Update: Andrea Mitchell is reporting that Palin is out of politics for good.
As any regular reader knows, I like Sarah Palin. I think she was a great choice for VP and I feel she had more tangible accomplishments than McCain, Obama, or Biden.
Nevertheless, her announcement today that she is not running for re-election in 2010 and will actually resign at the end of this month is…bizarre. This is not going to help at all in 2012.
Great Weekend (and Monday)
US Soccer looks to be back. Or at least they did their best imitation of the 2002 team for the past three games, beating Egypt, Spain and then playing a great first half against Brazil. I’m cautiously optimistic.
The Kirchners lost pretty much everywhere in Argentina’s legislative elections. Even in their home province of Santa Cruz their candidate lost.
The Supreme Court overturned the “Sonia Sotomayor decision” in the Connecticut firefighters case.
The Honduran military ousted the Hugo Chavez clown president of Honduras and the head of Congress took the oath of office. This was not a coup in the traditional sense. The president, Zelaya, wanted to have an unconstitutional referendum. The congress told him to stop. The supreme court told him to stop. He didn’t stop. The military sided with congress and the courts.
Photo of The Week
The world’s most shameless huckster and the world’s most shameless father discuss the passing of the world’s most famous pedophile.
Recently, I experienced one of the rarest of joys for a sports fan. The payoff when a team you live and die for as a fan reaches the pinnacle of its sport. To explain: It is rare that I choose sides before a series begins. Other than always supporting my alma maters’ teams and US teams in international competitions, the only other team I always root for is the Pittsburgh Penguins.
That commitment has not paid off in 17 years, since the Pens last won the Stanley Cup. It paid off on Friday night, when they did the improbable and beat the defending champion Detroit Red Wings on Detroit’s home ice in game seven of the 2009 Stanley Cup Final, the most watched NHL game in 36 years.
ESPN analyst, Barry Melrose, said on the ice after the game: “I think it’s one of the greatest wins we’ve seen in the NHL in 20 or 30 years.” Later, after having a chance to think about it, he said: “I think it’s one of the greatest victories I’ve seen — ever.”
It was outstanding. And unlikely. According to several sources, the Penguins are the first team since AD 1971 to win game seven on road in a Stanley Cup Final. Also according to several sources, the Penguins are the first team in any pro sport to win the championship by winning game seven on road in the last 30 years.
Moreover, in February, the Penguins were not even a playoff team. After Dan Bylsma came along in a mid-season coaching change, they went on a tear. However, they only managed to make the playoffs as a 4-seed. As a consequence, they were a low seed in two series, the Eastern Conference Semi-Final and the Stanley Cup Final, where they had to come from behind two games to none. Against Washington in the East Semis, they won the last four out of five games. Against Detroit, they repeated the feat. This is truly remarkable.
As Bleacherreport noted, in an article unfortunately titled, “Stanley Cup Finals Game Seven: Why Detroit Is Repeating As Stanley Cup Champions” (sic), the stars seemed aligned against the Pens going into this game seven:
….rest assured, Detroit will win Game Seven.
Detroit has outscored Pittsburgh 11-2 in [the first] three games at Joe Louis Arena. [T]he Wings are 11-1 at home in these playoffs. Against Pittsburgh, Detroit [at home] is 5-1 combined in two Stanley Cup Finals.
Detroit’s only loss at home this playoff year was in triple overtime. As I recall, their loss at home to the Penguins in the 2008 Stanley Cup Final was also a multi-overtime game. More from Bleacherreport:
Statistics aside, [Detroit] is an experienced team that has faced adversity more than once. Almost every player on the Wings roster has at least one Stanley Cup, with many holding multiple championship rings.
Out of three home games this series, Detroit has pushed the Pens to a meltdown twice. No one should expect anything else now. This wise, talented veteran squad should expect to take Joe Louis Arena by storm.
In Game Five, Pittsburgh was rattled by the home crowd. Expect nothing less than a repeat now, as a city looking for something to cheer about will be as loud and explosive as ever.
Will the Pavel Datsyuk storyline come into play? How about the Marian Hossa one?
Yeah, that came into play. Marian Hossa is a nice guy. I think he was thinking with his ring-finger, not his wallet or his heart when he turned down an enormous 5-year, $35 million dollar offer from Pittsburgh last summer to jump ship to play for the Red Wings, the team that had just defeated his team days earlier. He took Detroit’s 1-year, $7.45 million dollar deal. In July 2008, he explained his choice this way:
When I compared the two teams, I felt like I would have a little better of a chance to win the Cup in Detroit.
Hossa acknowledged the irony when asked about the Cup Final matchup before the series began, saying, “It is a little ironic and really unique.” Although I don’t hold it against Hossa personally, you have to admit that this sounds like “poetic justice.”
