to war overseas, as long as you're an erudite, Harvard-educated progressive who is articulate and a deep thinker, as opposed to an inarticulate, shoot-from-the-hip cowboy.

And how about the left's favorite talking point three or four years ago, about how Afghanistan was "the good war" and Iraq was a distraction that caused us to "take our eye off the ball." Now, many of the same people who parroted that line are urging us to pull out of Afghanistan.

The left reamed George W. Bush for supposedly being a draft dodger, when in fact he served honorably in the Texas Air National Guard, and learned to fly a fighter jet.  That's more than can be said for the community organizer.  Dan Blather and his lefty producer Mary Mapes got the boot because their thinly disguised hatred for "W" got the better of them.

We've long known that leftists move the goalposts.  You see, to hear the leftists tell it, the breakup of the Soviet Union is not because Reagan's military buildup and hard line against the Soviets caused them to crack.  It was because "Gorby was a reformer," and this was going to happen anyway.  Oh, okay.

And as for the failed stimulus bill? Well, just think of how bad things would be if we HAD NOT passed the stimulus bill? Obama staved off the next Great Depression.  Matter of fact, we need even MORE stimulus spending! Damn the deficits! Full-speed ahead!

Deficit spending was evil under Bush, but not a peep out of liberals about The Annointed One's record-breaking deficits and projected obscene deficits.

Yep, liberals are good at being chameleons and moving those goalposts.  It fits right in with their situational ethics and abhorrence of moral absolutes.  Fortunately, millions of Americans see their true colors, and will vote accordingly in November.  Hallelujah!

A Liberal Whine-Fest

If there's one thing leftists are good at, it's whining.  And blaming others for their problems.  And expecting a nanny-state federal government to cater to their every whim.

The welfare state has wreaked havoc on our society; of that there's no doubt.  It has also contributed mightily to out-of-control deficits and a staggering national debt. 

A few days ago, a veritable hall of fame of chronic whiners met for a convention in Detroit.  The U.S. Social Justice Forum consists of leftists who are constantly crying victim and creating grievance upon grievance to elicit sympathy and, they hope, more government largesse.  Our founding fathers would be appalled if they could see how many millions of Americans constantly have their hands out and believe entitlements to be their God-given right.

Detroit News Editorial Page Director Nolan Finley slammed the leftist kooks in this column.  I couldn't have said it better myself. 

This nation needs more newspaper columnists like Nolan Finley, and fewer voters like the riff-raff of the Social Justice Forum.

More Shame for Detroit

More bad and embarrassing news for Detroit, which I'll get to momentarily.

But first, let me emphasize that I'm not a Detroit basher.  Honestly. 

I've stated that I don't think the Motor City is a lost cause; that I do believe it has some redeeming qualities: Friendly people, affordability, some great architecture (art deco skyscrapers, beautiful churches, majestic theaters, and even a few remaining well-preserved neighborhoods with stately homes). 

The talented musicians of Motown wrote and performed some of the best music of all time, in my humble opinion.  There are plenty of good people in Detroit, and I work with some of them.  There are people who want a better life for themselves and their families, as well as bold entrepreneurs who are reinventing and revitalizing formerly deadly, dead-end neighborhoods.

But the very real ills that menace Detroit -- awful schools, a woefully incompetent and corrupt school board, crime, drugs, blight, and poorly run government delivering lousy services -- will not go away unless and until there exists a critical mass of residents who resolve to demand responsible, competent and effective leadership.

I've written in the past that Detroiters smartly elected a respectable mayor and city council, and that many of the former government leaders are either behind bars, or soon headed for the pokey.

Former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is already serving time for probation violation, stemming from a police whistle-blower case and a sleazy "sexting" scandal involving his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty.  Today we learned the feds have indicted the arrogant, narcissistic thug.  It looks like it will be many years before he sees the light of day.  Tough excrement. He brought it upon himself.  I don't feel a bit sorry for him, but I do feel some pity for his sons, who are effectively without a father as they journey through their teens and into adulthood.

And then there's that other major embarrassment, former school board president Otis Mathis, who has resigned after he was accused of repeatedly fondling himself in front of a female colleague.  This comes a few months after The Detroit News exposed the fact that Mathis is functionally illiterate.  (Read the third paragraph.) HOW did this clown ever get elected president of a major city school board? You can't make this stuff up.

As you can see, Detroit has major, major problems.  If the residents don't get angry about their tax dollars being frittered away in waste, corruption and mismanagement, perhaps utter shame, disgrace, and embarrassment; perhaps being the laughingstock of the nation will serve as a powerful impetus to kick them into gear.

It's never too early for them to get off their duffs and take action.  Detroit and Michigan are depending on it.

New head coach at Obama U.

