Washington Style Jeopardy

My apologies to Alex Trebek and the real  Jeopardy which is a show I watch from time to time and try, with mixed success, to keep up with thecontestants.If you have seen the show you are familiar with the premise.  A category is listed that provides answers to questions. The contestants attempt to give the correct response  in the form of a question.

So, here we go with  a few questions for you to consider. Hint, the  answers are somewhat political .

1. The President did  a phenomenal job his first year in office.
2. My children are fat.
3. My children are and always will be, perfect in every way.

Question, give up ? Of course, it is Michele Obama. The first statement was made to ABC’s Robin Roberts. Numbers two and three were made in the context of publicity for the First Lady’s  highly touted childhood obesity campaign.

Speaking of that, please do not let this become yet another crusade against the fast food industry , who, with its highly advanced advertising campaigns and devious mind control forces people to eat pizza, burgers and fries every meal. Thank you!

Besides, I though hungry in America was a greater problem than obesity. Or, can we somehow have both?

Bonus points question or answer,as it were.

algore’s new blobal warming buddy.

Who is Osama bin Laden? Correct!!

About that Iranian Thing…

…..wasn’t it supposed to be over and done by now? Something about December and deadlines and agreements  and how Russia has smoothed it all over  and wasn’t all the Arab world going to fall in love  with us? You remember the speech in Egypt that  was so great, do you not?

And just the other day, Defense Secretary Gates held out hope for the sanctions to work. And now Hilary has given an interview that kinda says Iran is not the real problem since they don’t have a bomb,yet.

Don’t I remember somebody using the phrase “axis of evil” and being roundly  condemned for it. Why that cowboy diplomacy that makes the world hate us,how dare he!

And yet, today I read that Iranian President Ahmadinejad has told his atomic agency to significantly enrich the country’s  stockpile of uranium. And German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg  referred to the farce being played out  just like in the past. “The outstretched hand of the international community has not only been taken but pushed back.”

What did Herr Guttenberg mean do you think? We will agree with the UN plan maybe says Iran. If more sanctions were imposed it would a  4th round, if you’re counting, and neither Russia nor China seems  all that excited about it.

I just feel that I have written all of this before and yet here we are again. Wonder what Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel think about it all? Are they watching closely?” Bet your sweet bippy” they are. In fact he is in Russia as  we write on a “long-planned trip.” Wonder what they will discuss?

Time for Equal Time

Never let it be said that there is a lack of balance here. In the interest of fairness, I present the Senate version of the biggest jerk in Congress. He, like Alan Grayson, is  in his first term. He won election by a margin so narrow that it reminds one of  the “Landslide Lyndon’s ” first election to Congress way back in  1937 as  a Texas congressman. This senator won by an even narrower margin in an election that seemed to take forever until Norm Coleman saw the handwriting on the wall.

Yep, our good friend and former Air America star, Al Franken is   our choice if you want a Grayson alternative. After stating his intentions to keep a low profile, it took Franken very little time to change gears into combative mode.

How about a few examples. It is interesting to note that unlike Grayson, Franken will attack regardless of party affiliation. Just ask David Axelrod who was on the receiving end of a Franken tirade in a closed-door Democrat session about the health care bill.

This just further established big Al as one of the most aggressive senators on the Hill. In November he lashed out at Republican senators Lamar Alexander  and Bob Corker who  co authored an op-ed  defending their opposition to a Franken amendment. He went so far as to confront his colleagues on the floor of the Senate. Shades of Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson  from days gone by. He also  clashed with South Dakota Sen John Thune in what was described as  a scathing debate.

And just a few weeks ago, Franken literally hushed Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman  in the midst of  his comments. Some might think this amusing and I almost do on some level. Here is  a guy who barely won election and truth be told maybe did not win; has no  real credibility or seniorityand  was hardly even a Minnesota resident when his campaign began. This from the state of Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale and Eugene McCarthy. How things have turned.

Guess what Minnesota voters? Both you and the Senate are stuck with him for an entire term. Thanks  a lot.

Congressman Alan Grayson

There are some members of Congress whose names are familiar to most people. Those would include Pelosi, Murtha, Conyers,Boehner, Kasich, Pence, William( the refrigerator) Jefferson, Jesse Jackson, Maxine Waters, Sheila  Jackson-Lee, to name a few. Some are known because of the position they hold or their  tenure or even their propensity to say nonsensical things. My representative is G K Butterfield, D, NC. As far as I know  Rep Butterfield is not widely known and does not fit into any of the preceding categories.

But, we also have another category.It seems to be occupied by only one person and that person is  Florida Democrat Alan Grayson. He is a first termer  who narrowly won election, 52%-48%. Why, one might ask is Florida’s  historically  Republican 8th district congressman well-known? Perhaps it is because he is trying very hard to live up or down to a title just bestowed on him, “The Biggest Jerk in Congress.”  Human Events  writer  Ross Kaminsky has so anointed  the congressman in an article  from February 3. I don’t know about the title. I was kinda leaning towards Al Franken, myself.

