Saturday Morning Musings

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Frivolous Stuff First

Well, it's not frivolous to everyone, only to those who don't understand. This is college football "rivalry weekend," when everyone plays their arch-rival: Michigan-Ohio State, USC-UCLA, Texas-Texas A&M, and Utah-BYU. (The animated graphic at the left is my little nod to that last one. My Utah Utes are rated 5th in the country and appear to be headed to the Fiesta Bowl on New Year's Day. But first they have to get past the BYU Cougars, who, as our much-maligned but long-standing arch-rivals, will not go without a fierce fight. Go Utes!)


I don't really look like this; I'm much thinner and have more hair.

So, frankly, this is one Saturday when I expect to be parked in front of my TV for much of the day. It's the only Saturday I do that. Honest. Just ask my wife.

More Serious Stuff

The CIA Tranformed

Has anyone else noticed how the CIA, which was the gang that couldn't shoot straight, has suddenly became the beleaguered good guys fighting against a Bush Administration "purge?" Talk about a quick change in standing. Call me a cynic, but I suspect a little (drum roll) mainstream media bias at work here. Steven Hayes of the Weekly Standard provides information that has been missing from the Washington Post and New York Times stories pushing the purge theory. An excerpt:

Let's entertain an alternative scenario: that after several years of painful and very public intelligence failures by the CIA, the new director and his team hope to make changes that will protect Americans; that Goss will draw on his decade as a CIA operative in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe and his seven
years as chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence to ameliorate a
deteriorating situation that he watched from the front row; that perhaps it is
the CIA officials who leaked against Bush who have a political agenda or
interests to protect.

Sounds right to me.

Hysteria on The Left


Yes, she's photogenic,but she wields an acid-tipped pen.

I avoid reading Maureen Dowd, but someone sent me a clip from her November 7 New York Times column:

W's presidency rushes backward, stifling possibilities, stirring
intolerance, confusing church with state, blowing off the world, replacing
science with religion and facts with faith. We're entering another dark age,
more creationist than cutting edge, more premodern than postmodern.

Perhaps you can understand why I don't read her?

But Ms. Dowd is not alone in churning out such claptrap. Mort Kondracke, writing in RealClearPolitics, surveys the field and offers this devastating summary:

It simply destroys the credibility of liberals, and Democrats, for them to go so over the top. Ordinary Americans overwhelmingly know they didn't vote for Bush to tear down the wall between church and state. Mainly, they voted for him
because they trusted him more to fight America's enemies, who are real and
menacing - and in no way resemble Bush.

If liberals imagine Bush's America to be a theocracy, they should take a field trip to Iran or the Sudan. Sorry, Taliban-dominated Afghanistan is no longer available.

Ouch! Kondracke urges the Democrats to get serious:

If the Democrats are ever going to get out of their political hole, they've got to get real and reform. The first part is fairly easy. The second, since it involves separation from some of the party's favorite interest groups, isn't.

By "get real," I mean, stop believing your own metaphors - stop saying that President Bush barely won the election and start paying attention to what concerns average voters.

Stretch out on the couch and read the whole thing if you can-- during commercials, of course.