When a university or sports franchise makes the decision to bring in a new coach, one of the key points of negotiation is how much will have to be spend on facility improvements.  In some cases, the successful candidate will be chosen in part because he demands so little.

This appears to have been the case with Gen. Stanley McChrystal.  Though hand-picked by the administration and apparently eager for the job, it has been clear for a while that there was a divergence of opinion over how the war should be fought.

In hindsight, it's clear that he held a weak hand from the start.  Since he had been brought in early - before the previous commander was due to rotate out - he was in little position to demand more control.

Gen. Petraeus is in an altogether different situation.  For one thing, he is technically taking a demotion, going from the CENTCOM commander to merely running the show in Afghanistan. 

More importantly, his appointment marks the admission that the Obama administration well and truly owns Afghanistan.  The Pottery Barn Doctrine is now in full effect.  The combination of strategic blunders, arbitrary deadlines, diplomatic errors, political infighting and tactical restrictions (not to mention logistical contraints resulting from all of the above) have reinvigorated the enemy and given them new hope.

Petraeus is therefore in a position to do things that McChrystal was not.  He is not the aspiring assistant coach looking for his big promotion; he is instead a winning coach being lured to fix a losing team.  As such, he is entitled to demand new facilities and full support from the administration.

At this point, the Obama administration needs a true victory.  Health care didn't do it.  The oil spill is a debacle.  The economy is in the tank.  A humiliating retreat from Afghanistan will print the seal of "LOSER" squarely upon the president's smiling visage - and no amount of blame deflection will change this.  George W. Bush is reclining at his ranch, shaded by the laurels of victory in Iraq.  This fight is now squarely on Obama's shoulders.  Here's to the success of his new coach.

Behind Closed Doors

With all due respect to the late Charlie Rich, this post has nothing to do with the pleasures of the flesh he crooned about in his 1973 country hit.

Rather, I'm pondering the tense conversations, frayed nerves, and clashing egos that appear to be interacting with increasing regularity inside the walls of the Obama White House.

Early this week we received word that the geekish looking Office of Management & Budget Director Peter Orszag would soon be leaving the Obama administration.  Rumor has it that Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel will also step down within the next few months.

And, of course, today the headlines were dominated by the President's sacking of Gen. Stanley McChrystal for disrespectful remarks made by him and his staffers to a Rolling Stone magazine freelance writer.  I won't bother regurgitating the quotes, as I'm sure anyone reading this blog has already heard and/or read them.

We are slogging through continued high unemployment, obscene deficits, a persistent and distressing environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the Afghan war going poorly, and the Middle East a dangerously unsettled powder-keg.  The Annointed One is even taking flak from his formerly ardent supporters, and his approval ratings continue to plummet.

It's a given that there have been some heated exchanges and pointed remarks made behind closed doors in the West Wing.  This means bruised egos, thoughts of revenge, and growing mistrust as many of the idealistic cult members now sense the wheels are coming off of the smoke-and-mirrors, ivory tower & pipe dreams Obama machine.

President Obama's miserable handling of the Gulf oil spill indicates far greater incompetence than what President George W. Bush demonstrated with his administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.  This piece ("A Tale of Two Disasters") in the Wall Street Journal clearly illustrates how Bush's hands were tied by laws giving precedence to state and local officials, while Obama has failed to grasp the concept that the Gulf Oil spill cries out for federal leadership as it is in federal offshore territory.  The public gets it, and that's why so many people are losing confidence in The One.

Orszag may have been chewed out for running up trillion dollar deficits, or who knows, maybe he was the one most upset by this untenable situation.  Emanuel reportedly is more of a pragmatist than many of the starry-eyed idealists around him and is fed up with their laughable idealism.

McChrystal, for his part, might turn out to be like Gen. Douglas MacArthur, whose popularity soared after President Harry Truman sacked him 60 years ago.  (The big difference is that Truman had plenty of character and integrity, unlike the current White House occupant.)

And even though Gen. McChrystal voted for Obama, one can't help but wonder if he'll take the "kiss-and-tell" route and go on the talk show circuit, write a book, etc., trashing his former boss.  Heaven knows, he'll have a lot of material to work with.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote an interesting piece in which she wondered, why, if McChrystal was deeply involved in the infamous Pat Tillman coverup in 2004, did he ever get elevated to such a high position?

Oh, to be that proverbial fly on the wall... Oh, but then again, remember the ubiquitous video of The One killing a fly that landed on him during an interview? Maybe not...

Contemplating the Unimaginable

I have never been one to buy into conspiracy theories or swallow hook-line-and-sinker doomsday proclamations.  But my gut tells me this Gulf oil disaster is far worse than anyone is letting on.  It seems plausible, if not likely, that this leak will either not be capped for many months or years, or not at all.