Kaminsky makes some pretty good points though. Grayson shares a profession with John Edwards and ranks as the 12th richest member of Congress and #7 in the House of Representatives. But, alas his wealth has bought him no immunity from foot-in-mouth disease or his  I never saw a Republican I did not want to attack affliction.

He has a particular disdain for Dick Cheney, likening him to a vampire and wondering if Satan did the intro for his  new book. He called Rush a” has-been hypocrite loser.” So many untrue metaphors in one sentence.  Maybe my favorite is this one since it includes me.  Fox News and the Republicans who collaborate with them are the “enemy” of America. Really. I had no idea.

At last count, there were 8 Republicans lines up to challenge Grayson this fall, I certainly hope the good people of Orlando and vicinity can find one to their liking, please.

Say it ain’t so, Katie

Maybe they said it and maybe they did not. Drudge reported yesterday that CBS executives would in all likelihood ask Katie Couric to take a  pay cut. She makes $15 million a year in case you forgot and is in the  4th year of her contract paying that princely sum.

When she took over the evening news , it was running 3rd behind Brian Williams and NBC and Charles Gibson and ABC. After a brief spurt, those ratings have settled in to where they were. The only difference is that Diane Sawyer has taken the helm at ABC.

The talk  of a pay cut came amidst news that CBS would be  laying off still  more people from the news division, including some at the venerable “60 Minutes.” Ironically that comes not all that long after the death of Don Hewitt.

But the next day, CBS News President Sean McManus denied any talk of a pay cut, no matter what Drudge or the New York Post  might have reported.  To make things even more interesting, there is a bit of a glam article about Ms Couric in the current issue of Harper’s Bazaar. Not the best timing. Oh, McManus also  went on to praise Couric’s job performance profusely.

I really could care less whether she gets a pay cut or not even though  she has got to be overpaid if #1 Brian William,s makes only 7  million dollars a year. But it is all so much fun to see, is it not?  There is also no truth to the rumor that Couric is miffed that the title of her show was not changed to the C( ouric) BS Evening news.

As your predecessor( who is now whining to Obama about the  need for a government commission to save the press) would say, “courage.”  Oh, you remember Dan Rather do you not?

Food for thought. The viewing audience for the week of January 25 was  10 million for Williams, 8.5 million for Sawyer and 6.8 million for Couric. Figures are from Chris  Ariens at TV Newser.

Suicide Bombers

Right upfront, I will confess to a great lack of understanding  as to why there are such people as suicide bombers. Any time such a tragic occurrence takes place, I am struck with anger, sorrow and confusion. Why did it happen, to what end and why would men, women or children engage in such a practice?

I suppose there is very little certainty about suicide bombers but there seem to  be several common denominators. Virtually all suicide bombings seem to take  place in the Middle East and almost all the bombers are Arab,but not necessarily Islamic.  Almost all the targets are civilan, which differs marekedly from the Japanese kamikaze  attacks of WWII.

Within the past couple  of weeks  have read about religious pilgrims being targeted in Iraq. We  periodically hear of attacks at busy marketplaces, on buses, at tourism sites, even in or near houses of worship. The attacks  by nature are somewhat random, hard to predict or prevent and designed to instill   shock and fear in those impacted. ( Israel has had some success in preventing such attacks, more than most  target countries.)

So, back to my greatest source of puzzlement. Why would individuals perpetrate such acts? For glory that they leave behind, monetary gain for their families or a perceived reward in the afterlife? I have heard of  these and there may be more. In terms of casualties inflicted, the individual numbers seem significant because of the type of people targeted. In reality the overall numbers are not so great, except for one quite notable exception. That, alas, would be the horrific attacks of 9/11.

Volumes have been written about the why. But even that signature event, why? Perhaps those “in charge” felt the United States would not respond but rather pull back. Needless to say, that did not occur. So, here we are, back to  the beginning and   asking a  question that may be  unanswerable.

It is  a war in a sense, I guess. But it has no rules or battle ground and anyone  can be a  target. One more question to pose.  I wonder why that the   act is   not universally condemned by left and  right, liberal and conservative, by those who lean toward  Israel and those who lean toward the Arabs.  It would seem to an easy act  to condemn, but such is not the case.

Obama’s Mentor

Meet professor Chris Edley, the president’s Harvard law school professor. Dr Edley is now Dean of  the law school at the University of California. That’s the school located in Berkeley which should trigger all sorts of liberal connotations. That shall wait for another day. The professor was also a member of  the Clinton and Carter Administrations, so his Democrat bona fides are in order.

He has some interesting things to say about Obama, according to an article in The Times, reported by Giles Whittell. The professor is quite critical of senior White House staff, in particular Rahm Emanuel. Edley thinks that a sense of complacency has set in and staff  is not pushing nearly hard enough to get the President’s programs established. In fact, Edley has already intervened in a similar situation on Obama’s behalf. In the latter days of 2007, the professor was  called in by then Senator Obama  and promptly dismissed poicy positions drawn up as mediocre. He also pushed for Obama to be given more time to tink.One gets the impression that he would quite willing to repeat that intervention.

