the toughest loss of all

Some three weeks ago I tuned in to watch a first-round game in the women’s NCAA basketball tournament. A Parade Magazine All-American plays in my backyard and she will play college basketball at Tennessee in a couple years, so I wanted to watch legendary coach Pat Summitt’s Volunteers play Army.

But I also wanted to see Army.

The Black Knights were capping a storybook season under a first-year coach named Maggie Dixon, the 28-year-old sister of Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon. Dixon was hired to coach at West Point just a few days before the start of fall practice and, in her first head coaching job, won 20 games and accomplished something no other coach at the United States Military Academy had ever done: reached the NCAA women’s tournament.

I’d read about her and immediately liked her. I liked her style. I loved her passion.

I just couldn’t watch the game.

Sixth-ranked Tennessee had been overlooked as a No. 1 seed and the team was determined to send a message to the seeding committee by beating up on Army. The Volunteers, one of the storied programs in all of basketball, used Army as a whipping boy – even dunking twice over the Black Knights. They put a bitter ending to Army’s storybook season.

I don’t like it when teams do that. Tennessee claimed they had been disrespected by the NCAA, and in showing how indignant they were at not being a No. 1 seed then disrespected the women of West Point – women who will soon go off to serve as officers in the Army of the United States of America.

You don’t protest one injustice by disrespecting an opponent; you protest by going out and winning championships – by beating the team seeded ahead of you, not one seeded 13 slots below you. Figuratively and literally, it’s beneath you as a stellar program.

I thought it was a logical motivating tool for Pat Summitt to use, but I thought running up a score of 102-54 against an obviously weaker opponent making its first appearance was not worthy of such an incredible coach.

At the same time, I knew this was a defining moment for Maggie Dixon. This was a game she would turn into a positive for both the women’s basketball program at West Point and in her long, successful life as a college basketball coach.

And then came the news yesterday that Maggie Dixon had collapsed and was in critical condition following a heart arrhythmia. This morning came the news that she had died.

I’ve been a sportswriter now for more than 25 years, and in that time, you come to know people like Maggie Dixon. I don’t know her personally, but I know her. And the news of her death leaves me with a sense of great loss.

People like Maggie Dixon live life with a great sense of passion. They focus all their talent and intensity and passion on their corner of the world and they make it better.

It’s a cliché, but it’s also true. People like Maggie Dixon make those around them better. As a teammate, she makes you a better player. As a coach, she makes you a better person.

I’ve met a number of people like Maggie Dixon, but there are never enough of them.

The world is a poorer place without her. Even for those of us who never got the chance to know her personally.

More soon.

frat-boy-in-chief strikes again

Check out Crooks and Liars for a video of Harry Taylor telling Karl Rove’s sock puppet something that a great many of us in this country would love to echo: that we are ashamed of the leadership he has brought to his office.

“What I wanted to say to you is that in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate...And I would hope -- I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself inside yourself...”

Then, if you want to get really mad, watch The Frat-Boy-In-Chief smirk his way through a response.

This man has no Gravitas. He couldn’t spell Gravitas on a bet. And if you asked him what Gravitas was, he’d probably tell you it was one of those coffee drinks from the espresso stand.

This guy is a disgrace.

But we already knew that.

More soon.

a religious thug is still a thug

If Tom DeLay could paint his own portrait these days, he’d show himself on a cross – martyring himself for the Republican cause. There are days when it doesn’t just seem that the man thinks he’s absolutely Christ-like in his political zeal, he actually thinks he IS Christ.

But Tom DeLay is a particularly fine example of what a modern, politically charged Christian is these days: someone who holds up his bible as political cover without ever having grasped the meaning of the words contained within.

On a long-ago trip to Mexico, a tour guide explained the mysterious quality of a “Mexican Minute.” It was a concept foreign to most tourists, who kept looking at their wristwatches as the designated start time came and went. And went. “A Mexican Minute is exactly, no more and no less than, how long you need it to be,” he said.

The same concept seems to be the definition of “Devout Christian,” in the political sense.

I say that because this Devout Christian/Republican servant-of-the-people sent his thugs out to disrupt a rally for his rival in the campaign he just pulled out of: Nick Lampson.

Lampson was a colleague in the House of Representatives that suddenly found himself without a district thanks to Tom DeLay’s gerrymandering. This time around, Lampson is leading DeLay in a race for the latter’s Sugar Land seat, prompting “The Hammer” to withdraw.

This morning, Lampson called a press conference in front of the Sugar Land City Hall to urge Texas Governor Rick Perry to call a special election to fulfill DeLay’s unexpired term.

DeLay and a member of the Texas State Republican Executive Committee put out a call for loyal volunteers to crash the meeting and “wreck” it.

They carried signs. They shouted slogans. They did their best to disrupt the event.