There are whisperings that are gradually picking up steam -- some on Internet blogs, some on TV -- that the bore casing, a metal lining that prevents rocks and other surrounding materials from collapsing into the well conduit, was smashed to bits in the April 20 explosion.  This would make it next to impossible to attach a makeshift cap or use other techniques that would require some kind of non-compromised seal to greatly reduce or halt the oil flow.  Relief wells being drilled will take a couple months to reach the original well, but if there is no casing to penetrate, the relief wells will simply accelerate a crumbling process already underway.

Oil industry expert Matthew Simmons believes the ubiquitous video of oil spewing out of a hole a mile beneath the surface is not the source of most of the goo washing up on Gulf shorelines.  He thinks there's a much bigger leak, and doesn't believe the size of the leak we've seen on TV is large enough to emit the estimated 120,000 barrels per day.

On top of the many who have lost jobs -- shrimpers and other commercial fishermen, oil rig workers idled by the drilling moratorium, and many who work in hotels and restaurants catering to tourists -- more bad news is on the horizon.  The State of Florida now fears that the oil may clog the inputs to desalinization plants and to nuclear power plants.

And what if a severe hurricane on the level of Katrina, Rita, or Andrew, roils the Gulf and spews oil-soaked water over thousands of square miles of land.  I don't know where this is leading, but I've got a bad feeling.

Heaven help us.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY -- Happy Father's Day to fathers everywhere.  To all whose fathers remain in the temporal world, I encourage you to thank your father for all he did for you.  Looking back on my late father, who passed away in January 1996, I appreciated him a lot more as I grew older than when I was growing up.  And the older I get, the more I realize what a stand-up guy he was.

My relationship with my son, who just turned 18, is rocky at times.  But that's what happens when a strong-willed, intelligent young man thinks he's wiser than his years, and his father recalls the stupid mistakes he made at that age, and doesn't want his son to go down the same road.

And so it goes, through the ages.  Being a parent is one of the toughest jobs in the world, but also one of the most rewarding.  It's nice to be recognized for your efforts.

I'm From the Government; I'm Here to Help

It amazes me that the same liberals who lambasted President George W. Bush for his Katrina response (some of whom are also none-too-pleased with President Obama's response to the BP oil spill) continue to have pie-in-the-sky expectations of the capabilities of bloated, bureaucratic government.

As David Brooks details in today's New York Times, Uncle Sam's Keystone Kops routine in response to the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico illustrates what happens when big government attempts to respond to a major catastrophe in a coherent, efficient manner.

Having worked in emergency management, I am familiar with the incident command system, which is designed to ensure language and technical protocols are uniform across jurisdictions and response agencies, and that a proper chain of command is established (i.e., there is clearly a "lead agency" and an org chart, known in advance).  Drills and tabletop exercises are conducted with mock disasters (a malfunctioning nuclear reactor, severe flooding, a toxic release from a train derailment, etc.) Private sector and nongovernmental organizations (charities and relief organizations such as American Red Cross) often are part of the equation.

Observing the agencies tripping over each other in the gulf, one wonders if the federal government has grasped this concept, or grasped it effectively.  It certainly doesn't hurt to grant more autonomy to governors and local governments in a case like this when the disaster is thousands of miles away from the D.C. bureaucrats, and those closest to the disaster are most familiar with its effects and ramifications, as well as the response actions most likely to succeed.

Instead, we have BP, the U.S. Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers, plus various state and local agencies, flailing away in a discombobulated, disjointed response effort.  Could it be partly because the Obama administration is chock-full of hope-and-change academic types, idealistic dreamers, and left-wing ideologues whose thought processes are better suited to ivory towers and Upper East Side Manhattan cocktail parties?

NEWS FLASH: The federal government is not really all that great at responding to major disasters that cover tens of thousands of square miles and affect millions of people.  As I've stated before, Uncle Sam has done a pretty decent job with the space program in the past (although the shuttle program has had some setbacks, NASA's response to JFK's urging to land men on the moon was brilliant).  And it goes without saying our military is by far the finest in the world.

But there are many, many large undertakings in which the federal government has botched up royally. Medicare and social security have tens of trillions of dollars worth of unfunded liabilities, and Medicare has been rife with corruption for decades.  FEMA is still making mistakes with the response to Katrina, nearly five years after the fact.  The agency's trailers offered temporary shelter for thousands displaced by the hurricane, albeit at a high price in terms of adverse health effects, waste, and mismanagement.

The Federal Aviation Administration and IRS have mismanaged implementation of new air traffic control and computer systems; the post office has had its share of failures; Amtrak has been bailed out continuously for decades to avoid operating in the red.  The list goes on.

So when hopey-changey dreamers actually believe government can work wonders, and when hacks better at campaigning than formulating and enacting substantive policy are in charge, we get miserably failed results as in the Gulf.

But then again, those are all red states anyway.  I highly doubt The One and his gang of Chicago thugs are losing much sleep these days.