He even says or seems to say that there has been too much reliance on  Obama’s personality as  a method to persuade and even longs for good ole fashioned LBJ arm twisting. One thing I missed in the article. There seemed to be no  criticism of the President. It is his  staff  that is not serving him as they should. Two quick comments about that. It is Obama’s staff, he picked them- duh!  And is nothing ever the President’s fault? No, of course not. How silly of me, the fault is always with Bush. In fact , that  was re-iterated when the budget was announced. Anything bad about it is due to the last decade of  errors. Wait, was Bush president for a decade? Guess I missed that.

Obama and the BCS

Well, guess what the Obama Administration is up to now. Why, its college football. Specifically it is the Bowl Championship Series that is in place to decide a national champion. We need not be surprised since President-elect Obama made reference to this issue in 2008. The phrase was “throw my weight around a little bit.” Now, we have a letter from Utah senator Orrin Hatch and ominous sounding words from Assistant Attorney General  for the Office of Legislative Affairs, Ronald Weich.

Mr Weich is apparently considering  an investigation into the possible violation of antitrust laws by the BCS.Mnay fans and critics are unhappy with the system now in place, but Senator Hatch may be the most vocal and influential. His ire was raised when the University of Utah was denied a spot in the  championship game last year, after going undefeated. This year, two other teams, Boise State and TCU fell into the same group.

Yes, there is a lot of money involved in the  BCS, primarily from television. Perhaps, the system could use some tweaking to make it more fair. I have often wondered, even before there was  a BCS, why  a playoff was not in place. My alma mater  Appalachian State plays in the  what is now known as the Football Championship Subdivision for schools a bit less high-powered. This division has had a playoff system in place for some time. It would seem that the big boys could make use of a similar system, incorporating a number of the existing bowl games.

What I do not want to see is the feds once again jumping into the middle of an issue and completely mucking things up, no mater their intentions. Shame on you Senator Hatch, a Republican no less, providing the administration an opening, which they seem to relish.

Besides, I think that Eric Holder and the Justice Department have much bigger things on their plate. Maybe a terrorist trial and whether to have it in New York City,hmm?

Sports and politics- not  a good combination.

Showdown in Baltimore

The President traveled all the way to Baltimore today to meet with a number of Republican lawmakers. What ostensibly was  an attempt for the two sides to listen to one another quickly became something else entirely. I heard some audio from the  meeting that seemed rather pointed and blunt, both in tone and word. For example, “I’m not  a pundit, I’m just the president.” The Associated Press used the phrase ” a sometimes barbed exchange.” So, one thinks that there was very little meeting of the minds at this session.

So, why have the get together at all? I will applaud  the president  for attending while at the same time wondering why he did so. I think that even though  the President was actually invited to what is an annual Republican event.  Given the nature of some of his public comments since the State of the Union address, perhaps it was an attempt to sway public opinion. See, he could tell Americans, I tried to work with the Republicans but  how can I work with the ” politics of no?”

Some of those attending liked it, some not so much. Representatives Tom Price  of Georgia and Jason Chaffetz of Utah being two of the most vocal. The President seemed to relish the give and take, sort of like a British House  of Commons. Reading some accounts of the meeting it struck as me  a lecture given by  a professor. At least one Republican, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin agreed. He likened it at times to being lectured by his high school principal, although not for the entire session.

Obama asserted that 95% of Americans had received tax cuts (not sure about that figure) and that his agenda was not at all radical but mainstream. Republicans , particularly Mike Pence of Indiana ,defended Republican health care proposals against claims that  they had offered no options. Obama shot back that theie proposals  were not practical anyway.

So, both Pence and Virginia’s Eric Cantor said that the event was a good idea and should happen again. But it sounds like to me that the president defined  bi-partisan more as you work with me than me work with you. Did that make sense? Probably as  much as the Baltimore bull session.

A One Term President?

Just a few days ago, the president did an interview with Diane Sawyer of ABC. She happens to be one of the very few media people who I will tolerate for any length of time. Anyway,  the president said something very interesting. He said that he would rather be a very good one term president than a mediocre two term president. ( Paging Jimmy Carter, at least on the one term part.)

Let’s look at that statement for a moment. First though, a bit of history. Other than the pious Palestinian from Plains, the one term club includes George H W Bush, Herbert Hover and Martin van Buren.  Other than Carter, all were denied a second term by economic issues. The panic of 1837 domed Van Buren as he evidently lacked a Rahm( never waste  a good crisis) Emanuel to get him through the situation.

The point, which Sawyer did not seem to address, is that no president steps down voluntarily when doing a good job or even a mediocre one. We just do not see voluntary retirements from the Oval Office. Perhaps George Washington  I  guess, who could have served for life had he been willing. So, what did he mean by his comment? Maybe it was  just for effect, along with a later statement that he will continue ” full bore” to tackle the tough issues.

Perhaps it is time for the president to heed the words of an Elvis Presley song-a little less talk , a little more action.