January 2008 Archives

So Rudy Giulliani is gone from the presidential sweepstakes.

All of the big-time pundits were yakking about it night Tuesday, citing his failed strategy of putting all of his eggs in Florida's basket, so to speak.

What they didn't say was Rudy had a lead heading into Florida and the more he campaigned, the more people got to know him, the more they disliked him.

And for good reason. The man's a creep with the ethics of a reptile who has profited greatly from one of the single-most terrible events in American history. New York columnist Jimmy Breslin once described him as "a small man in search of a balcony."

Good riddance, Rudy.

On the other hand, given his repetitive mantra of "9/11," maybe this means the terrorists have won.

The Associated Press reported: "A study by two non-profit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks."

The AP reported, "The study concluded that the statements 'were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.'"

The study documented the lies and counted them up and in the two years leading up to the launch of the war, it found that President Dubya and his minions made 935 false statements about Iraq.

Nine-hundred and thirty-five?

Seems kind of low.

After the New England Patriots swept into the Super Bowl, going 18-0, breaking all sorts of records and such, the sports commentariat dubbed Pats coach Bill Belichick a genius.

Genius?

It has to be the worst case of wasted genius in the history of genius.

I mean, if the guy's a genius, what's he doing coaching football. Shouldn't be curing cancer or finding a way out of Iraq or solving the subprime mortgage crisis or...well, you get the idea.

It reminds me of something former ESPN commentator and retired NFL quarterback Joe Theismann said about a certain football coach. He said referring to the guy as a genius was erroneous. "A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein," he said.

You know, Norman Einstein. Came up with that theory of relevancity or something.

The figure for all of the claims against the federal government for its lousy response to the Katrina disaster is in.

And it's pretty big.

It's $3,014,170,389,176,410.

That's more than 3 quadrillion bucks, for those keeping score at home.

For comparison, the gross domestic product of the United States, the entire country, is $13.2 trillion.

Now, it may sound like a lot, but one the lawyers' fees and expenses are deducted, the people of New Orleans will get about $3.98.

And it says it loves Huckabee and Obama.

That's cool. But who wouldn't have wanted to see Hillary Clinton addressing her campaign staff as the results came in and she placed third? Now that would have been riveting.

Obama's victory speech was very moving. The guy has that thing that Bobby Kennedy had in '68.

Speaking of which, whenever I think of Bobby Kennedy, I'm reminded of "The Sopranos" episode where Bobby Bacala is killed and Janice goes to tell Uncle Junior in the state hospital, where the aging don is suffering from dementia.

Janice says, "Uncle June, Bobby's dead."

Uncle June says, "I know. Ambassador Hotel."

Is it me or has Fox's coverage of the college bowl games this January been more terrible than ever?

Fox has no history with college football, no tradition, no nothing. And college football is steeped in history and tradition. Their analysts have no idea what they're talking about. For instance, before the Fiesta Bowl, none of them gave West Virginia a chance of beating Oklahoma, forgetting to point out that the Mountaineers had the fourth-ranked defense in the land. During the game, West Virginia's defense put a beatdown on the Sooners.

Not only that, Fox's incessant pimping of its own shows and its sponsors detracts from the game. Do we really need to be reminded every 30 seconds who provides that camera that's suspended over the field? And do we really need those sideline shots of the buckets of a particular sports drink?

And speaking of the production, do we really need all of the reaction shots from the crowd? I think the Oklahoma band got more airtime than its offense.

And not only that, their announcers were awful. During the Fiesta Bowl, on several occasions, there was a penalty on the field and they ignored it, talking right over the ref's announcement of the penalty. Viewers never did find out what several of the penalties were.

Simply horrible.

None of this would be happening is Keith Jackson were still alive.

Oh, he is? Never mind.