Poetic justice is a literary device or moral doctrine in which virtue is ultimately rewarded or vice punished, often by an ironic twist of fate intimately related to the character’s own conduct.
The guys who stayed loyal to the Penguins after the loss were rewarded with a Stanley Cup championship. Hossa, who didn’t have the vision, the patience or the faith in his teammates and the organization, ultimately lost out.
Adding to the irony, if Hossa had stayed a Penguin, he might have prevented the very moves that put Pittsburgh in the position to win the Cup this year. There might have been no early-season struggles and thus no coaching change to Bylsma, and there might not have been the room to make trades at the deadline that brought in Guerin and Kunitz.
I don’t care what Hossa says, his public statement about why he left Pittsburgh for Detroit has got to make this loss sting more than anything. Well, and the fact that he did not play very well in the Cup Final, in a contract year, no less. Bleacherreport continues:
Pittsburgh will have its day. Crosby and Malkin will one day hoist the Cup high above their heads. But right now, it’s still Detroit’s time. The immature and inexperienced Pens still have a bit of growing up to do. For now, they remain as Little Brother.
The story of games 6 and 7 was the elevated play of Pittsburgh’s third line,the inspired play of Marc-Andre Fleury, and the youth and strength of the Penguins that ultimately overcame the wisdom and Depends(R) of the Red Wings. Pittsburgh showed themselves to be the deeper, hungrier team. And that is why “Little Brother” hoisted the cup Friday night.
June 12, 1967. It was 42 years ago today that the Supreme Court struck down Virginia’s ban on interracial marriages.
To commemorate this civil rights milestone, the Obama administration filed a brief in support of the Defense of Marriage Act comparing gay marriage to incest and child rape. Anyways, that’s what DOMA opponents are saying.
Filed under: Fabulous irony.
Interesting article. Old news for anyone who has enjoyed “free pizza and a pitch” at BYU, but interesting nonetheless.
Question for guys/girls who went through the MTC recently: do they teach “mimic and mirror” there now?
The salesmen are mostly former Mormon missionaries from Utah who cut their teeth — and learned their people-skill chops — cold-calling for their faith. In Chicago and in its suburbs where their employer, Pinnacle Security of Orem, Utah, has shipped them for the summer sales season, they are doing much the same thing, but as a job.
Some thoughts…
I haven’t blogged in a while. Here are some random thoughts from the past couple weeks:
I don’t get the hubbub about Obama talking about his Muslim roots. It’s great that Obama can reference his Muslim roots to impress the Middle East, gain cred in region. This is a positive for America. Right? Understandable he downplayed those roots in general election, since like many liberals, his campaign believed that America is full of bigots. I take anything he says about religion with a grain of salt, the preponderance of the evidence seems to point to the fact that he’s atheist or agnostic.
Car companies. Toyota just posted a bigger loss than GM. The car companies have suffered because of lack of credit. The current automotive crisis is not isolated to Detroit or the big three. It has to do with people not being able to buy cars, not that the companies aren’t producing cars that people want.
The Tiller (abortion doctor) killing. Bad news for pro-life movement as the media puts pro-lifers in horrible light. Sadly, a military recruiter was gunned down this past week as well. Not quite as much attention, and no uber-quick public condemnation from Obama (no official release at all). Telling.
Soccer.The US is not the 13th best soccer team in the world. Just sayin’.
Sonia Sotomayor… From what I’ve read so far, an unfortunate choice. Obviously she’s not dumb. Princeton, Yale, yada yada yada. But when folks from your ideological persuasion are mumbling about you not being the brightest of lights… Some of her decisions raise questions, most don’t, more than anything her comments about being a Latina (and now from ‘94 about being a woman) leading to better decisions are odd. I think Obama could have done better, but he apparently opted for identity politics rather than legal briliance (perhaps not bad news for “conservative” jurisprudence).
NBA Finals. I was really hoping for a Nuggets/Magic series. The Kobe/Lebron hype was becoming insufferable. I wonder if a Dwight Howard puppet moves in with The King and The Black Mamba. Does he get a Superman figurine on the mantle? Magic in 6.
The RNC on Nancy Pelosi’s CIA Smear
Obama’s Gitmo Fairytale
Via Ace:
Karl Rove keeps making that point that when Obama first weighed in on [closing Gitmo], in 2007 I think, he said it was, quote unquote, “easy’ to close Gitmo.
And in yesterday’s speech? “Difficult,” etc.
Our President, Mr. Wizard, Mensa Chapter President, was pretty stupid in claiming it was “easy” to resolve these issues, eh?
Again: Thank God we don’t have Sarah Palin bumbling around the White House. She stupidly said things like “these are difficult issues” during the campaign, proving how dumb she was. She was stupidly, prematurely aware of the difficulties involved.
Obama brilliantly realized they were difficult at precisely the right genius moment, a year or two later.