And in the process, they assaulted at least one little old lady.

An eyewitness posted this account:

“One elderly Democratic woman was slightly injured when she was assaulted by a DeLay protester. The DeLay supporter first hit her in the face with a sign and then grabbed her hat and tried to pull it down over her eyes. Think about this: Your Congressman asked his supporters to go out and assault old women. Okay, "wreck" them.

“But that's all right. It's all right. They're just helping prove what a stone-cold hypocrite DeLay and his supporters are. One day DeLay laments the "polarization" in the district and how horrible it is. The next day, he calls a hit.”

From the same blog comes this account of the woman these nitwits assaulted, Marsha Rovai:

“I can’t believe my Congressman, Tom DeLay, would organize this type of assault,” Rovai said. “I was assaulted by two different people. One of the men hit me and another shoved his sign into my face, and then when I pushed his sign away he violently pulled my hat down over my eyes and pushed me. I’m considering filing an assault charge. This is just very upsetting and I’m so disappointed in Tom Delay for organizing this attack.”

These are the kinds of tactics you’ve seen before. DeLay called for the same kind of hit in city halls across Florida in 2000, hoping to shutdown the recount of ballots that showed that George W. Bush DID NOT win that state, despite being crowned by Secretary of State Katherine “My Breasts Are Running For Senate” Harris.

For this self-proclaimed “Devout Christian,” the question “What Would Jesus Do?” was long ago replaced with “Just How Much Can I Get Away With?”

Hypocrisy? Yes. Blasphemy? Yes.

Typically Republican? Of course.

More soon.

the weapon of mass deception

Where, oh where would right-wing pundits be without their favorite weapon: the glittering generality.

It’s the journalist in my, I’m sure, but I despise this singular rhetorical device. I cringe whenever I read it and seeing it used in the lead to a newspaper story sends me into fits of despair. I personally endorse the use of thumbscrews on any journalist who uses the words “Everbody knows …” anywhere in their lead (in newspeak, it’s called a lede to distinguish it from the working part of a pencil).

It’s not just that it’s a crutch. It’s not just that it’s sloppy, lazy writing and displays virtually no knowledge of or expertise in the writing craft. It’s that every writer who uses this weak device knows better.

And that includes the Right Wing Shills who pass as political pundits. And they’ve taken the glittering generality to new heights. Or depths, depending on your perspective.

Aside from the fact that it’s poor writing, the problem with a glittering generality is that it is almost always false.

Life comes with very few glittering generalities, and the ones that are actually true are so boring that you insult the reader by reciting them. And when you try to add to the short list of truisms, they fall like a proverbial house of cards.

Try this exercise:

Boldly pronounce that all dogs have four legs. Sure enough, someone in your audience is going to have a three-legged dog. It’s a corollary to one of Murphy’s Laws. I call it “Wurdsmith’s Law of Rhetorical Karma.”

Good editors understand this law and most love teaching young journalists this particular lesson. You write a lede that includes the words “Everyone knows …” and they will look at you with particular disdain and say “I didn’t. Go rewrite this piece of …”

Too bad there are none of these editors working with the right-wing punditocracy.

Take away the glittering generality (combined with even a cursory fact check) and you can reduce the collected works of Ann Coulter to a modest stack of post-it notes and a love letter to “Tailgunner Joe” McCarthy.

But still, you see missives like this one from Michelle Malkin:

“While [Rep. Cynthia] McKinney and her ilk sling wild charges of racism and conspiracy at the police, national Dems have yet to utter one clear word in defense of the men and women who protect their privileged backsides day in and day out in Washington.”

Personally, I have no respect for so-called journalists who believe I’m stupid enough to actually believe a statement like that.

Even though there are handfuls out there who do.

More soon.

the road to smellville

Tom DeLay is gone. Bob Ney is likely next on the hit-the-road-jack hit parade. Jack Abramoff is singing like Madonna with a new cd coming out and the smell of Republican scandal and corruption is wafting over Washington, D.C.

On top of that, the poll numbers for Karl Rove’s sock puppet are in the tank. The word most often associated with the President of the United States now is “incompetent.” Meanwhile, the Chief of Staff has be jettisoned in an effort to make the (mis)Administration look like it’s willing to change while the guy who orchestrated the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan remains, the guy who outted a CIA agent remains, the guy who failed to orchestrate rescue for tens of thousands of stranded men and women up and down the Gulf Coast remains, the guy who secretly managed a huge giveaway program to the oil industry remains – hell, the guy who shot a guy remains.

So what can we expect over the months leading up to the November Congressional elections?

Secretly, Republicans concede that they will likely lose the House of Representatives to Democrats in the fall. It’s a good bet that looks better all the time that Democrats will take control of the Senate as well.

But there’s as lot of calendar to get through before that happens.

Republicans discovered that their bravado and chest-thumping now falls on deaf ears around the country. Republicans on fiscal responsibility? Don’t make me laugh.

Republicans on National Security? Hard to make that case when you want to outsource port security.

Republicans on family values? Well, when a Justice of the Supreme Court flips off a reporter on the steps of a cathedral and the president flips off the press corps after a news conference, it’s a little difficult to make that case. When the bribes and indictments each flow like a spring rain, you can’t really make a big deal of your personal virtue. And when your core Christian base is starting to rail about being persecuted and host a conference proclaiming that there’s a War on Christianity and they claim they are the new Jews, you kinda have to stop calling them a base.

So what strategy will Republicans employ?

One they know all to well, of course. Since they control the media and have virtually unfettered access to the airwaves, they will begin a relentless drumbeat to drive down support for Democrats.

Makes sense. When you can’t raise the bridge, you have to lower the water.

You will hear an echo chamber repeating the old saw that Democrats are “unserious on national security” – which already has begun on Fox News. You’ll hear over and over that Democrats don’t have a plan.

We’ll probably be treated to some loony theory about how Democrats are responsible for bird flu, acne and the fact that people can’t get a date on Friday night.

Only problem is, if you listen really closely, you can hear a note of abject desperation in their voices.

More soon.

reverting to form

It's been interesting to watch the paragons of virtue on the Right, the Republican shills in the media, react to Jill Carroll, Cynthia McKinney and the Duke lacrosse rape allegations over the past few days.

The potshots at Carroll, a freelance journalist for the Christian Science Monitor, were reprehensible. The idiots on Don Imus' show were particularly nasty. One even suggested that Carroll was having "Zarkawi's baby." All because she said -- immediately after her release -- that she had been treated well.

The attacks on McKinney, who represents suburban Atlanta in the House of Representatives, was attacked viciously after she had a confrontation with a member of House Security. Neal Boortz, who himself could win an unmade-bed lookalike contest, said the congresswoman "looked likea welfare drag queen."

And good-old Rush Limbaugh weighed in on the Duke situation, where an exotic dancer claimed she was raped by three members of the university's lacrosse team, by claiming that former Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton was "trying to figure out how he can get involved in the deal down there at Duke where the lacrosse team ... supposedly, you know, raped some, uh, hos."

These are the same people who claim that they, and their fellow Republicans, are the ones upholding family values.

The problem is, they're the Paris Hilton family values. The Donald Trump family values. The Tom DeLay family values.

And those are no values my family would ever, ever abide.

More soon.

ding dong, the witch is dead

CNN and The Washington Post both are reporting that former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay will drop out of bid for reelection.

According to the Post, DeLay told House allies Monday night that he will step down from the House rather than face a reelection fight that appears increasly unwinnable.

It should be noted that this announcement comes on the heels of another former DeLay staffer, specifically his former deputy chief of staff, Tony C. Rudy, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and corruption charges. Rudy told federal prosecutors that his criminal enterprise was run out of DeLay's leadership offices.

It would appear that The Hammer sees the handwriting on the wall. Not only is he under indictment for money laundering in Texas, he appears headed for indictment in Washington, D. C., as well.

And I will be smiling insanely for the next several days. Live with it.

I'm guessing that DeLay realized that the 2006 Congressional elections were going to be focused on him, and alluded to that in an interview with Time Magazine that appeared on their website late Monday night and early Tuesday morning, depending on your time zone.

Unfortunately for the Republican from Sugar Land, Texas, it's too late. Tom DeLay fallout will be shaking down around Washington, D.C. and spreading like a GOP cancer across the country for months, if not years.

Jack Abramoff is an iceberg of corruption just waiting to founder. The more the former lobbyist melts, the worse things will get for Republicans.

And, of course, there's the fact that DeLay faces trial for his part in gerrymandering Texas politics to elect more Republicans to the House of Representatives.

With Delay headlines, and likely headlines involving Ohio's Bob Ney and others, springing up regularly, the DeLay ripples will keep coming like donuts on a Krispy Kreme assembly line right through November. And the dirtier DeLay's hands become as this onion of corruption gives up its layers, the more other members of the GOP power elite will be handcuffed to him and his sinking, stinking ship.

DeLay is trying to make himself out as a martyr riding off into the sunset to avoid the religious persecution coming his way because of his devout Christianity.

In reality, he's just the first rat to abandon the sinking ship.

More soon.

vaffanculo to you, too, annie

I’m not sure why this was news – after all, he’s been doing this to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the middle class, the working poor, The New Deal, the American electorate, any plaintiff seeking to sue a corporation as well as anyone who seeks to criticize his “Strict Constructionist” point of view of the law.

Be that as it may, a photojournalist in Boston, Peter Smith, caught Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia coming out of a Boston Cathedral after mass last week.