That’s really the sign of brilliance, you know. We should give credit for scientific discoveries not to the guys who thought of them first, but who thought of them second, third… six bazillionth… years after the initial discovery.
Amazing 3rd World Dude
Looks like not only are we falling behind other countries in science and math, but also in basic day labor skills.
Officiating: NBA vs NHL
Do you think the NBA can survive a Denver Nuggets-Orlando Magic showdown in the Finals? Would anybody watch? Of course not. But don’t worry. It will be Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The officials will make sure of it.
. . .
Officiating is yet another reason why the NHL playoffs are the best postseason in all of sports. The officials swallow their whistles in the postseason and only call the obvious infractions. The players decide the Stanley Cup. In the NBA, the TV ratings pick the winners.
I can’t recall ever reading anything this sad.
Mark Hemingway at NRO comments on Vice President Joe Biden’s commencement speech at Wake Forest this weekend: “[Y]ou could probably give yourself a pre-frontal lobotomy with a screwdriver that’s accidentally been dropped in the toilet and come off more coherent than Joe Biden.”
Biden told the graduates:
I believe so strongly, as you may recall when I was here in October, not in you particularly but your generation, that I don’t have a single doubt in my mind we’re on the cusp not only of a new century but a new day for this country and the world. Hemingway: "Way to win the crowd over. Don't believe "in you particularly"? I'm sure the feeling was mutual, Mr. Vice President." There’s not a single issue on this President’s plate that will not yield a change — just merely by ignoring it, it will change. Hemingway: "Change has come to America — even when it hasn't! You know, it's true what they say, the more things don't change, the more they change. Or something." Folks, we’re either going to fundamentally change the course of history, or fail the generations that come after us, because change will occur. Non-action is action, unlike most generations. Hemingway: "Does he think this makes sense or is he just going to steamroll through the speech and hope no one notices? 'Like I said, non-action is action and if that's confusing — oh look, here is a picture of a cat with a piece of bacon taped to it.'" But today, with all the difficulties you face, you graduated into a moment where your opportunities are much greater. And your charge is not to restore anything but to make anew. Hemingway: "Nothing in this country needs restoring. Change for change's sake. Change is always positive. Change." This has been the history of the journey of America — never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, never have the American people let their country down at rare moments, similar moments in our history. And it’s a journey we’re all going to take together. Hemingway: "Biden then added, 'Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you. Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.'"
Last month, Newsbusters pointed out the bias in a McClatchy headline impugning Alaska governor Sarah Palin for the conduct of her extended family, “Those crazy Palins: Todd’s half sister indicted in break-ins.”
Newsbusters wrote:
Has McClatchy ever had any headlines like this: “Those Crazy Kennedys”? After all, there is a wealth of craziness with that demented clan. Or since we recently had Obama’s half brother denied a visa to England over his rape charges — not to mention his illegal immigrant aunt — how about a headline like this: “Those Crazy Obamas”? Did we ever see a headline about “Those Crazy Clintons” when we discovered all the financial misdeeds and drug busts of Hillary and Bill’s extended family? How about Carter? Did good ol’ Billy Carter ever cause McClatchy to say “Those Crazy Carters”?
Yeah….I’m thinking no. McClatchy later changed the headline.
CNN: Clinton unveils initiative to combat ’scourge of piracy’. In this address, she implicitly threatens to invade Somalia, a country that has never attacked us.
Whatever happened to the disdain for this brand of tough talk? I guess depends who’s saying it.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday unveiled a diplomatic initiative to thwart attacks on ships off Somalia’s coast and combat what she called the “scourge of piracy.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called for measures to help combat pirate attacks off Somalia.
“Scourge of Piracy” sounds dangerously close to “War on Terror.” I am opposed to calling evil what it is, therefore, I would prefer calling it the “Issue of Boating.”
Clinton said the State Department will “explore ways to track and freeze pirate assets,” similar to measures used against drug traffickers and terrorists.
Shan’t we even have hearings? What about due process and the rights of these particular boaters? They might just be in the wrong boat at the wrong time? What if they’re just innocent fishermen? Forget Bushitler, how about Hilhitler?
Noting that the pirates have been buying more sophisticated vessels with the ransom money they have been collecting, Clinton said it could be possible to stop boat-building companies from doing business with pirates.
“These pirates are criminals. They are armed gangs on the sea. And those plotting attacks must be stopped, and those who have carried them out must be brought to justice,” she told reporters after a meeting with Haitian Prime Minister Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis.
The United States also will work with shippers and insurers to strengthen their defenses against pirates and will call for immediate meetings of an international counterpiracy task force to expand naval cooperation, Clinton said.
Although she did not suggest the use of military force, she mentioned “going after” pirate land bases in Somalia, which is authorized in a U.N. Security Council resolution passed in December.
Wait, I am outraged! When did Somalia ever attack us? How dare the US consider “going after” targets in a country that hasn’t attacked us!