According to The Boston Herald, Smith asked Scalia “how he responds to critics who might question his impartiality as a judge given his public worship.”

Quoting the Herald:

“The judge paused for a second, then looked directly into my lens and said, ‘To my critics, I say, ‘Vaffanculo,’” punctuating the comment by flicking his right hand out from under his chin, Smith said.The Italian phrase means ‘(expletive) you.’”

Then, to be perfectly clear, Scalia then said “That’s Sicillian,” before realizing what he’d done and to whom. He then said “You’re not going to print that, are you?”

Welcome to the world of Soprano Family Values.

More soon.

is this the guy we want representing us?

George W. Bush loves to talk about what makes America great.

“We're a country of deep compassion, we care. One of the great things about America, one of the beauties of our country, is that when we see a young innocent child blown up by an IED, we cry.”

Personally, I started to cry when the Supreme Court crowned this moron.

More soon.

the erosion of john mccain

In some important ways, you can understand John McCain’s presidential posturing.

It’s no secret that the Arizona Republican and Presidential candidate in 2000 is positioning himself for a run at the White House in 2008. Some days it seems every Republican from local dog catcher on up is doing the same thing.

But what John McCain, circa 2006, is not the John McCain vintage 2000. In his earlier incarnation he had a reputation for straight talk. He campaigned as a no-bullshit, take-no-prisoners former POW who had spent time in the Hanoi Hilton and had no time for the candy-assed politicians who told you whatever you wanted to hear while you signed a big check.

He refreshingly called Jerry Falwell “an agent of intolerance.” And he gained momentum.

And because he was gaining momentum, McCain was mauled in that campaign by Karl Rove, his sock puppet, George W. Bush, and the rest of the Religious Right Wing of the Republican Party.

There was the whisper campaign that he had cracked during his stay in the Hanoi Hilton, giving up information the North Vietnamese used to kill red-blooded American GIs. And there was the whisper campaign that said that McCain had cracked in the Hanoi Hilton and was dangerous in a delayed-stress, psychological kind of way. And in South Carolina there was the push poll that asked voters if it would affect their decision if they knew that McCain had fathered a black child – using photos of McCain and the Asian daughter he and his wife had adopted as “proof.”

Even John Kerry was outraged by the Rovian tactics and spoke up for McCain. And when McCain confronted Bush about it during a debate, our White House preppie shrugged his draft-dodging shoulders and shook his head. “John, John, it’s just politics,” he told him.

It’s obvious that McCain wants no part of a repeat performance in 2008. He’s consistently swallowed his pride and kissed up to Bush and Rove, showing himself to be a loyal soldier.

Even on an issue McCain has championed forever, torturing prisoners, the Arizona senator caved. He got his anti-torture amendment and stood silent while the Frat-boy in Chief announced before the ink was dry that he didn’t feel obligated to follow that particular amendment.

McCain has always opposed the Bush tax cuts, but when several of them came up for renewal, he caved again – voting to extend cuts in capital gains and dividend income rates.

Time’s Joe Klein called it.

“ “I've never voted for a tax increase, and that would have been one,” he told me last week. Oh, please. It was a vote, in essence, to restore tax rates McCain had previously favored, and he blinked. ”

And Sunday, McCain further eroded himself, saying on Meet the Press that he didn’t feel Jerry Falwell was an agent of intolerance any longer.

I never agreed with McCain on the issues and never trusted his image – he’s always voted straight neo-con. But I did respect him – both as a politician (a rarity) and as a former POW.

I guess you could say the erosion is now complete. John McCain is just another Republican looking to move up.

More soon.

ahhh, so that's the problem

What is it about gay men that makes religious zealots so uptight?

Oh, they rail against lesbians, too, but for the most part, unless they try to adopt children, they pay them only passing notice. A little girl-on-girl action is probably one of their closet fantasies.

No, it’s the idea of gay men that gets these idiots prattling on about “gay agendas” and “homosexual lifestyles,” both of which they proclaim need a steady influx of gay recruits. It’s what regularly gets politicians like Pennsylvania’s Sen. Rick Santorum postulating about how allowing gay men to marry will eventually lead to a proliferation of “man-on-dog sex” happening in schoolyards during officially sanctioned gay recruitment assemblies.

These people – and by far they are white males – are just plain loony on the subject. Paranoia is a very likely part of their religious zeal on the subject.

But, if you stop and think about it, I guess it makes a little sense.

These men have a deep-seeded fear of being raped by gay men. And maybe a little fantasy about being raped by a certain type of gay man. As a result, they go through life trying to repress this secret fantasy and spend most of their time concentrating on keeping their sphincter clenched tight, just in case a gay man sneaks up behind them to fulfill the fantasy.

And if you keep your sphincter so tightly clenched, you can’t help but be full of shit.

More soon.